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The quiet/loud dynamic has been an issue at every GPNW; I agree it's something to think about, but it had nothing to do with the venue. Indeed, the fact that the venue had as many different spaces as it did made it easier for people to come up with the solutions they did.

The Hugo House was awesome. If GPNW is to acquire a fixed location (as opposed to continuing to wander nomadically throughout the city, never stopping in the same place, or even the same neighborhood, twice), the Hugo House is definitely at the top of my list.

Daniel: you just volunteered to lead the Sound-Dampening Equipment Installation Posse. It is a position imbued with honor and prestige. Try not to fuck it up!

I definitely like the Hugo House best of the venues (excluding the Watertown, which would be too small now), and agree on moving the Pop to the bar or out of the fishbowl (Venus) room. Not upstairs to the Kitchen; you don't want to encourage more traffic on the stairs than you have to. Bathrooms were a bottleneck at the end of sessions, but I don't see what can be done about that short of renting Portapotties for the parking lot (and then running a game of the Roach in them).

I'd love to see some acoustic dampening in the upstairs rooms. I'm out of town so not a good choice to coordinate, but Daniel, if you're taking that on I'd be happy to donate towards making it happen. There's also a social hack that's useful: Noise creeps up as each table gets louder to compensate for the noise, but you can go around and ask everyone to reset, when it gets too high. I think I may be the only person who ever does that, but I'd like to see it become a common tactic, because it can really save on voices. "Hey, we've all gotten really loud, let's go back to our indoor voices."

I couldn't get the house wifi to work for my laptop (using the posted password) but that may have been just me. Or did it run out of addresses to hand out?

It might be impossible due to liability concerns, but it would be great if there were a way to leave one's gaming supplies at the House, so as not to lug them back and forth to the hotel each day. But that's a very minor thing.

In my defense I did not realize where I set up the pop on Friday was going to be a play area Saturday & Sunday. The bar was the logical move, but we had the wrong kind of coolers to take advantage of that. If we continue to use the Hugo House in the future, I'll get some shallow tubs for the beverages to sit in ice on the counter, and keep extra ice in the coolers.

I was pleasantly surprised at the relative popularity of the juice vs. soda. I hope we can provide a larger ratio of 'healthier' (less caffeine and sugar) options next year.

Thanks for the feedback!

GPNW Soda^h^h^h^h Hydration Czar

Regarding beer: Being a teetotaler myself, I'm don't feel qualified to stock a beer selection. I'm am also not sure about the expense, practicality or legality of leaving beer out. There are plenty of local venues that sell alcohol with your meals, and part of the beauty of locating GPNW in such a cool neighborhood is the opportunity to support those local businesses.

That being said, if you want to pitch a method and means of supplying liquid bread to the GPNW masses, then I suggest you volunteer to be next year's Beer Meister. Talk to Ping. If you get a green light, I'll be happy to coordinate efforts.

Cheers!

GPNW Director of Hydration (See how I gave myself a promotion there?)

Great to hear all this feedback, especially about Hugo being a good space (hurray!). Keep it coming. Sounds like Venus could really have benefited from the drinks moving out to a high traffic area. Every year is different especially in a new space, and once people get in and actually start using it, things will always need tweaking. So as part of the collective, we should all tweak away as we go!

John Powell wrote:GPNW Soda Hydration Czar

John Powell wrote:GPNW Director of Hydration (See how I gave myself a promotion there?)

GPNW is an upwardly mobile organization, right, VICE-PRESIDENT of GPNW Hydration?

Another vote for a quiet room. One thing though - just because a room requires quiet doesn't necessarily mean it will be particularly quiet. In the absence of single game rooms, this means a sound-absorbing divider of some kind.

I was fortunate enough to have the Pluto room to myself in the SUN-01 slot for Love In The Time of Seid. The quiet was critical and definitely added to the quality of the experience. But there were a couple times where we got a little loud and might have disrupted another quiet group.

I bought a bomber of Double-Wide I.P.A. at the QFC after dinner on Saturday night and enjoyed it during the game in the SAT-04 slot. It didn't occur to me that I might be breaking some sort of rule. So we can have beer at the Hugo House or...?

John Harper wrote:Daniel: you just volunteered to lead the Sound-Dampening Equipment Installation Posse. It is a position imbued with honor and prestige. Try not to fuck it up!

I will do my best! Though being far away I may have to liase with the organizers concerning the room space -- I assume we cannot hang things using nails, but I don't remember if the room had any bits and bobbles already on the wall. In any case, somebody will have to remind me of this towering responsibility before next year, since I will most likely have forgotten.

John Powell wrote:In my defense

John, you need no defending. It was awesome to have cold drinks on demand in the house. Thank you very much for seeing to that.

For what it's worth, I played two games in the soda box and neither were disrupted by the many soda-seekers, who were all stealthy and polite in the Seattle fashion.

Yeah, having also played two games in Venus, it's not like anyone burst into the room shouting "SODA FOR THE SODA GOD" or such things. It was much more awkward to be someone walking in on a game to acquire drinks than it was to be gaming there when somebody went in.