Dear friends,
You may have noticed that prices for this year’s Go Play NW are higher than past years. In fact, this year is the largest price increase that Go Play NW has ever had.
Go Play NW is a non-profit organization. The organizers and staff are not paid. Every year we work hard to keep prices low so that more people can enjoy the convention without it being a financial burden. But over the past several years, our costs have gone up significantly. Unfortunately, our prices have not kept pace, and last year Go Play NW operated at a loss. This is not a practice we can continue.
Our new prices represent a level that makes Go Play NW sustainable, and ensures we have funds to cover unexpected expenses and our down payment for next year’s convention. We think our new prices are still a great value with meals included and inexpensive options for overnight rooms.
In order to help make Go Play NW an option for more people, we’ve also added a donation option to the Go Play NW tickets page. Funds collected this way will help defray our venue costs for next year, which will help us keep the ticket costs down.
We’re looking forward to a great Go Play NW this year. See you in July!
Sincerely,
The Go Play NW Team

That’s right, as promised, registration for Go Play NW 2014 is open today! Visit the Go Play NW 2014 Eventbee page to buy your tickets.
As already mentioned, we’re back at Seattle University, with gaming space in the Casey Building, and overnight accommodations in Campion Hall Tower. All registrations include lunch in the student center’s Cherry Street Market; overnight stays on campus also include breakfast in the Market. We’ll also be doing our traditional Friday Night Feast.
This year we’ve added an official option for staying overnight on Sunday, for those of you who find it easier to travel on Monday. Note that checkout time on Monday is 10 AM.
We’ve also added an option for women’s cut t-shirts; just specify your cut along with the size when ordering.
Registration for on-campus stays will close at the end of Thursday, June 5, while online registration for commuters will close at the end of Monday, June 23. We do urge people to register early, not only because it helps us make our advance deposits to Seattle University, but also because it helps us gauge whether we’re reaching capacity for the event—and it helps you be sure you can get in!
Feel free to contact us with questions or comments at info at goplaynw dot org, or on Twitter at @GoPlayNW.
We’re excited to see you all on June 27!

Is it that time already? Yes indeed, it may be only the start of November, but we know that people are already looking at their calendars for next year, scheduling vacations with work and whatnot. So we’re excited to be able to tell you now that yes, we will be returning to Campion Hall at Seattle University for Go Play NW 2014 on the weekend of Friday June 27 to Sunday June 29.
If you’ve been to Go Play NW in the past couple years, you know what a great space Campion Hall provides for us. If you haven’t been before or just haven’t made it in the last couple years, you might take a look at last year’s photos in our Flickr group or  see what people posted to our Google+ community. In short: a spacious ballroom that never feels too noisy, cozy spaces in the lobby, the 12th floor dorm lounge and private study rooms with fantastic views of Seattle, and even an outdoor garden deck. Overnight accommodations will be available right in Campion Hall, and this year we plan to include a three-night stayover—Friday through Sunday, checking out on Monday morning—as an official registration option.
Not much else to say right now, other than that we’ll be announcing registration details early in 2014. So mark your calendars, we look forward to seeing all of you on Friday June 27, 2014!

Thanks to all of you who came out for Go Play NW 2013! We had a fantastic time, and you make that happen every year.
Did you take photos during the weekend? We’d love to see them in the Go Play Northwest group on Flickr. Or if you’re posting your photos on Google+, let us know in the Go Play NW community. And we’re on Facebook too, so if you’re posting your photos on Facebook, like our page and tag us in.
Also, we’ve opened two new forums for your comments and feedback. Tell us the tales of your games in the Afterglow: What We Played forum. And tell us how the weekend went for you—what went well, what you’d like to see, what could be better—in the Afterglow: The Good, The Bad & The Awesome forum.

We’re very excited to announce that Go Play NW 2013 will be held Friday, June 28 to Sunday, June 30, once again in the wonderful Campion Hall at Seattle University! We had a fantastic time in Campion Hall last year and we’re thrilled to be able to return this year. Once again there will be overnight rooms available in Campion Hall itself, plus the great combination of the ballroom, lobby, and dorm floor lounges for gaming spaces. (And that cool outdoor garden deck area as well, if the weather’s more cooperative this year.)
We’re currently working on arranging details with Seattle University, and we should be ready to open registration early in the year. In the meantime, you can check out photos from last year’s event in our Flickr group or read about Go Play NW 2012 in our discussion forums, and mark your calendars for 2013! We’re looking forward to seeing you all on June 28!

I’m just going to flat-out steal Ben’s post from last year, because it works. But updating the links, of course. We’ve put up two new forums for post-GPNW basking:
Afterglow: What We Played—Talk about what you played, and reconnect with everyone you played with. Making separate threads for each game is good, even if there’s very little in them. That way other people in the same game can come along and add their two cents, and folks who want to learn more about your game can jump in and ask questions.
Afterglow: The Good, The Bad & The Awesome—Did you have fun? This is the place for all your post-event reflections and feedback. Tell us what we did right and what we did wrong, so future events can be even better, or just come bask in the afterglow…
There’s Go Play NW 2011 talk all over the intersphere. We can’t keep track of it all! If you are posting elsewhere (other forums, blogs, whatever), drop a link in the forums so other Go Play Nor’westers can find it. If you wrote game summaries, you can copy-paste into threads here, link to those discussions, whatever you want. Oh, and post links to your photos too, so everyone can see.

Where exactly is this happening?

We’ll be in the Northwest Rooms at Seattle Center. They’re up in the northwest corner of the campus, naturally, adjacent to Key Arena, at the corner of 1st Ave N and Republican Street. See the campus map here.

How do I get into the venue? Where’s the entrance?

The entrance to the Northwest Rooms is in the courtyard area between the building and Key Arena; there is no entrance from the street side. There’s an archway off Republican Street leading to the courtyard, as well as stairs on the south side of the building leading from 1st Ave N up to the courtyard.

Where do I park?

The closest parking is the First Avenue North garage with entrances on 1st Ave N and on Warren Ave, between Thomas and John Streets. (It’s on the south side of Key Arena; the Northwest Rooms are on the north side.) The Mercer Street garage is the second-closest, with its entrance on 3rd Ave N between Mercer and Roy Streets. More information on parking at Seattle Center is available at this page on their site. Rates vary from $9 to $20. You may be able to find on-street metered parking as well, though I wouldn’t count on it.

What’s the general schedule? When do things start?

Friday registration opens at 5 PM, the Friday Night Feast begins around 6 PM, and gaming starts at 8 PM.
Saturday and Sunday, doors open at 8:30 AM, gaming starts at 9 AM. Lunch on both days is from noon to 1 PM. Dinner on Saturday is from 6:30 to 8 PM. The event ends around 8:30 PM on Sunday.

Where do I eat (the rest of the weekend)?

The Center House at Seattle Center has a big food court. Seattle Center is in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, and there are plenty of options around for lunch and dinner.

Is it true that the Space Needle is a giant weather-controlling apparatus?

We can neither confirm nor deny this claim.

That’s right, Go Play NW 2011 is a mere seven days away. A week from now, we’ll be in the midst of setting things up for the weekend. But some of that setup has to be done sooner, and that includes finalizing the online registrations and, more importantly, giving a final headcount to the caterers for the Friday Night Feast. We can’t accommodate walk-ins for the feast, as the caterers only prepare enough for the number of attendees that we give them in advance. So I’m going to put this in large letters:

You must register for the Friday Night Feast by July 5!

And while we’re at it:

Online registration in general will also end on July 5.

We’ve got badges and lists and things to prepare in advance, too. So don’t wait, sign up soon! And see you in seven days!

Hey, just a reminder that today is the last day to order the sweet cosmo-monkey-king-sasquatch T-shirt for this year’s Go Play NW! We do not ship the shirts, you must register for Go Play NW 2011 and attend to pick your shirt up.
You’ve forgotten what the design looks like? Check out the Go Play NW 2011 T-Shirt post. No, wait, I’ll just remind you:

See? You totally want to be rocking that.

When the prototype for this year’s t-shirt arrived from designer extraordinare John Harper, the Sasquatch took one look at it and howled “RrroooAUGHrrraughrooogrUH!”, before snatching it out of the delivery gnome’s hands and bounding off. In the excitement we at first mistakenly translated his cry as “Death to the Servants of the Spider God!”, and so we went off looking in the usual places to no avail. Eventually we figured out he’d actually said “Hot damn! Dressed in that cool shirt with its totally sweet design, I’m sure to attract a mate!” With the correct lead, we finally caught up with him in the deep forests around Lake Okanagan, and persuaded him to come back to the office because mating season isn’t until September anyhow. So without further ado, we can proudly present the design for the 2011 Go Play NW t-shirt:

Pretty sweet indeed, huh? The Sasquatch knows his stuff. Now here’s the important bit: to ensure delivery for Go Play NW 2011, t-shirt orders must be placed by June 13. That’s only three weeks away! So now’s the time to order one. Oh and while you’re at it, the t-shirts will only be available for pick up at Go Play NW 2011, so you should also register to attend. (Note that if you’ve already registered but did not order a t-shirt, you can still go back to the registration page and order one now.)