Quoted from trilogybeer:Wow ! I thought all this talk was about where the show would be in 2019 . So is it still up in the air as to where the upcoming show (aprox. 6 months from now) will be? I do not envy you Dan, this seems like a short amount of time to get everything squared away . MGC is my favorite show , thank you for all that you and Gary do to make it such an awesome show! Here is a random pic from last year .
Yes, we're working on ____ing 2018.
A bit of a peek further behind the scenes, as I don't mind explaining this. (In fact, this is really long, but it allowed me to put together some thoughts and sort of blow off steam, so if you've got 15 minutes and are bored... read on!) After all, I consider the Midwest Gaming Classic everyone's show, not just "mine (and Gary's)", so I don't mind explaining some of this. I can say this without risking losing anything in negotiations...
People are funny. At the conclusion of each show, we always have some people who say, "Hey, nice show, but you should really consider a bigger space!"
Oddly enough, we've noticed that the show was pretty big for the Sheraton proper, thus the giant tent that we attached to the building at a cost north of $40k. Two or three years ago, I forget exactly which, the tent filled the entire space in the parking lot. We literally don't have an easy way to expand where we are at.
So the next question is if we actually realized we're out of space, why not just move? The answer to that is that Milwaukee doesn't have tons of larger locations, and unlike what I think a lot of people believe, it's not like I just call up some place and go, "Okay, so how much to rent out your venue?" and they just give me a dollar figure. Every little piece changes the contract - space, power, staffing, electric, and so on are just some of the examples of things that need to be worked out as the contracting goes on, either in a bigger package, or often as individual groups. When I'm talking to a venue, I may for instance be talking to just the people who run food, and based on what they say, I have to go back to just the person that runs location and try to redo stuff with them. And, before people think, "Oh hey, he's negotiating those separately! New place confirmed!", I have negotiated those separately with separate people at the Sheraton every year except I think our first two there.
Why this is all important can be highlighted by our 2004 show, but I need to do a quick rundown of the early years first. In 2001/2, my dad used to work for the BSA, so we had the events there with the understanding that any profits we would donate to the BSA. In 2001 we had a profit of like $150 that was donated. The next year, as the event broadened in scope, we lost a few hundred bucks. In 2003, we opted to make a jump to a much larger space that we would have to pay for, although not much. I believe the high school rental was about $500. But, we committed $2000 to advertising alone (classified ads back then did NOT work, FYI) and we ended up with only about 200 attendees. At $5 a ticket, and with other costs included, we lost a few thousand dollars that year.
So 2004, we decided we either wanted to go big or go home, since the oddly sized 200 person show simply wasn't financially viable (if we would have not spent money on advertising that year, we would have still lost $1000+). We contracted with the same Sheraton we have been at recently, using the downstairs rooms as well as the back rooms where Rob Anthony and food is set up. We didn't really know what we were doing, and that year was a nightmare. We did expand to over 1000 attendees, but between regular power outages in the back rooms (where I had been assured we would be fine) including during the time a radio station was doing a live remote and the hotel not caring - when we lost power during that remote, I was told they would fix it "when they were done in guest rooms." - and also the fact they refused to let us put up any signage directing people from location to location, meaning a lot of attendees only saw half the show.
Anyway, why does this matter? Because the sales people at the Sheraton made things even worse. As one example, we had a verbal agreement to use tables that were not being used by weddings for free in any of our rooms, but if they had to rent them we would be charged $25 / table. As the event neared, we asked what tables weren't being used by weddings so we could utilize the others and we were told that they were all being used, sorry, we would have to pay. We ended up using ~150 tables. That's $3750ish worth and at $5 / ticket, that was over half the money the show brought in.
To put it nicely, this was unbudgeted for until that point in time, and by then it was too late to change it. Our budget for the year was that we needed about 2000 people to break even, and so you can guess as to just how bad this was... and why we were loath to continue the show and 2005 didn't happen.
During that year's show, I walked into the back hallways and... there were stacks of unused tables. I asked our sales person about this, and I remember the exact quote, "I don't know if we told you that, but you didn't write it into the contract, so we go off what that says. You have to pay it, sorry!"
You can now see why we're so particular about ALL the details in our contracts. And for the record, we moved back to the Sheraton only because of an amazing salesperson named Amy who was willing to spend forever with us in contract negotiations, and she was the one who pushed for us to use all the funky space at the Sheraton. The restaurant, lobby, little hotel room spaces, and so on - those were all her coming to us and saying, "I want you to do this and here is why," and her pushing the show. It was a great relationship.
Now, before you say, "There it is, Dan said 'was'! Sheraton confirmed over!", Amy moved on about six years ago now, and we've had two other salespeople that we've worked with since then.
Amy also set us up with a contract that we have dates booked at the Sheraton *right now* for 2018, 2019 and 2020, with a skeleton of a contract in place. But, we can back out of the contract if need be, and the Sheraton can revise parts of the contract if need be before they present it to us. This allowed us to do things like work out the tent with them in the past and things like that. The other contracts we work out on a yearly basis.
Which, I've mentioned this before, the years after we brought back the show in 2006, it "made" about $0-$200 for the next 6 or 7 years. The year before the tent was added I believe it was, Gary and I finally got back our "loan" to the show from the early 00s the year before the tent, and then because of the incredible costs of that thing, well... it *has* made more than $200, but it's still a risky venture, and we have never had a budget the year following a show less than we brought in the previous year. I look at the profits as a "buffer" between the two, although I'm not opposed to making a bit from it at this point because if I'm honest, I'm working 40+ hours a week on it right now and while I find it fun, I actually would like to, you know, like fix some of my own games and like, set up my house and stuff. Anyone want to come do some drywall work, rebuild my BSD, or ?
So anyway, back to today and why this is taking so long... one of our contracts after last year came back and wanted to change terms. I still won't say who it is, because even now, I haven't shut the door on it working out. The terms that were being changed were enough of a change that it materially affected how we could potentially run the show. It doesn't mean we can't, but it introduces a further element of risk, one which we're averse to taking on.
At the same time, I work with multiple locations every year about going there. You guys have named different locations that speak with me regularly about going there. I always explore them, and we find that there isn't really anything that works, but I usually get a free meal out of it. When we do this, we look at ALL of the details for the show. Gary and I can't pretend that anyone comes to the show to see us, people come for the *content*, so we are doing our best to ensure that any location that ends up being selected is the best that it can be for everyone. This year, multiple other locations have been putting together real proposals to try to bring us in, so we actually have a real selection to make.
We really can't say where we are going yet, because it isn't etched in stone. I am actively signing contracts with secondary groups that are contingent on the main contract being signed. Gary and I are getting together and visiting a potential space in 45 minutes - one that even he hasn't yet seen.
And before anyone questions this, I am floored by this year - usually, venues are booked for multiple years moving forward. This year, we have three that theoretically aren't. What's odd is of those three, there are potential date conflicts at two in 2019, 2020 and 2021, which is where that question on Facebook a few days ago came from.
If we move from the Sheraton, it will be for the simple fact that the location costs at the Sheraton no longer line up. Let's be real here - we can't increase the size of the vendor tent, we can't charge vendors more for space in a tent (and for the record, the average price a vendor pays does NOT pay for even the square footage they take up in the tent, so expanding the tent even if it was feasible would cost us even more money), we don't have much more space for content inside, and while the theme park manager side of me will say (and the Fire Marshal would agree) we haven't hit guest capacity yet, we're not that far away. Last year, we actually drastically pulled promotion because our pre-sales were so strong we were worried we might have to turn away walk up attendance. That move did significantly lessen our walk up sales this past year by the way, although the incredible pre-sales left the show up in attendance about 6%. Additionally, we have changed ticket prices in the past based on improved content changes. Since we can't add space at the Sheraton, this isn't realistic.
So anyway, the question has come down to if we risk returning to the Sheraton with one contract that is altered enough for it to be more risky especially considering we would need to compress growth, or do we move to a different location and try our luck there?
For the record, of the other locations, one of them is VASTLY cheaper but logistically impossible (although they give me nice bargaining points) and the other is more expensive than the 'risky' Sheraton deal, but has some other positives.
I'll end this with this - No matter WHAT happens, IF there is a change, PLEASE give me and Gary the time to explain how this will work BEFORE anyone freaks out. There is so much going into this decision, it's insane, and I'm not perfectly happy with *any* of the solutions, but I'm comfortable with where we think we're headed. I swear to you, we think about everything about making sure that people can bring in, set up and share their own stuff before it happens - that's part of the reason this is taking forever. All of your questions will be answered, and I think that if we move from the Sheraton, everyone's experience will be as good if not better than it was there. If I didn't honestly believe that, we wouldn't be moving.
And seriously, when tickets go on sale, if you don't bring a game, please buy them asap. If you bring a game, please consider buying a pre-sale shirt, or something else. When we sign, we will essentially be putting five figure bills onto credit cards, and hoping to pay them back before interest kicks in. When you do, please - talk about the show to others. Our show, sort of by design, doesn't get the same sort of attention as others with announcements and whatnot, but if we can save money on promotions, then we make the show better, period.
Also, please don't take this as a, "Just send me money!" because that's not right either, I just ask you to pre-order the stuff you're going to get anyway sooner if you can so that we can pay that back and not waste show money on interest and stuff. I'd rather spend it on awesome stuff that we can all enjoy.
Unless you work for a company that wants to sponsor some stuff. If you do, we should talk - I have something BIG that could get a lot of attention that we'd really like to do...
Anyway, gotta run and go check this place out. I'll go back to posting stupid indecipherable (or are they?) pics later today I'm sure.
Wauwatosa, WI
You'll probably be getting a call from me in the not too distant future to nail things down. I've been talking with Chris first because of... thing that will be announced relatively soon, that I think people here will find crazy fun. 
