My LCS has asked me to begin running events at their store.

In preparation for this, I wanted to solicit the great realms clix community for your ideas about what makes a great venue.

As you've played at various venues over the years, what really sets the good ones apart from the bad ones?

What are smart ways to grow the player base?

What are some generally positive/worthwhile house rules (if any) you've seen implemented?

All in all, what other than just the game itself, keeps you invested in a venue?

Thanks everybody!!

First: Good luck! (no sarcasam or guile there, I genuinely hope it goes really well!)

Secondly, I'd see who you can get to come out on the regular via some mix of sealed and standard 300pt events, and then just take the temperature of the group and see who likes to do what kind of stuff.

My venue has a mix of competitive and fellowship-only events and that's works pretty well for us. We're seeing a few old players coming back and a few new folks coming out of FCBD seem to be sticking around through the initial orientation.

Keep a clean space. Keep things as organized as you can. Make sure you demonstrate respect for everyone, and hopefully they'll be mature enough to return it to you.

Rule #1: Have fun. If you're having fun, it will promote an air that will infect others. It's a hobby and hopefully doesn't stress people out too much. Or... maybe you'll find yourself a hub for super-competitive folks who want to take it to the extreme, then just make sure they're having fun, too.

Lastly: GOOD LUCK!

Exciting times for you then.

House rules (while i like them personally) are probably best left to a minimum. The only one we have is highlander (only one version of the same dial number unless its a generic or minion) just to encourage creative team building and cater to comic lovers a little.

Have Golden age, modern age, and your own age labeled somewhere in the store with any house rules you choose. (some people call it silver age.. some people call it plastic age)

In modern age, use no house rules. this gives players a chance to come in and know what to expect and play a universal style.

In your own age, find what your local group agrees is the best format and customize it for them. (we have zero age, just play single and double based figures.. no feat cards resources or extra game elements.) This keeps a standard you can jump to that everyone is comfortable with.

Have days to go epic. We call it epic age or power bomb days. you can play any crazy element or colossal and are encouraged to do so. this gets it out of everyone's system and people can have fun playing crazy stuff without a stigma.

Use particular scenarios or build from there out to keep your meta fresh and fun, but be careful not to be too exclusive or hard to build for. this makes it fresh but easy.

Be prepared for no matter how fair or honest you try to be as a judge, for players to accuse you of being otherwise, or just dislike you for being a judge. They will. Many supporters of this hobby have trouble with social situations and hold childish grudges over games. Don't take it personally and try to just be as objective as you can. Listen to your players and always ask them what they want to do for events or what the group thinks about an exceptionally troublesome player.

For fellowship do dice rolls or blind votes. Choosing yourself, no matter how fair you are will only result in players getting upset, or blaming you for them not getting that le they wanted.

On rulings, have a rule book ready to cite it. If players disagree, be calm with them and explain why the rule is the way is based off of the text. Always offer the player to check it out on the forums later and let you know if the ruling is different from how you thought. This prevents most grudges over silly things and lets you learn the rules better too, as there will always be ruling that just kinda don't make sense with wizkids.. and some you'll miss here and there.

Good luck, have fun, and encourage a positive attitude as much as possible. Be friendly with your players and ask them who their favorite characters are and find ways to help them feel like they can get and play their favorites and represent them at your venue.

My opinion:

Mix things up. Don't be a judge with an iron fist. Be open to suggestions.

A good judge must read up on, and have accurate knowledge of the rules. Not saying you have to be a clix savant, but having strong knowledge of the rules helps settle disputes faster.

Also, while fun scenario's are great, I personally recommend that you don't bend the rules too much. If you do, I recommend you notify everyone in advance i.e. this week it's gonna be blah blah blah no duplicates, resources banned, etc...

If a player is being disrespectful, address it immediately. Don't let crap fester. If a player has a constant bad attitude, acts rude, is whiny, etc...Don't hesitate to wield the Ban-Hammer, if only for a month or so. Obviously it's best to try and resolve issues without incident, but if you have a bad apple, casual or competitive, doesn't matter, they can ruin the game for other players, whether they be long time or short term players. Mean, rude, or general obnoxious-ness should not be tolerated.

Good incentives can be stuff like "most comic accurate or interesting team gets a prize today", instead of always 1st-3rd place. A previous judge at my venue once had a battle royale, and the winner got to pick any HeroClix figure he wanted, and the judge bought it for him. True story. The winner picked the SR Crises Sinestro.

(That's a little extreme, but it sure bought the judge brownie points. )

One last thing: Don't be so quick to belittle other player's opinions. Matter of fact, don't do it at all.

I know of a person that has done this to me many times over the years at my venue, off and on, and i'm sad to say it's driven me to take a loooonggg hiatus from my venue. Just a friendly warning.

Perhaps you've heard the saying, "To make friends, you hafta be a friend?" Well, to have a venue that befriends and respects you, you have to be a judge that befriends and respects them as well. All of them. Doesn't matter the play style they favor, or the leopard skinned briefs they wear.

Hope this helps.

Do not go crazy with house rules. Or actually, don't have any. If you realize at some point that you do need a house rule or two, let that make itself obvious at some point down the road. Just play by the official up to date Wizkids Heroclix rules, and leave it at that.

Some places have Highlander rules, no colossals or team bases, or they ban certain figures, etc. Don't do that. The way you deal with problem or abused game elements is to have events with certain restrictions, such as, say, "Golden age, no resources, no team bases", or something like that. But be sure to mix it up with Modern and non-Modern events.

We barely have any house rules for our events. Our tournaments are simple, "whatever format, whatever rules you want as long as 3 other people join you". Hence, there are pods running "modern, 300, no resource" on one hand and "golden age, 1000, resource" on the other hand.

The common reason I hear as to why new players don't join events is "the entry fee is too high". Since their teams aren't that strong yet, you can't expect them to part with their $4-5 when they know that they're just going to lose it and go home empty handed.

The prize structuring is important. What I would do for a pod of four players is to open a booster, and the 1st place gets to first pick a figure and so on. That way there's an incentive to win AND players don't go home empty handed.

Be patient. I've seen the same pattern play out at multiple Venues:

1) You'll have a smattering of people popping in and out.
2) A couple of those people will end up forming a small "core," coming consistently week-to-week.
3) With that core in place, more people will realize that you're "serious" and start coming out more often. Word of mouth helps too.
4) Your group will grow over time.

Now to be clear: This may take months to happen. In fact, there may be quite a few events early on where you're the only person to show up. Be ready for that. Make sure the Venue is ready for that.

In the meantime, you need to keep your enthusiasm up. If only one player shows up, give him a good game with you and the prize and encourage him to come back.

As for some more concrete advice: Promote your game through every channel you're comfortable with. Post your events in the Tournament section on the Realms. Start a Facebook group to build your community. Create signs for the store. Make sure the store posts to their own website. And most importantly, make sure you post your events to the WizKids Event System. I just groused elsewhere about their reporting stuff, but it is still one of the best ways for players to find you.

Best of luck to you. And on behalf of your future players, thanks for stepping up.

-J

This thread needs more responses*. Not enough players are chiming in to say what they would want to see in a new venue that would entice them.

Help out, folks!


*The other responses have been pretty great.

I want to second Raven’s sentiment that it can, and more than likely will, take several months to get things off the ground. Don’t be discouraged and don’t let the venue get discouraged either! If you consistently provide a fun atmosphere, they will come. Just have patience and start banking any OP prizes that aren’t given out. Use them to help draw by giving out more than just 1st and fellowship prizes.

I could not disagree more with a popular vote or rolling dice for fellowship. As the TO, you need to be attentive to what’s going on. Use that to spread the love around. I used to keep track of who had won what and would try and find deserving players who haven’t taken home anything in a while to give fellowship to. Is someone getting pounded by every opponent but keeping a pleasant demeanor? Is there someone who is helping their opponents play a little better? Did someone bring new players to the group? These are all things that I took into consideration. My rule of thumb was that no one could receive fellowship a second time until everyone had taken something home since the last time they won fellowship. This wasn’t an absolute because there will be times when that player absolutely deserves to take fellowship or a player who hasn’t won in a while absolutely doesn’t deserve it in a given week. Be flexible and fair and the players will respect it.

Make a good mix of events. Modern, silver, colossal, golden; work with your group to come up with scenarios that can be fun for all. Be generous with prize support too, once you are able to. It may take a while to build up a bank of prizes, but don’t hoard them either.
I’m not a fan of establishing house rules - I was always of the belief that if a player went through the trouble of acquiring a piece, I should give them the outlet to use that piece. My only standard house rules were that no figure on a base larger than a 2x2 could be used (except team bases) unless the scenario allowed them and all figures had to be from a comic book property. I did run a few events that allowed for mixing of all clix- Hobbit, Star Trek, Lone Ranger, etc., but they were few and far between because there were only one or two players who bought outside of Marvel/DC.

Best of luck to you!

I would like to see more themed events created like Secret Wars(original series). Build one of the teams from the comic and battle it out to capture areas kind of like No Mans Land. Also more comic accurate team events either done by costume or line up. I would also like to see events catered to competitive and also to casual play.

Does the venue keep Clix in stock? Not just carry the product, but have an ample amount on hand. Several shops that run Heroclix locally here always seem to be sold out. They under-order to prevent having excess product sitting around. They barely carry singles. Despite regular players that have spent money there asking why more than once. Now they don't get my money and I never attend the events at one (also because they don't report results to WES). Make sure the venue is as committed as you are. Make sure they have lots of Clix for sale because it generates interest in the game when people see it. I would also utilizing the WES. Some people might be too cool for rankings, but it is a competitive game. Use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and promote like crazy. And wait. Because it will take time. Like a previous poster said, be good to those initial players. Word of mouth is the best advertising.

Thanks, everybody.

This is all good stuff.

Its good to have free day every now and then. The monthly op kits don't cost much at all and if you hand out just one set of figs it only cost the shop about $5. Recover that in sold goods and building customer base. Of course have pay tournys with bigger prizes. No one wants to spend $60 on Zgalactus but I'll pay 5-10 for a chance to win him.

I recently was placed in charge of clix for my venue. Every couple of months we hold new guy night. We advertise free clix for new players. I make grab bags of 300 point teams that we hand out to first time players. Vetern players and I pair up in matches with less experienced one and teach them the basics. The first week we had 4 people, in less than a month we now have ten core players with handfuls of other players that come and go.
I run a clix class about 15 minutes before we start the games. Cover ideas like: standard powers, team abilites, team building, objects, relics, and resources. New players have told me these classes are very helpful. The rules are not worded well for new players. I try to simplify them to the best of my ability.
Have fun. If they have fun at your venue, they will return to your venue, sometimes with friends.
Be avalible for questions. I encourage players who have questions to ask. Be polite and remember, when you started playing how much help you needed. I also encourage people to message questions, comments, and concerns to me at Facebook. Trust me. Some players may be shy and be to nervoous to ask you while playing. This is the best solution I have found for the situation.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck.

1) Have fun

2) Don't be stale - create fun scenarios and different events to keep things interesting. Make scenarios specifically to discourage use of "broken" pieces, high value pieces, resources, "meta" pieces and focus on fun. Every once and awhile get back to the basics and go with a 300 modern anything goes or real basics, 300 all figures legal no tactics except theme teams!

3) Get suggestions - if you run out of ideas for events, ask for suggestions from the group so they have more of a say it what goes on. People like being creative so let them!

4) Don't charge too much for entry if at all. Some venues charge a booster to play whether it is sealed or constructed, some charge just a small fee like $5, some don't charge at all. I've seen all three types of venues completely crumble and completely succeed. See what your group is able to accommodate and go from there. If the venue needs a fee to play, start low and go off that depending on the needs and abilities of the venue and group.

5) Have a new guy/fellowship event every now and then - teams should be built to have fun and not dominate so to better teach new players if they show up. Award prizes based upon Fellowship rather than win/loss. This is part of keeping things interesting and always changing.

6) Put some work into advertising when customers come in and buy product or just getting posters up. I've seen venues that are inherently popular without saying anything about games being played but I've seen advertising venues do better than those that don't.

7) Study up - if you're going to start events, you're gonna be the judge too probably so study up on the rules so you can answer most questions easily

8) Don't do a ban list - people generally don't like being told they can't play the figures they own. That's why you should change the events every time to cater to different things. Week 1, no resource; week 2, resources but no entities; week 3, all figures legal but treat them as if they are unique; week 4, no figures over 100 points; week 5, no figures under 101 points; week 6, CURs only; week 7, SRs, Chases, LEs only; week 8, all figures must have 0 range and can't make any range attacks except to throw an object... you get the idea