I set up a public game night for a non profit organization. The event space has a bar on one side and Pizza and snacks are available. All ages are welcome as the bar side is segregated from where the gaming area is. We posted it in some FB local groups and I found some local subreddits and discord servers. I even made an Instagram account but it flagged my flyer as spam. It’s a smallish town with about 14k people but near a much bigger college town by about 30 minutes. I’m at a loss as what to do since I’m going to give it a go this week too. We discussed having a vintage video game competition such as an old arcade game. Am I missing something or are game nights just not that popular?
To be blunt, you advertised it instead of organizing it
Very few people are going to show up to a game night where they don’t know anyone. Especially if they don’t have a vibe check from hearing about it from someone they know directly
And if there’s only one person there when they show up, most people are going to feel very awkward. It’s likely they’d peek through the window and bail out
You need people to buy in. You need at least a core group that will be there before the start time so people will see a game night going on if they do show up, and to spread word that its a good time. It’ll grow organically from there if everyone has fun, and that’s the point where you can advertise if you want to keep growing
How you find that group I can’t help with, but it can’t just be like an RSVP on Facebook or something. You need to communicate with people directly what you’re trying to do and organize with them
Give it time for word to get around. People need each other now more than ever.
You might see if you could get some already established groups to come. Like I don’t know small town maybe there’s like a church youth group or something or a local Club of some sort, maybe a choir, a book club, etc…
Do it regularly and people will slowly roll in.
These things take time to get going. You’ll have to commit to 6-8 weeks before bailing.
That’s rough. I’m not sure if meetup is popular in your area, but reaching out to a few and having them set it up as a “joint event” or something might be helpful. All that being said, is there a possibility you can set it up at the college town and have people commute to that instead of maybe college students commuting?
Yes there’s three other locations in that area including one on campus but I’m starting it off at my location as a proof of concept with the hopes of building a wider video gaming community around the whole state/country. It’s a veterans organization and the thinking is that video gaming can help with ptsd and isolation.
At least the first few times, you need a core group that you are sure will show up, and everyone needs to try to bring at least a friend. If you manage to pick up momentum then the core group becomes less critical.
Agreed. You need word of mouth. You have to speak to people you have a connection with and ask them to come. Otherwise you have no way of knowing that your advertisements will be effective.
Real people organizing is very tough. I would find some folks who you could give you a firm “yes”, even if it’s supporting you while you try to stand something up. You can try draws, like “Free Pizza” if it wasn’t clear the food was free (best draw I know in America is free food). You can try signage around the campus physically, since a lot of younger folks ignore social media / FB. Tabling in person can work really well too. You need permission, a pop up table, signage, & a positive attitude.
Don’t beat yourself up over it. Organizing irl people is one of the harder things to do in this present moment.
30 minute drive is a big ask for college kids when they can easily hold something on campus.
Yeah they are very few things I would have gone half an hour out of my way when I was in college to go to.
It’s true and they have their own gaming clubs for board games and an E-sports team. I didn’t expect any students to come but ‘townies’ often use the subreddit for the college and there’s Facebook groups for gaming in that town for regular folks.
I don’t know the circumstances of the college OP is referencing, but I didn’t even have a car in college, and knew only one or two people who did (mostly we either walked or took public transit; if neither were available we just didn’t go).
I got a Boardgame Night going at my local comic shop. Its every-other week. The first 2 nights was just me. The next 3 or 4 nights only 1 or 2 other people showed up. Its been about 6 months going now and I’m happy to say it took off finally.There are usually 2 or 3 games going at once now. Don’t give up. Just keep fliering, talking about it, spreading word.
Was the flyer created with AI? that turns off a lot of people now. What types of games were advertised? Did you bring any flyers to game stores or anything like that?
Here’s is the flyer minus the address and location.
Game Night
Bring your own!
Readers probably assumed they had to bring their own games, from skimming just the big text
Personally I would want to know what kind of games. There’s a wide range. Monopoly? Catan? A six hour indie extravaganza? Same with cards and video games. Like I would go to a sekiro tournament but avoid a CoD thing.
Good point. Ambiguity isn’t your friend here.
I threw a LAN party or two back in college (faculty sponsored gaming club). We actually got Bawls Energy and some now-defunct PC peripheral companies to sponsor. I designed and hung posters, put an ad in the student paper, did some word-of-mouth adverts in classes.
The first event had what I thought at the time was good turnout of about 30 people. Most people were OK with mainstream LAN multiplayer games of the time, but there is always that one dude who wants to play Hello Kitty Island Adventure or whatever.
In other words, maybe be somewhat specific and name games that are likely to be played.
I just mostly brought party games with me since it’s the first time. Like codenames, Uno flip, flip 7, coup, fuse, and also some decks of cards and a cribbage board in case anybody older showed up. As far as video games, pretty much same with some jackbox games, packman dx+, but if someone wanted to they could play fortnite or rocket league I put a bunch of games on there. I figured I would let the players set the tone for what they wanted to play and we would just provide the space and let it develop it’s own culture over time. I did have the idea to have themes like spooky games for the month of October and like I said maybe have a tournament once a month or something like that.
Yeah I think the sheer open-endedness is actually harming you here. I would narrow down to the point where you have some sort of concrete theme or intention beyond “come play any type of game”. You might even want to start with one specific game that’s somewhat flexible in terms of player count, at least in your promo material; you can always have backups and other options on hand in case more or less people show up than you were planning for.
Once you have a few regulars, you can start expanding. I think this sort of catch-all approach is better when you’ve already got some regulars and are starting to regularly get new people who express interest in other things.
Kind of unrelated, but are you cross-posting to places like Meetup? That’s how I found my old board game group, though that was years ago so it might be less active these days.
I think I’m going to push pacman tournament this week since that seemed to be a hit with the older crowd. It’s pacman championship edition dx+ so I think is more accessible than other pacman editions.
Agree with the other poster - too open is a net negative. There’s like 3 games I don’t want to play for 1 game I do.
There’s an RPG meetup I go to sometimes. They list some games on their blurbs so people know it’s not just a DND hangout.
That’s a banging flyer. As someone who has hosted big events myself, it can take a while and a few tries to gain traction. Don’t get discouraged yet.
No I didn’t use ai as I myself scroll past those kinds of flyers. I did use a Canva template and made sure to put times, dates, and location on it. It was a very straightforward flyer. I advertised board, card, and video games abd brought my gaming pc with me. I did have a few of the older folks that were there playing pacman though. They were there for a meeting anyway and didn’t come just for game night.
Old-school paper flyers seem appropriate for a vintage game competition, see if you’re allowed to post any on campus.
Add public-transit directions if they aren’t already there.
You said it’s for a nonprofit, it might make a difference what that nonprofit is.
It’s a large veterans organization. Also sadly there’s is no public transportation off of campus, especially not out here. I will try to get some flyers printed and see if I can get them put up in town. I think campus is too far out there for students to come.
If this isn’t at a VFW, did you get word out to the local branch?
It’s the American Legion and yeah the commander helped me set it all up. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of very active members. The only thing they really have going on is bingo, which draws a pretty big crowd. Unfortunately the other nights are completely dead in there.
See if you can pair up with bingo night to start some traction. Bring some easy to pick up party games, as a pre/post bingo activity. And make sure to let them know you are hosting a full event too.
For the past 2 weeks I actually have been bringing in my laptop and setting up trivia from crowdparty.app and putting it on the big tv before bingo since people get there about 2 hours early to claim their spots. I usually hangout for an hour or so and get a few people to play but not a lot. They did announce the game night at the last bingo night. I also have jackbox survey scramble that I haven’t tried with them yet but I think a few of them might like. The issue with bingo night is that they also sell raffle tickets and go several rounds of doing that so people are more focused on dealing with that and socializing.
Bingo night is serious business, never fails to amaze me.
There’s a VFW that they like to use as basecamp for filming tv/movies in the area, but they always have to work around bingo night. They’ve tried outbidding it, but bingo just rakes that much in.
I would make a coming soon page with email capture form that explains why it will be fun. And only once I’ve got 100 email sign ups would I schedule an event.
Sorry. :(
I couldn’t have come, but I’d have been there in spirit.
Oh god. This gave me flashbacks. Sorry OP, that sucks
