In a departure from the normal discussion around here, I'd like to share a little story.

The day after the tournament, my brother and his family had to head back home (always a tough day for me as he's my closet friend and we don't get to see each other nearly enough).  As he was loading up his car, for some strange reason he kept telling me I looked tired and needed a nap.  Well, running the tournament was pretty exhausting, but a nap?

Too busy throughout the day to take his advice, it wasn't until several hours later that my wife found a wrapped present under my pillow.

I opened the box and found this…

My brother gave me the playmat he had won at our regionals.  I was pretty shocked (though I was planning to do the same had I placed in the top 4), and super stoked.  These things are very cool, and it was the one prize I really wanted.

To make a long story short, my big bro rocks.  Thanks man, you're the best!

Wow, that is one cool looking mat and one even cooler brother!

I didn't really look into hosting a Regional here because I though we wouldn't have enough players to "make it worthwhile", but now I wish I had :)

The venue that hosted our CoC event also ran a GoT regional.  The store didn't do any promotion and only had 4 players show up (surprisingly, 3 were from out of town).

While not a great turnout, they each went home with a playmat!

Moral of the story?  Always ask your FLGS to host a regional championship.  What's the worst they can they say?

Yipe said:

"Host your regional championship?  Sure thing!  But we're closed Mondays, and Tuesdays are Magic night, and Wednesdays are Magic night, and Thursdays are Magic night, and Fridays are Eurogame night, and Saturdays are Magic night, and Sunday we play nothing but miniatures.  So . . . how does early Saturday morning sound?"

Happy stories makes me :)

Runix said:

My response?  Early Saturday morning sounds great - the fewer players, the more likely I'll walk away with something really good!

Let's be practical, Call of Cthulhu isn't Magic, or Pokemon, L5R, or even AGoT LCG.  Any retailer willing to put up some cash for a regional prize kit is going above and beyond in my book.

If they slot your event in an undesirable time because they don't have any faith in the product and don't believe such events can be successful, that's just something to work around (or an incentive to prove your host wrong for better time/attention/prizes next time).

As always, the worst they can say is "No, were not interested."  And then you're back to where you started no worse for wear.

For me, I took a risk and asked one of my local game stores to host a CoC regional championship.  They had never hosted any FFG events before and didn't know anything about it, but agreed to give it a shot.  The result from asking a simple question?  We now have a thriving CoC community in Portland where none previously existed, and our first league day is next weekend.

And I ended up with one kick-ass playmat!

congrats on the playmat, matt.

got a plain one NOT in use now that you'd like to gift on down?