Pencon 2012

Complex wrote:

I am trying to see what dates I should take off. I am thinking of driving up there from Orlando, Florida and maybe picking up a passenger or two on the way. Should I leave Wednesday night to arrive Thursday morning-noon? I could try to help setup until I fall unconscious? Or drive Tuesday night to Wednesday, sleep in a castle and be up and ready early Thursday with the passenger(s) to help setup? I prefer driving at night to morning due to the better traffic. Sleep? Who needs that?

I've blocked off Friday and Saturday evenings for the event, those are being purchased in bulk by Oily and crew. For anyone who wants to get there early and stay over, we'd love to have you. The rooms are currently all available, but October is prime leaf peeping season, so they're likely to book up as we get closer. If you want to stay Thursday or Sunday night, you're going to need to make a reservation. If you do, please wait until after I take official ownership. At that point we'll be offering a standing discount to GWJers (there will be more details on this later). I'll be increasing that discount for people coming in early or staying late for PenCon. You'll need to PM me directly though, so I can ensure the staff gets you down for the discounted rate.

Teneman wrote:
Complex wrote:

Also, when looking at their calendar, those dates are unavailable
https://secure.rezovation.com/Reserv...
do you have a deal setup with them that those rooms are reserved for people for pencon or did everyone else already take those rooms?
Or is this just a location and we should stay elsewhere?

I'll let Oily handle the other questions, but those dates are unavailable on the castle's calendar 'cause I already blocked them off for PenCon ;)

Just a thought as I look at the rooms, I noticed you only had the Friday and Saturday nights blocked off. Some of us may be coming in Thursday night and staying till Monday morning. Not everyone will I am sure but there will be some that need to due to travel distances. (9+ hours for us)

I know this maybe early but I will also bring up the questions regarding babies to plant the seeds of planning, etc. Are there cribs available? I don't know if the Penguin princesses will be in attendance but the heir of Mono will be along for the ride. From our time at MinPenCon a couple weeks ago it was great to have a room close (within baby monitor range) of where we will be playing games. It made nap and bed times much easier.

Edit: Doh... you beat me to the punch. Thanks for the answer one post up.

There currently are no cribs available. The primary demographic for the current owner is romantic couple getaways, so the rooms as set up are intentionally not terribly conducive to young children.

We want to keep the romantic getaway vibe, (screaming 2 year olds running through the Great Hall aren't fun for anybody), but we also want to make the castle more family friendly in general. I'm not sure if Mrs. Teneman will have gotten around to procuring actual cribs by that point or not, or even if that's on her radar. I'd definitely recommend bringing along a Pack 'n Play (I'd bring our old one for you, but Mrs. Teneman just gave it away to her nephew and his new daughter).

Re: rooms for little ones, I've got a few ideas that would work well and will make those suggestions to Oily. Distribution of the rooms is up to him though.

As long as checkout time is 10 or 11 in the morning on Sunday then only staying for only Friday and Saturday night seems great. Good work putting out those dates Oily!

When I chimed in on that castle thread I never knew I'd ever go sleep there. I'm pumped.

Teneman wrote:

There currently are no cribs available. The primary demographic for the current owner is romantic couple getaways, so the rooms as set up are intentionally not terribly conducive to young children.

We want to keep the romantic getaway vibe, (screaming 2 year olds running through the Great Hall aren't fun for anybody), but we also want to make the castle more family friendly in general.

I can get behind that. Our plan is that he will travel with us for the rest of this year then starting sometime next year (when he is old enough to stay with family for the whole weekend and is not semi-attached to his mother for food.) In October he will have just turned one and we will have started to wean him but he will still need to be around mom. I could come without the Mrs. but she loves to come along and laugh at me and all the other nerds.

BTW: this room is awesome...
IMAGE(http://www.ravenwoodcastle.com/images/sleeping_004.jpg)

tagged

You are all jerks. Awesome location, awesome people, awesome happening. Jerks! (as I cannot participate of course)
But seriously, have fun and I will keep reading here

boogle wrote:

I am in. And have an OKC friend in. Gimme dates and lets see if we can pick up SallyNasty on the way.
(I am contemplating increasing my drive time by 6hr if we do LAN.)

I have the time and the permission to do this. I really want to come.

I will pm you (teneman) in June maybe, I need to see what my partner in crime/passenger thinks of the dates. I have put in at work for Wed thru the Mon after off so my dates are flexible. Personally I love setting up and helping out, a bit sad of the no lan ruling. I guess this means no Artemis as well?

Complex wrote:

I will pm you (teneman) in June maybe, I need to see what my partner in crime/passenger thinks of the dates. I have put in at work for Wed thru the Mon after off so my dates are flexible. Personally I love setting up and helping out, a bit sad of the no lan ruling. I guess this means no Artemis as well?

I am pretty sure they are keeping Artemis, as long as the guy can come down down for it.

MonoCheli wrote:

BTW: this room is awesome...
IMAGE(http://www.ravenwoodcastle.com/images/sleeping_004.jpg)

That is pure amazingness.

I see absolutely no reason why Artemis would not happen.

If the Artemis guy doesn't come with his equipment, I can promise you we'll have our own set up. We already bought a license to run 6 stations.

So it's happening, it just might not be official.

So no byoc LAN this year then? Mild bummer, to be sure, but I think carrot's right. We'll live.

Any plans for extra console stuff to maybe fill that gap a bit?

That reminds me... from MiniPenCon... (NSFW!)

Thin_J wrote:

So no byoc LAN this year then? Mild bummer, to be sure, but I think carrot's right. We'll live.

Any plans for extra console stuff to maybe fill that gap a bit?

That's a good question. We'll shoot for it, certainly. However given how far everyone has to drive to get there... we'll see how it goes. If the money works out that we have a decent operating budget, we may look into renting TVs.

Speaking of byoc, what do the byob rules look like? A midwestern porter during board games with GWJers sounds like a plan. Who needs lans?

(Moiraine could have used a few more amirite?)

oilypenguin wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

So no byoc LAN this year then? Mild bummer, to be sure, but I think carrot's right. We'll live.

Any plans for extra console stuff to maybe fill that gap a bit?

That's a good question. We'll shoot for it, certainly. However given how far everyone has to drive to get there... we'll see how it goes. If the money works out that we have a decent operating budget, we may look into renting TVs.

If I get a more portable flat-screen, I'll be sure to contribute to a Gears 3 horde mode station.

Squee9 wrote:

Speaking of byoc, what do the byob rules look like? A midwestern porter during board games with GWJers sounds like a plan. Who needs lans?

(Moiraine could have used a few more amirite?)

We'll get into details closer to the event but the long and short of it is that because of their ridiculous backwards liquor license, we can't bring our own and have it in either building that cooks food (I think that's right).

So the castle itself isn't allowed to have beer not purchased there but the satellite cabins and outside are fair game. So it's a little inconvenient but we don't want to get Teneman in trouble (yet).

The important thing here is that the home brewing competition is still happening.

Oily has the basics of it. For simplicity's sake it comes down to no outside booze other than home brew for the competition. And we'll be hosting the competition outside of the castle proper to remain in compliance as well. That's really a formality though, as my Finger In Your IPA is sure to win regardless of where the judging happens...

The good news is as soon as I hook up with our distributor (working on that now), I'm going to give Oily a list of what they carry and we're going to tailor a beer/wine menu for the event. There will be plenty of actual good beer choices to go around, no worries.

I'm going to try and come for sure as I wasn't able to last year.

SuperDave wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

So no byoc LAN this year then? Mild bummer, to be sure, but I think carrot's right. We'll live.

Any plans for extra console stuff to maybe fill that gap a bit?

That's a good question. We'll shoot for it, certainly. However given how far everyone has to drive to get there... we'll see how it goes. If the money works out that we have a decent operating budget, we may look into renting TVs.

If I get a more portable flat-screen, I'll be sure to contribute to a Gears 3 horde mode station.

If my transportation works out the way I want and think it will I should be able to bring a 40 inch flatscreen. I'll be sure and check the thread as we get closer to the event and see if it's needed though.

As I am currently without a passenger for this trip, I have plenty of room to bring my 42 along with the 360 and ps3 if you guys need it. I also have a gaming access point that works with both if you want to do some gaming between cabins.

So, besides barraging the owner with a zillion questions... When will details of cabin/cottage/gypsy wagon/room availability come out? When will pricing come out? How much of a filthy f-ing skimmer am I?

And will PenCon tickets sell out faster than Pax Prime?

Teneman wrote:

Oily has the basics of it. For simplicity's sake it comes down to no outside booze other than home brew for the competition. And we'll be hosting the competition outside of the castle proper to remain in compliance as well. That's really a formality though, as my Finger In Your IPA is sure to win regardless of where the judging happens...

The good news is as soon as I hook up with our distributor (working on that now), I'm going to give Oily a list of what they carry and we're going to tailor a beer/wine menu for the event. There will be plenty of actual good beer choices to go around, no worries.

Aha, so you are challenging me to spend money by legitimately purchasing beverages at the venue that is graciously hosting me. Well good sir, challenge accepted.

Color me interested. May be time to burn up my remaining Southwest points. Of course, I was also thinking about going to GABF, which is two weeks prior. Tough decision...

I'm working on getting a pricing structure together, we'll hopefully have something to announce this week. Once that happens, we'll see. I don't think we can have more than 60 people without anyone sleeping on the floor.

However, we will be able to have more than 60 for sure, I don't know where I need to put a cap on tickets though.

I sleep on floors a lot. It's kinda my thing. So, there's that.

skeletonframes wrote:

I sleep on floors a lot. It's kinda my thing. So, there's that.

Likewise, if I can make it.

oilypenguin wrote:

I'm working on getting a pricing structure together, we'll hopefully have something to announce this week. Once that happens, we'll see. I don't think we can have more than 60 people without anyone sleeping on the floor.

However, we will be able to have more than 60 for sure, I don't know where I need to put a cap on tickets though.

If it wasn't for the baby I would be one of the first to volunteer to sleep in a tent.