Fai Chen recon

Motorskills · Feb 5, 2017

Zene said:
FYI some additional info from Facebook posts (Fai Chen going on at Winter Fantasy right now):

-Wand of the Warmage +1 was one of the "standard" items
-Potions of superior healing for sale
-Several different 'membership in a specific fun group' (actors' guild, gravediggers' union, etc) for sale
-Apparently the line can take up to an hour to get through (man I hope they find a way to accelerate it for orccon)

It was pretty horrible, stressful for both the desk agent, and also for the huge number of people sacrificing their precious one hour for lunch to stand in a queue.

There do seem to be a number of obvious things that could be done to reduce the turnaround time. Here are some basic concepts, no doubt there are better options out there:

1. Appoint some assistants to help with the whole process.

2. One person to filter the line, requiring that only 2-4 people approach the "Red" desk at any one time.

3. One or two assistants managing the preview "Red" desk, where the available new and gently used items can be previewed.

4. A "White" desk where formal trades and purchases of U/R/VR/L items takes place.

5. A "Blue" desk where various thematic trades are made - the 5gp trinkets, the Guild Memberships, scrolls, potions, and other consumables, etc

If necessary, give each player a series of tickets upon registration, a different colour for each day. They get one visit to each of a White and a Red table each day. They hand these tickets in when they make their trades.

Zene · Feb 5, 2017

Motorskills said:
It was pretty horrible, stressful for both the desk agent, and also for the huge number of people sacrificing their precious one hour for lunch to stand in a queue.

There do seem to be a number of obvious things that could be done to reduce the turnaround time. Here are some basic concepts, no doubt there are better options out there:

1. Appoint some assistants to help with the whole process.

2. One person to filter the line, requiring that only 2-4 people approach the "Red" desk at any one time.

3. One or two assistants managing the preview "Red" desk, where the available new and gently used items can be previewed.

4. A "White" desk where formal trades and purchases of U/R/VR/L items takes place.

5. A "Blue" desk where various thematic trades are made - the 5gp trinkets, the Guild Memberships, scrolls, potions, and other consumables, etc

If necessary, give each player a series of tickets upon registration, a different colour for each day. They get one visit to each of a White and a Red table each day. They hand these tickets in when they make their trades.

Great suggestions. I'd also add as a suggestion, for the pre-printed items --or at least the ones with multiple copies for sale-- have a "menu" available. It could be printed up large and displayed, or written on a whiteboard, or printed up inexpensively in a stack of black and white 8.5x11s, or even just posted online for reference. That way the people in the line can spend their time reading/deciding as much as possible before getting to the front. That should speed things up a lot. It could even have reminders like "have your logsheet ready", "one permanent item trade per player per session", etc --anything the staff finds themselves telling each person that comes up.

Also, if this doesn't already exist, there should be a place where the people who run it --since I understand it's different at each con--can post lessons learned and tips for future runners.

Btw: If anyone involved in Orccon's Fai Chen is reading this, I'd be happy to help assist/organize/setup, and/or recruit others to assist if that'd help.

warfteiner · Feb 6, 2017

Trust me, we wanted to recruit more people to run this at Winter Fantasy - we were just out of available bodies. We did take a couple volunteers to step up and help run it.

Motorskills · Feb 6, 2017

warfteiner said:
Trust me, we wanted to recruit more people to run this at Winter Fantasy - we were just out of available bodies. We did take a couple volunteers to step up and help run it.

Honestly I had no idea, I would have offered to help. I suspect I wasn't alone.

Edit: Winter Fantasy was superb this year, brilliant effort by all involved. I think the issues with Fai Chen were a minor blip, an opportunity for the future.
(I do hope something can be done with the registration process, it is...painful).

Grubble · Feb 6, 2017

Motorskills said:
Honestly I had no idea, I would have offered to help. I suspect I wasn't alone.

Edit: Winter Fantasy was superb this year, brilliant effort by all involved. I think the issues with Fai Chen were a minor blip, an opportunity for the future.
(I do hope something can be done with the registration process, it is...painful).

I'm positive there would have been plenty of volunteers if it had been made known. We spent several FaiChen times saying " man that line is long, I'm not standing in that".

Motorskills · Feb 6, 2017

"Hey gang, we need four bodies to help marshal the line for 10 minutes. After that time, you will be moved to the front of the Fai Chen queue."

Warmaster Horus · Feb 7, 2017

Fai Chens is certainly busy at the Big Cons. Smaller ones don't have much traffic at all, though it's still popular.

Zene · Feb 14, 2017

Anyone seen Potions of Growth for sale at FC's?

Motorskills · Feb 14, 2017

Daniel at OwlCon was extremely helpful, and very well-organized. He "opened" his shop a few times, but advertised what was available well in advance. As the AL section of the Con was so small, shopping wasn't a problem (but still plenty of work for Daniel).