Tabletop.Events is a website and service that tackles some of the logistics horrors of running a geeky convention. In March, as COVID-19 started to cancel conventions, they announced they had to close. Why? No conventions meant no cash.
There was a small outcry. Who wanted to tackle the horrors of geeky convention logistics? Con of Champions was arranged to fund Tabletop.Events until the end of the year. It could take $56,000 to pay the skeleton crew.
They didn’t succeed. The online Con, which Geek Native attended, raised $54,000. However, this seems to be good enough.
In an update email, Tabletop.Events said;
Due entirely to your efforts we have raised just over $54,000 of our $56,000 goal. That is enough to get us through 2020 on our cost-cutting budget. You have kept us alive! Thank you. Obviously, we have no idea what 2021 may bring, so we’re still investigating ways of stretching these funds and finding alternative revenue sources. But thanks to you, we have the time to figure that out now.
I counted over 900 people on the Con of Champions Discord server, and that would make it one of the largest RPG and tabletop conventions I have ever attended. Not that it felt like it. Online conventions still have a lot to learn about being inclusive, participative and atmospheric. I don’t claim to have to answers, just the experience and interest to comment on the difference of an easily ignorable online convention compared to turning up at a small local con and sitting in the pub with a few friends and some dice. Perhaps this is a whole new business avenue for Tabletop.Events.
You can check out Tabletop.Events at their website.
What are your thoughts? Strike up a discussion and leave a comment below.
