Go Play NW is getting closer! I want to take a few minutes to introduce our team for this year. One thing you may notice is that our team is a lot bigger than in past years (a little more on that later).
John Powell, Philip LaRose, and Tony Dowler (me) will be continuing in our roles on the Go Play NW team this year.
We’ve also added three new members:
ET: ET will be joining us as volunteer coordinator this year. In the past, the volunteer coordinator has typically been brought into planning late in the process. With the growth that Go Play NW has been experiencing, we realized it was far past time to make the volunteer coordinator part of the core team from the start. ET has worked with Narrative Games Northwest, Games on Demand, and other organizations, in addition to being a stalwart volunteer and donut organizer for us in recent years. We’re happy to have ET on board!
Eric Levanduski: Eric ran our very successful streaming room last year and has agreed to come on again this year as streaming coordinator. He’s going to be very active in recruiting a group of streamers and helping them to showcase their craft at Go Play NW. Streaming is playing a huge role in expanding the hobby and extending the positive impact it can have on people’s lives. Eric has had amazing success streaming Indie and other RPGs on his Twitch channel, EricVulgaris. We’re very happy to be able to have him on our team.
Isaac Thummel: Isaac was instrumental in helping us coordinate opening day last year, which is only one of the reasons we’ve asked him to join us as the hospitality bard for Go Play NW. Isaac has rich experience working in the hospitality industry and is an all-around great person. Isaac and his team will be helping us make Go Play NW a friendly, safe place for gaming.
Go Play NW has been growing steadily since it began in 2007. And as it has grown, its membership has changed. On average, nearly half of the people at Go Play NW each year are attending for the first time. Not only that, but more and more of our members are new to gaming, new to story games, and even new to the Seattle area. We believe that growing the team is an essential step to improving and evolving the convention for everybody’s benefit.
This year will also feature an expanded team of volunteers. As we sifted through the feedback from last year, it became very clear to us that the key to improving Go Play NW and making it a convention that can continue to grow was to get more help. Growing the core team and recruiting more volunteers is the first essential step to improving everything else about Go Play NW.
We’re really excited for this year. We hope this will be the best year yet. See you in July!