We’ll be kicking things off on Friday, October 1 at 5:30 PM Pacific with our “lobby con” social gathering and check-in event. We do urge everyone* to attend if possible, as the more people we can get checked in on Friday, the less time we have to spend on Saturday and Sunday with check-ins before we start the donuts. The Friday event will run at least until 8:30 PM. *(Friday’s lobby con is free to attend with a purchased or sponsored ticket for Saturday or Sunday.)

Saturday October 2 and Sunday October 3 will have similar schedules. The morning donut will begin at 11:00 AM Pacific with gaming time running until 3:30 PM, and the evening donut will begin at 5:00 PM Pacific with gaming time running until at least 9:00 PM—we’re still figuring out whether we’ll need to have a hard stop at that time or can allow games to run later.

As we mentioned in our previous post about how the event will work, we can manage up to about 35 people in a donut, so if we have more attendees than that, we will open up a second track starting an hour apart. We’ll post in advance of the event if it looks like that will be necessary, and email attendees to notify you of any schedule changes.

(or, How will Go Play NW 2021 Online work?)

What’s the donut?

The donut is a pitch circle, a method of getting people together into games on the spot without scheduling in advance. When done in person, it’s typically a large circle of prospective players ringed around a small group of volunteer game facilitators, much like a donut shape, hence the name.

Why do we have the donut at Go Play NW?

One of our goals for Go Play NW is no player left behind—we want all our attendees to be able to get into a game every session. We found that not everyone is prepared to sign up for a scheduled game in advance, and often there aren’t enough games proposed in advance to accommodate all the attendees. That’s partly because some people prefer the spontaneity of pitching a game on the spot, or waiting to see what games are pitched on the spot and jumping into whatever strikes their interest and has open spots. It’s a great way to meet new people and make friends!

Why are we having only donut pitch circles for Go Play NW 2021, and no pre-scheduled games?

First, the donut is a characteristic feature of Go Play NW—a lot of our attendees look forward to participating in the donut every year, so we knew we’d want to facilitate that if possible. Second, it took some work (including some custom Discord bot development by our staff member Star) to figure out that we could automate enough of the process to make the donut worthwhile to do, so we want to put that to use. Third, scheduled games can be done pretty much any time; spontaneous pitch circles are more difficult to do outside of the structure of a convention like Go Play NW. Focusing on the donut feels like the best way to devote our efforts for an online Go Play NW in 2021.

How many donuts are there?

Each game day—Saturday and Sunday—we have two main session slots, a morning/midday one and an afternoon/evening one. If you’re attending Go Play NW 2021 both Saturday and Sunday, you’ll have the opportunity to get into four donuts (and so four games). We can manage up to about 35 people in a donut session, so if we have more than that attending, we’ll split each session into two groups starting an hour apart; at most, we can host 70 players each day, in two different donut slots each session.

How does the donut work?

Each session (or donut slot, if we’re doubling up) we’ll start by gathering everyone in one audio channel called a stage, where our donut moderator will explain the full donut process. In brief, the moderator will ask for volunteers to pitch games, and those volunteers will each have a turn to talk briefly about the game they want to facilitate and how many players they can have. Once we have enough volunteers and games to take all the available players, we’ll get the individual game channels set up, post summaries of the available games, and open them to sign-ups by the players.

How can attendees help make the donut work?

Although the donut is spontaneous in concept, it will definitely help to consider in advance whether you know a game that you can facilitate effectively online. For the donut to work, it’s important to have people willing to step forward and volunteer to facilitate a game. We’re putting together a list of games that are freely available, require minimal preparation, and work great for online play; we’ll have that list available before Go Play NW 2021 starts so you can look it over for inspiration. But games don’t work without players, either; even if you don’t feel up to facilitating a game, come with enthusiasm and openness to meet new people and try new games!

Finally, remember that we have the “lobby con” social time on Friday evening from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM (or later) Pacific Time, open to all attendees—in addition to letting you meet up with old friends or make new ones, it gives us an opportunity to go through the event check-in process with everyone, so that on Saturday and Sunday we can jump quickly into the donuts and get games going!

Registration for Go Play NW 2021 Online is now open on our Eventbrite page! Tickets are $12 per day for Saturday or Sunday, and the Friday night “lobby con” is included with either day. We’ll have two sessions of games each day on Saturday and Sunday, using the “donut” pitch method that many of you will know well from previous Go Play NW events. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the donut, we’ll post more about that soon.

In some respects, an online event takes more staffing and more time to manage than an in-person event does. In order to provide the best experience we can, we do need to limit the number of attendees to 70 people each day, Saturday and Sunday. Also more as per usual, we will need to close registration a week in advance so we can make final preparations, so ticket sales end early in the morning of Saturday, September 25. Get your tickets soon!

Community-sponsored tickets are available!

As we discussed in our previous post on funding for Go Play NW, we have been working to make Go Play NW more welcome and accessible to a wider variety of people, which has included offering sponsored attendance to people in need. We’re continuing that practice this year by offering a ticket option called “Sponsor an attendee!”—each sponsorship allows us to bring in gamers who might otherwise not be able to attend.

If you would like to attend Go Play NW 2021 Online but for whatever reason the cost doesn’t work for you, please reach out to us by email at business@goplaynw.org to request one of these sponsored tickets. We will not be doing any means testing or inquiring into your situation; these are available on the honor system, on a first-come first-served basis.

We’re excited to see everyone on Friday, October 1 for Go Play NW 2021 Online!

When we hold in-person events, it’s not hard to see where the price of the event goes. We have to rent space for the convention itself, we may offer overnight rooms at the convention, at Seattle University we’re contractually obliged to include some meals for the attendees, we have some physical supplies such as signs and badges, we produce shirts for the event, and we have admissions and sales taxes to pay afterwards. (In addition, we have general operating costs such as maintaining our registration as a corporation and licensing as a business.) With our event this year being held online, the obvious expenses of an in-person event don’t apply, which may raise the question why we’re charging for the event at all. We thought a brief explanation would be in order.

Since our founding, Go Play NW has been supported solely by our community; we do not have corporate sponsors or other funding sources. This year’s expenses include approximately $500 in general operating costs and approximately $200 toward the technical infrastructure (Discord boosts and bots) needed to hold the online event. Our base daily ticket price for this year’s online event reflects our minimum estimate for attendance, the funds needed to cover our expenses, and our desire to be as welcome, and therefore affordable, as possible. Excess funds from this year’s event will go into our foundation funds.

Our foundation funds enable us to reserve a venue for in-person events and cover other functional expenses in advance of opening registration for each year’s event. These funds help us not only be prepared to cover unexpected expenses but also take advantage of opportunities to grow and improve. In recent years we’ve been working toward making Go Play NW more welcome and accessible to a wider variety of people. Our efforts have included offering sponsored attendance to people in need and hiring consultants on accessibility and diversity issues, and we will be continuing to explore more ways to improve in those respects.

Go Play NW is an entirely volunteer-run organization, and neither board members nor staff receive financial compensation for their time and efforts. We appreciate your support!

Just a quick note, it turns out we need some more time to get things in place before we open up registration for Go Play NW 2021 Online, so we’re bumping that to next Tuesday, September 7. Sorry for the delay! We’re eager to get this kicked off but we want to be sure we do things well, and we know you’ll appreciate that. See you soon!