Event Management
Juggling Commitment
Whether you are a full-time employee who has been tasked with managing a video game event, or an individual who has a different job but is interested in organizing a gaming event, juggling outside responsibilities can be one of the most challenging tasks during the conceptualization stage of your next video game event.
Through the years, we’ve seen good ideas come and go. Like any new idea, it can be easy to procrastinate and although some ideas were never meant to be, good ideas can also fade because of your outside responsibilities are one of the easiest ways to kill the opportunity of turning concept into reality. Here are a few tips on how you can better manage this conceptualization process while also juggling other commitments.
Data Collection
No matter what type of event you’ve planned, collecting attendee data should be a primary goal. These are people that have chosen to attend your event, stop by your trade show booth, or come to see what you’ve organized. These valuable attendees remain valuable long after this individual event, so plan to collect data such as:
Name
Address
Phone Number
Emails
Business Affiliation
Website URL
This attendee data is a great way to not only follow up after this event, but also give you new connections to develop relationships and connect with future events as well.
For tournaments and other events that involve pre-registration, many times the bulk of this attendee data collecting will be done before the event. Even in these cases, don’t forget others that have not been pre-registered or unplanned attendees. Always have a way to add to your database of attendees. You can rely on a quick and dirty approach of hand writing or form filing procedures, but a digital solution will usually keep you more efficient and add to the professionalism of your event.
If you don’t have pre-event data collection, do not let the excitement and stress of starting an event hinder you from properly collecting attendee data. Consider this work a portion of the next section we’ll discuss, security for your gaming event, if that helps you prioritize this data collecting process.
Are you wondering about the best way to collect this attendee data?
In our experience, digital data organization allows for the most flexible ways to not only collect, but also to modify during the event and organize afterwards. Website databases, Excel spreadsheets, and other event registration tools can aid your efforts.
Tournament Brackets
Everyone will want to know where they stand in the tournament brackets, so posting results of all your ranked matches is a must. Whether you’re using large printed brackets, projected digital brackets, or making the brackets available online, by providing clean and updated results will reduce the amount of questions from the attendees and keep things moving overall.
Another interesting idea, is to showcase the tournament brackets in a way that players can check out the tournament brackets on their mobile device. This makes it even easier for attendees to know what’s going on, without crowding around a single source.
If brackets are available online, other people who are not at the event can still stay updated on the video game tournament’s progress. This is especially important if you have a live stream or if you’re showcasing tournament progress around the web.
Additional Entertainment
Gamers attend your event to play video games, but it’s important to keep people entertained between their ranked matches. At larger events, players, parents, and fans may have more time between their matches, so you may want to showcase even more outside entertainment at the venue.
A few common ideas might include exhibition gaming stations (if you can afford using additional gaming stations just for fun), musical entertainment, food, or drinks for your event attendees. Sometimes the location or date of your event can dictate good entertainment ideas as well, such as pouring green beer on St. Patrick’s Day or playing the PS2 classic, Fantavision on July 4th!
Additional ideas might come from your event sponsors, so don’t be afraid to discuss ideas with those involved with your event. In many cases, outside entertainment can actually benefit your event sponsors, so get creative and keep those gamers busy.
Reward Winners
Rewarding any sort of winners at your event is key to making the event and your attendees feel special. Whether is a million dollars for a worldwide event, or a raffle win at something smaller, take the opportunity to really showcase those who win anything at your event and you’ll leave a positive and lasting impressing.
Sometimes is hard to keep the excitement up, especially at a multi-day event. Losers have gone home and the stamina of your champions and staff is wearing thin, but stay strong and give your winners a closing ceremony they will remember. Take photos, announce players and teams on the loud speakers, conduct live interviews, present prize packages…whatever it is you’ve offered your winning teams, award them with what was promised and make a big deal out of it.
This extravagant effort can even have a positive effect on those who do not win. It’s like fuel on the fire for many gamers, who will keep coming back in an effort of making that main stage, final table, championship Sunday, or winning the prize packages that come with all the glory. Gamers like to win, so when they do, reward them loudly. This will catapult your event, get your attendees excited, and give the tournament or event a more professional perception overall.
Post-Event Highlights
Event-highlighting media will be released around social media throughout your event by you, your staff, and hopefully your satisfied attendees. Encourage this, even announce ways of making everyone’s efforts more effective, because this can really extend the event much further than just the people who are able to attend. These real time highlights are key, but organizing an all-encompassing collection of post-event highlights is just as important.
After a great event, hopefully people will be talking about the great times they shared. That will fade fast however and everyone will want to see themselves in your event highlights to keep reliving the excitement. Others who were not able to attend the event, may also want a better idea of what all went down, so it’s important not only to capture the action from your video game tournament, but to release it as soon as you can after the event as well.
One effective idea that Jet Set Studio uses, is to share a small collection of event highlight media directly with our supporting sponsors. We let them showcase the event through a hand-picked collection of highlight media before any other media is released, which gives them an exclusive jump on showcasing the event. Obviously the full release of post-event highlights comes very soon after, but this little trick will make your sponsors feel special and look good too.
As you are launching the full collection of highlighting media, it’s important to organize your event highlights in a way that’s easy to find, but also easy to share. As you may guess, the ideal situation is to have people really enjoying your post-event media, while sharing it around the web and with their own friends as well. This can really expand the reach of your highlights and further extend the awareness of your video game event.
In the end and after the dust settles from a great video game event, the lasting benefits of great event highlights may be one of the most important things of all.
The first event you organize is almost always the hardest. This is because it’s new territory, yes, but getting people excited about a new event that has no recorded history of success or past highlights, is one of the biggest challenges. We see this mistake all the time with new events. People work so hard to make the event go, then forget that covering the event they created is just as important as opening the doors for the first time! Don’t make this mistake and instead, allow your post-event highlights to snowball into your next event and launch your success to new heights!
- Still want more? Perhaps this insight has solidified that you should partner with a professional firm who will take your ideas and turn them into gold. Lucky for you, Jet Set Studio is ready and waiting. Contact Us today.