kpr_ep22_localscene

[00:00:00] Sometimes everybody wants to rule the world, but honestly, around here in the crucible, everybody just wants a way to play. KeyForge regularly, locally. And here, we're going to talk about how to get that local scene going and how to have it be successful and how to not burn out while doing it. Let's get sweaty.

Hello, dear listener and welcome to KeyForge public radio. I am your host, Zach Armstrong. And boy, do I have some notches on my belt for trying to build a board game and card game communities over the last 10 years? So today I'm going to share my best practices for building a KeyForge community, specifically in your local area.

Now there, I know there's a lot of factors we've got to consider here, so I'm going to share my experience. Variance and how you might [00:01:00] apply it to your particular situation.

I started this out with Android net runner fantasy flight games, resurrection of the Richard Garfield game net runner from the nineties. Did that for several years. Managed a few board game. Meetup groups own was a part of several others as well. And then I started in 2020. The Athens, forgemasters our KeyForge community team where anybody locally can join and it gave the local group an identity so that there was a sense of community, which was really part of the goal of building a KeyForge community so that people had something to be a part of and enjoy the game through. We're going to be looking through factors such as what you need in a store partnership for our KeyForge are seen to be successful. The fact that you can't do this alone and we're going to go through exactly what that means, because yeah, you can't do it alone. Surprise. Sorry. We're going to talk about the value of consistency. And then lastly, something I've [00:02:00] learned, something I've really learned the hard way here is you've got to strike when the iron is hot. So we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about what that means as far as putting your effort into the game and the community. Means for you and for KeyForge. So starting off for a successful KeyForge local scene, the first thing you really need is a strong store. Partnership, I will say it's possible to make a KeyForge scene without a store. Real quick, what you would need. There is a strong local board game community, some card game community. Connections with those. And there's going to be a whole lot more work involved. If you're trying to make a scene where you acquire the product through Amazon or a retailer online, and you bring it in, people play that way and you have to find a space there's a whole lot more work there. So if you're somebody who's tackling that you might be a professional in many of these things already, but most of you, if you want to build a scene, you're going to need a store because there's a lot of work. There's a lot of things that store offers [00:03:00] just by the nature of being a friendly local game store that you are going to need. So, what does it take to have a strong store partnership? Well, the first advantage is something, unfortunately you don't have any control over, but it's something to look for and something you can help cultivate. And that is management and employees who care. About the game. Now this doesn't mean they have to be fans of the game. This doesn't mean they have to be, giant KeyForge nerds like you are. Although that is certainly a huge bonus. If you have two stores to choose from. Pick the one with the giant KeyForge nerd. Pick the one with the giant KeyForge nerd, stocking the shelves. When the staff cares, they're going to be able to spend a bit more of that effort on KeyForge. One thing you have to consider about KeyForge is that it's not going to automatically be a moneymaker if they choose to spend their time, money and attention stocking it. So what you're going to need is some people who like KeyForge, who like the promise of the game and hope it can be good, right? Who are willing to start to bet their businesses, time and [00:04:00] resources on it. And then staff, we're going to help that local night be as great as it can be. Looking at to what we're lucky enough to have here in Athens Georgia, we had level up games, a regional game store, open up a branch here, and a few of the people over in central management of this store, a door KeyForge they actually had a whole lot of. Mass mutation sitting around when we came to the Athens location to make it our regular place for KeyForge play for Athens.

And so these people, when they heard KeyForge players were coming and wanted to be a regular part of Monday nights, they were already, they were already sold. They said, yep, we've got the space. We're not sacrificing space for anything else. We can make sure we're stocking a few KeyForge decks.

And our employees who are there can help you run, a little brown Robin tournament's little. Little, a competitive nights here, here and there as you need it. And that's great. The other thing that makes it fantastic. And maybe if you have, if you're picking a night, you can coordinate with the management. If there is a staff member, who's really great because we have a [00:05:00] staff member on Monday nights who we've been blessed to have for a while now, who is just absolutely. Absolutely.

Without, without peer. He's a, he's a young man named AIJ at love love here in Athens. And I have not. So here's the thing about game source. They hire a bunch of nerds and they're not always the best at customer service. And sometimes they are. I've actually known a lot of stores who are great at customer service, but I've known justice, many. Who are not great at customer service and instilling that in their staff. All their nerds who have gotten higher just for the discount on certain products or whatever. And that's totally okay. That's fine. That's their thing to deal with. However, when you have an all star running the night, who cares about your scene, who knows, who gets to learn the product enough to sell it to other people who are looking for a car game and magic's maybe not the right fit, maybe Lacan is not the right fit or they tried and they didn't like it.

Then this person, this person, who's going to be your champion behind the counter. Who's going to mention that night is. One of your best assets you can have. So shout out to [00:06:00] Aja. We wouldn't trade you for the world. Here in Athens. So if there's a way where you can get an amazing employee for your night, that's great. Like maybe your favorite employee works Thursdays and you've checked. And they said, yeah, I'm sticking on Thursdays for a long time. Maybe just go ahead and make that your KeyForge tonight, because that is a huge boon to have a great staff member there. A great staff member who really cares about your scene, enough to learn all the basics and, and talk about it to people who come in, then it's absolutely. One of the best ways for the scene to grow because the people walking into the game store are already your target audience for growing a KeyForge scene. They're already the people most disposed towards perhaps trying KeyForge. Out. So the more advocates you can have in that store, The better. So strong store partnership, look for a management who like KeyForge, who care look for staff who care, but most of this is going to be out of your control. If there's only one store or very limited [00:07:00] stores. I'm just talking through this as if you have a few stores to look from, and you're trying to find the best partnership, the strongest partnership. That is going to help the local scene grow. These are the things you need to look for, now something you might need to be offering the store here. Is you need to offer them a win, especially maybe if there's, they're not convinced on KeyForge, which is most stores with, especially if they're just looking at their numbers, keyForge has had a rough go of it. So, but KeyForge very much can be successful, right? With the right crowd up address the right people. So look for what kind of wins you can help to offer them. You can be a part of offering them, right? If you know that the, your kind of greater area would be able to fill out a 10, 12, 20 person tournament, try to get those soft commits from people, and then set that tournament up with the store, offer to Tom, if you need to. Provide how the structure will be run so that the staff know what's going on. And if you can make that tournament and fill out that tournament, sell it out, then that's going to be a huge [00:08:00] win because they're going to move KeyForge product. If they've got it already. They're going to see a bunch of people in the store. Those people that can buy snacks, the KeyForge players are going to be nice and maybe easier to manage. Then some from some other games, and that would be a huge win. We were able to do this back in January of this year with our local store where the local store was already very supportive of KeyForge. And then we sold out a 20 person event inside of just a few days of the registration link being alive. So shout out to any KeyForge players in Northern Georgia for completely impressing the store with our presence and spending ability.

The store was like, yes. When this game's back in retail, we're selling it. We know that the region loves it. We're in. We're in another idea is a learn to play event. If you can get in touch with local board game groups that maybe meet at people's houses or different community centers. Learn to play event that gets advertised to the right places. Look for local discourse, local Facebook groups. Local, gosh, there might be even be local listserv meetups, right? And look for [00:09:00] those. I look for those ways to run a run, a learn to play event, maybe at this friendly local game store where starter sets are for sale. And invite people in, get a, get a second person there with you and run this kind of event. So the, the, and the point here is to one, get new people introduced to the game, but if you can move at least a couple of starter sets, If you pour a handful of hours into this thing and find the right strategic groups to communicate to about this learn to play event, and you can actually get a couple of starter sets sold that the store would not have sold otherwise. And the store will not have sold otherwise. And, and they, didn't have to do anything except to let you set up. Then that's also a big win. So you need a strong store partnership look for employees and staff who care and then find a way to give that store a win. If you can. Now that's going to be a lot of work. We're going to talk about how to manage your effort on these kinds of things. At the last point, striking while the iron is hot, but those are two, two things involved in a strong store partnership.

And once again, [00:10:00] Level up in Athens and Atlanta. I love you. You're awesome. AJS. Great. Please keep him around. All right. Number two, you can't do it alone. Take this from the guy who has tried to build multiple different kinds of groups through tarred games and church stuff. The I've tried to do it mostly alone. You can't do it alone. You're either going to burn out. Or the group will literally fall apart. If you catch a cold or it's just literally not going to have any success. At all. So here's, here's why. So you need to recruit, you need at least one other person, one other friend who can be in this with you. They don't need to be as hyper dedicated as you are, but there's a variety of things that a good community getting 1, 2, 3 other people. If you can get there, even who are kind of dedicated to growing the community, there's going to be a lot of things they can help you do, right?

These other people are going to help you be consistent. Now that's going to be 0.3. Consistent KeyForge player presence. At the local [00:11:00] KeyForge. Night right now, you're going to be wanting to have a weekly KeyForge night and you're going to want to have bodies there every week, even if it's just one and you're going to have other ways to get more people there and encourage it. But you need a presence at the game store, because like we said earlier, talking about the strong store partnerships, these stores are aware your future KeyForge players are who just need a chance to learn. About KeyForge. And so if you have a family commitment, if you have something else to go to these other people can be showing up and help be consistent. Other people who have applicable skills. We have some people here in Athens who are great at just helping coordinate with the store. And so they handle that. And I don't really have to talk to the store a whole lot, where if we're running specific kinds of events or checking on details for the local night, Like we have local members who have kind of taken that on as a very, kind of as their role. Something else you want a dedicated people helping out with is just going and playing out in open [00:12:00] areas. Like here we're in a college town and it's actually quite a successful KeyForge marketing tactic to good. Just go play KeyForge at a brewery. If we're playing KeyForge at a brewery, people see the art, they see the card layout, and then some nerd who wants this kind of lifestyle game maybe has never had one tried magic and lapsed from that. We'll come and ask about it. We'll come and ask about it. People who are just related to the second point with, with getting people who can help you out here, people are willing to handle a little work. A little work of, Hey, can we put together this little flyer and put it up at this community center where we know. These, these interest groups meet and there might be people who like KeyForge there.

People who like the game and like working together on a shared project, which would be building this community and would be willing to put in a little bit of work so that you're not doing all of it. Now you might be doing 40, 50, 80% of the work. But if you can get more people who like to be involved and get their, their hands dirty with you, that is a fantastic, and that is going to go so far to one, keeping you [00:13:00] from burning out and to getting so much more. Done to grow the community. So, and you also want people to keep the scene going when you're not there. I actually took a three month break from the local scene. A while back and the scene kept going. We kept firing because we had dedicated people who checked in with each other and said, oh, Hey, are you making it tonight? And there were some, several months when I wasn't going, because I was handling some other stuff going on in my life. And the scene kept going.

They kept the culture of the scene up. They kept welcoming people that kept playing KeyForge. They kept a presence up at the local game store. It was absolutely fantastic. And I mean, I guess I'm tooting my own horn a little bit here, but that is, that is the, the end result of a successful scene is that if the person who kind of jumped started it, pumped the gas into the tank at first, if that person can kind of dip out temporarily or permanently and the scene still still goes. That is a credit to the, just the right systems and expectations around that community being set up really well. [00:14:00] And that is just a big success and also a huge credit to all the people who are picking up that slack. As a part of that kind of second generation of supporters of the scene, right? So you can't do it alone. Get help find people who like KeyForge, who can do this kind of stuff with you. It's a project you all can work on together. Talk about how to find people. I talk about how to promote the scene, all this sort of thing. You can't do it alone. You're going to burn out if you do it alone. Or maybe not, maybe you're stronger than I am, but you can't do it alone. Okay. And then a part of that is consistency. This, it was kind of 0.3, but really a sub point to this other one. The more consistent you all are at that local game store on the weekly KeyForge night. And I recommend it being weekly. If you can, at all, swing it with the number of people and how available you are. Always having KeyForge fans there on KeyForge tonight, even if it's just two of you. Playing a few games of KeyForge there. Remember that is where the warmest audiences, your hottest leads. [00:15:00] To use business terms. Are there. On are there at that board game store. So. Being consistent being around that board game store on a regular basis, playing KeyForge is one of the best ways to just start to capture those people who are walking in, who would play KeyForge and love it if they just knew and had a chance, if they just knew and had a chance, and that's what you're there to provide, is that chance for them to play. KeyForge. So. Those are the first three cars. And this, this last tip is really, it's just a way to maximize your effort because you can spend all the effort you want to. At any point, you want to write this with a strong store partnerships. That's going to take some work, finding people to do this, do this whole, whole thing with you. Is going to take some work, right? Finding those, those local board game meetup groups. And making friends there and saying, Hey, I play KeyForge. Does anybody want to pop a part of the KeyForge scene? And then being consistent in your local KeyForge tonight that you have established at the [00:16:00] store. And this last one is kind of a general principle. It's not one specific to do, but it's a general principle to help you manage your efforts at growing. KeyForge locally. And it's strike while the iron is hot. Strike while the iron is hot. Wait for support for local play before putting in big, big effort. So, what do I mean by all this. What, what you need is you need official ghost to galaxy store support to multiply your efforts. You need, you need a tournament software that handles KeyForge. You need a store support, prizing that you know, your local crew, other store can, can purchase to get pricing out there. Cool. Interesting. KeyForge things. And the attention of ghost galaxy has not been on building that this year. That's fine. I'm really hoping for that. In 2024, we really need it in 2024. If the game is going to grow beyond [00:17:00] serving. The, the core hardcore players, like who are probably listening to the ones, listening to the podcast at this point. And Hey, if you've come in to KeyForge this year, by the way. Hello, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And actually, if you started playing KeyForge in 2023, go ahead and shoot me an email.

At podcast at KeyForge public radio.com that's podcast at KeyForge public radio.com. If you started playing KeyForge this year, I just want to hear about your situation and how you found the game. So once ghost galaxy actually provides local store support in the prize packs, they announced. Back about one calendar year ago, 11 months ago. And with the support of play style, there, there a tournament management software that will also be equipped to handle. Local. Local scenes once all of that is live. That will actually show a person in a store on a weekly night that this game is alive and growing and supported. Now this game is alive and supported, but that's tough for people to see [00:18:00] because you have to go to game found.com. You have to go to KeyForge and.com or you have to type KeyForge into your. Pod your podcast player of choice to actually see that there's a lot of activity. Around this game. It's only there. If you look for it. So my point here is that your effort will be multiplied when you spend the effort. When ghost galaxy is spending the effort, right? The same amount of work you would put in earlier this year would look totally different with its results next year. What do we have support from ghost galaxy Lord willing. Okay. So it's, it's totally fine to put in a whole bunch of effort to have some big success, like a tournament like we did back in January, if you're pretty sure it's going to be success and it's worth the effort for you, if it's worth the effort for you. But if you, if you don't want to burn out, if you've got a lot going on in your life and building a KeyForge scene is just one thing of many amazing things that you're doing. I'd recommend just, keep the scene going, keep that consistency. Keep finding people, reach out to local board game groups. But save the, designing a poster and putting it up, [00:19:00] save it, save the, getting in touch with the local universities, nerd clubs and other interest groups. Save all that. Save, save your big, your big push until until ghost galaxy is pushing on the same thing. And then your efforts. I will be multiplied because I've got to tell you as somebody who put in the big effort and during COVID before ghost galaxy even purchased this game. There was so much effort. And there were so many people who didn't stick because this game, this game was floating along in the water and we were just waiting for it to be called officially dead for a bit. But it's back, it's going to grow and I'm really email. I'm really excited for 2024 for this game, but just manage, manage your effort there, manage your effort there. If what we're doing here in Athens is we're just sustaining an excellent local scene with a good handful of people. We still fire pretty much every week.

There's a few. A few here and there we haven't, but we still fire pretty much. Every week and we are sustaining that really well. We're in active talks with our store about things going [00:20:00] on. We checked in with them about if they're going to be back in Kerman reminders and all this sort of thing. But keep an eye out for that and just manage, manage your effort there and jumping back to get help. You can't do it alone right at that point. Number two, that is also a big part of you not burning out as a KeyForge community organizer. And if you work in a, higher education or some other things, and you going to take a job in Athens, Georgia. Well, Just come join our scene. Come on down the water's fine. Excellent. Well, thank you all so much for joining me for this. Honestly, quite personal and encouraging. Episode of KeyForge public radio for how to run. A successful local scene this is KeyForge public radio. I am Zach Armstrong, your host. If you have not subscribed on the app, you are listening on. Go ahead and hit that follow button. Because yeah, we're going to keep going with content and you want to hear it as soon as it drops, because hopefully this content is pretty good. KeyForge public radio.com is the home for all the blog posts and, [00:21:00] and where we put all the episodes at once they have scattered out across the pod verse.

So go to KeyForge public radio.com to check all that out. We also have the shop which supports the podcast when you purchase from it. And we have some pretty cool designs that se steal over of help from future self rocked in Vegas. And everybody loved it. Apparently. Good thing. This shirts don't sell out when you use a drop shipper. Like I do. So go ahead and check that out. And of course our Patrion is where we get the most direct and active support. If you want to join the Patrion, it starts at $4 a month that they get to content votes. You hear two episodes a month on what's going on with the podcast and you get to be a part of the discord community as well, where we chat about KeyForge stuff on a regular basis directly with me. Zach Armstrong. Thank you so much to our AirWave advocate level listeners like Paul Roadrunner. And remember. Like your radio dial. We are KeyForge skills and building your local community. Be well tuned.

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