Topic: AdventureX 2012 - early planning thread

[AGA]

I've taken a quite peek around for London venues, as that would obviously be the most accessible place in the UK.  However, I'm wondering what you paid last time / think you could raise this time?  And how long would you want this to last?

[straydogstrut]

I'd definitely be up for this again I wasn't that keen on the venue so i'm not too sorry to see it go, although admittedly I had to rush off at the end so I missed the bar entirely! I'll try to make a proper few days of it this time. Location-wise, anywhere within easy reach of London by train really, which opens up a lot of options as you can get an hour away from London at really reasonable prices. I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the country though Liz didn't appreciate the long walk back to our B&B. I think something in town would open up more options for pub crawls, meals and stuff.

The presentations last time were excellent so more waxing lyrical on your games please. Not too fussed about who you get though i'd rather hear from my fellow AGSers than anyone else. You're all celebrities in my eyes 

EDIT: Oh and throw up a donate button will ya?

[Ali]

I agree that Didcot is not ideal, London would be best for me. I've suggested St Andrew's Crypt to m0ds before. It has no wifi or alcohol, which is probably why it was rejected, but it's relatively cheap and spooky and near Holborn Circus:



I agree that it would be good to broaden out from AGS and try to draw a less super-cool-but-sort-of-narrow crowd, which I think is your original goal.

I think you could also focus on making things more developer-y. Some kind of 48 hour adventure game-making challenge? If the event did take place at an interesting location, you could make 'Adventure X: The Adventure!' as a way of drawing together / promoting the videos and material generated during the 2 days.

I think it would also benefit from a stronger itinerary. As well as a few more presentations, I think the raffle could be replaced by an adventure game pub-quiz, or a treasure hunt!

It would be great to have a documentary team with a mandate to shoot a full behind-the-scenes video, in addition to shooting the talks. A second camera and some mics would help up the production values and make a great advert for next Adventure XIII!

I'll be there! This year I plan to drink more beer and pester Ali less.

I demand to be pestered more!

[Mods]

[Ali]

I am certainly game for Ali's S&M dungeon.

A Sam and Max dungeon would be great! Wait...

[Stupot+]

There's a bar called The Adventure Bar in London (actually there's four of them) and it seems you can hire them out for functions/parties/meetings etc.
I imagine they're pretty expensive but it can't hurt enquiring.  Maybe you can wrangle a deal. It would be awesome to have AdventureX in a bar called The Adventure Bar :-)
http://www.adventurebar.co.uk/

[AGA]

[Azure]

If we suggest venues purely on name;



https://plus.google.com/101387783850594460428/about?gl=uk&hl=en

or
http://monkeyisland.co.uk/live/meetings
Which has a fruit bowl!

[AGA]

[Azure]

I was joking, I think a youth centre or university might be a better shot?

[Ali]

[AGA]

I actually work for a university in central London.  I suppose it's theoretically possible we could rent some space.  I'll see what sort of price they look for from external people.

[Dave Gilbert]

If it's relatively easy to get to from London, than I'd definitely consider going.

[AGA]

[Mods]

[Ali]

Also Ali what are the chances of you forming a small "crack" tech team, ie to perhaps bring a few lights and gels and such to spice the venue up? As you are a Londoner with creative buddies..?

It might be possible, depending on the whens and wheres. I don't have any kit myself, but I might be able to borrow a little. I probably can't get you any crack, though.

[AGA]

The lecture theatre (which is the space we'd likely be using) has three walls of windows - shitloads of natural light, and holds 150 people.  There's also a space right outside where you can set up tables for buffets / drinks / general chillaxery.  I'll take some photos tomorrow.  The room can also be split into two 75 seater rooms if you wanted to split off to have different themed rooms or something similar.  Each room has a projector screen, with separate (or cloned) HDMI / VGA and audio inputs.  It's all very modern and high tech.  The building isn't usually open on a Sunday, so there may be some extra costs involved in them putting a security guard on then (not sure if it's usually 24 hour security).  I'll look at getting a more definite costing if it sounds interesting to people after you've seen photos.

As for bars, there's one a few doors down, and one every twenty feet for miles around.  It's central London, so drinks are fairly expensive, but the building has drinks functions all the time, so I'm sure we could put on our own booze if it came to that.  There are also loads of restaurants in the area if we wanted to do a meal on the Friday as you suggested.

[AGA]

here which show the lecture theatre and breakout space outside.  Unfortunately the little Asian girls probably wouldn't be there at the time.

So what do we reckon, would this make a decent venue?  If you think so, I can look into getting a more accurate costing, and working out deposits and such.

[Mods]

That doesn't look too bad. A tad clinical, but then the labour club wasn't much cozier. Can you see if they'd hire it from 10:00 to 19:00 instead of 12 to 21? Is it frequently hired at weekends by more than one group?

[AGA]

It is all very modern and stark, yeah.  At least there's a horrible carpet to liven things up a bit!  We could always put some banners and posters and such up to make it a bit more colourful.

As far as I know they don't often use it at weekends.  There certainly isn't any university teaching going on then.  If we did book it we'd have the whole area (if not the whole floor) to ourselves at very least.  I'll look into the times you suggested.