Kapcon 15 Hugely Successful

As an early post-con report, I shall keep my comments brief, but the overwhelming concensus is that Kapcon 15 was very successful. We had over 100 attendees (I beleive 105, but haven't been through the sign-up sheets for the RPGA and checked them against pre-registrations), which is a very good number. We had a variety of excellent games run by wonderful GMs, and a lot of keen and enthused players.

[Update: Final count = 110 attendees, 1 fewer than last year]

From an administrative point of view, people were very cooperative, they listened well and followed instructions, and that made the lives of everyone who was working in admin much, much easier. So my thanks to everyone for being so polite and considerate over the course of the weekend.

T-shirts were sold again this year, and the delicate balancing act of a not-for-profit con was pretty much bang on. We sold 30 t-shirts, gave one away as a prize, and have one left over (a White Large if anyone's interested). The 'cafe' was in operation again - not a fully featured cafe at all, but rather a candy bar plus coffee urn and hot water. This too was a complicated exercise in neither making nor losing money, and though there are a few leftovers, the cafe pretty much broke even. Both t-shirts and the cafe represent a fair amount of work by the organisers and committee, but the benefit of having drinks and snacks and cool t-shirts feel worthwhile.

The number of players in each round was very consistent this year, with 11 or 12 games being run each round except the 6th, in which numbers always drop as out-of-towners and exhausted players take their leave. The quality and energy level in the 6th round was, anecdotally and from personal experience, fantastic once again.

It has been a big year for the Kapcon team, in terms of Real Life. A lot has been happening in the lives of the people who run Kapcon, some of it wonderful, some of it difficult. It was deeply satisfying for me on a personal level to see the team working hard over the weekend to bring Kapcon to life, and seeing it all come together smoothly and joyously. I cannot thank the team enough for their efforts.

Financially, the con succeeded in its goal of charging attendees enough to cover the costs, and nothing more. There was a price drop a few years ago, and the introduction of discounts for paying early, and the current attendance fees allow us to run Kapcon within a hundred or so dollars of the cost, depending on numbers of attendees. This is a delicate balancing act when your costs are in the thousands, but we've managed to get it right several years running.

So, another Kapcon has passed, very successfully, Debbie and I as organisers have settled in and are already discussing next year's con, and discussion and digestion of K15 is thriving on blogs and nzrag.com.

Thank you to everyone who helped make Kapcon awesome. Y'all are stars.

Matt Cowens, Organiser Kapcon 15