JP: 0:44

Welcome to Whose turn is it anyway, a board gaming podcast where we talk about cardboard, cardboard, and even more cardboard. We're excited to run another expansion pack episode today where we're joined by Matt Prowse from Full Board Gaming to talk about setting up conventions and what it's like. So let's not waste any time and jump over and meet Matt. So we've got another guest on the show, we want to welcome Matt Prowse to the expansion pack episodes. So Matt, welcome.

Matt Prowse: 1:22

Good. Thanks for so nice to be invited. Thank you so much.

JP: 1:26

No problem. We We love having a chat with various different guests. And we get to get all different insights and things. So just for the purpose of our listeners, if you wanted to do a brief introduction to yourself and what you're about, right?

Matt Prowse: 1:40

Okay, so I’m Matt Prowse, I'm 53, I'm an Aries. In my day job, I'm a recruiter, and a trainer for a nationwide logistics and fulfilment business, I do lots of kind of training and, and engaging with people in my day job. But more importantly, I'm an avid gamer, and always have been. And it feels like everything else in my life supports my gaming hobby, which I'm very comfortable with. So yeah, it's good.

Adrian: 2:03

So you mentioned you've been an avid gamer for a little while, what got you into what drew you in in the first place to the hobby.

Matt Prowse: 2:09

I was thinking about this because, you know, we had a little kind of pre list of things we're going to talk, come into, but thinking about it, I've always been a gamer of one kind or another going back. I think influential stuff. But it's these silly little things, I think is really little. There's a scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where they're playing a war game at the very end, and they've got these Napoleonic stuff out, I think, that I want to do that, you know, people all had soldiers after that was bigger, you know, bigger, Lionel Jeffries, or somebody else sort of, you know, fat white men with beards kind of war game. Probably want to avoid but and then, other sorts of gaming, I had a little kind of Astro Wars game console, I went to computer gaming, I was fascinated with the concepts of MUD’s, you know, sort of fantasy role playing games online through teletext. Again, I was probably seven or eight. When these are going on, I had no access to them. But then, you know, university gives you access to the joint academic network. And suddenly, you can mess up your degree and just sit and play MUD’s and build, build adventures for people your circle. It feels like decades, or it was decades ago now. But it feels like another world. But it was just so much fun. I think I probably have too much fun in life, really. And gaming is a part of it, whether it's card games, board games, war games, computer games, what kind of role playing games were really my thing when I started kind of properly gaming and go into my adulthood and university and stuff. But like many of us, it's really hard to get a consistent role playing group together. But you can still you can still tell stories, and you can still have the experiences with with a good board game. And it's in a box and it's done. It's much, much easier to have the five or six people that are playing then in there. You've got your great evenings entertainment. But you haven't got to wait three weeks for Jeff to come back. Because, you know, he's in Egypt that week, or someone's kids are poorly, which we all have those pressures. But you can just get another another person get a board game out. For a bit of planning, you can get Twilight Imperium out.

JP: 4:16

I was counting the minutes. Eventually I thought he's gonna mention it. Because this is probably the answer to your next question, which is, you know, if I was to say, what was your favourite game ever? What would you pick? Is it Twilight

Matt Prowse: 4:29

It is really tough and Twilight Imperium floats to Imperium? the top, you know, and it's much more accessible to play online through Tabletop Simulator. There's a huge community. You know, I have been in a Facebook group for us, there's loads of players. And when we talk about drivers for my convention, you know that there's going to be a room with tables wit people playing Twilight Imperium. I'm going to flip back from that I like games with stories. I like asymmetrical games that get people together and more events than just playing the game and doing something else. So there was a card game called originally Jahad and then Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and that's probably my favourite game ever. It's just sublime. It's great. Many of the things I get from Twilight Imperium, I get from playing the Eternal Struggle, but it's just so much harder to get it to the table. It's out of circulation. You can get it. But it's more specialist, you know, because the communities much, much smaller, just that there either, but it's just fabulous. And it presses all my card game combo buttons, you know, different stories, so many different texts that can be in there all asymmetric, different ways of playing. And it's just, just fantastic. So that's kind of lots of other games that presses buttons as well, as you know, come in. And I'm sure if you asked me in a week's time, I'd probably think of a different one. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, we'll probably talk about old games in a bit and that there are probably some surprises in there some games I really liked, some games that I can't abide.

JP: 5:54

We've all got them

Matt Prowse: 5:57

I think a really strong kind of aspect of I kind of, I don't mind people can play other stuff. It's all good. Yeah.

Adrian: 6:05

It's a healthy mindset to have isn't it is, I like what I like, you can like what you like, yeah, why not play what you like.

Matt Prowse: 6:12

But yeah, there's, we can find something that, you know, I do sort of map civilization type asymmetrical games. I probably we could find one. You know, it might involve fleets of ships, you know.

JP: 6:27

Always, always bits of plastic chips. And armadas that we take other people out? Yeah. I mean, I have to talk about this map, because you kind of answered a call that so we've known each other for a few years now. Right? And you've answered one of our calls when we're trying to fill up our Twilight Imperium kind of events. And you're like, oh, play. So you obviously came over and obviously joined us for a few games in the past. But the one game that still sticks in my mind is the last one that you came over for. And I have to tell everyone that's where basically Matt was playing the Emirates of Hacan who basically are space lions, one of my favourite races in there. Absolutely. Yeah, I you can tell. So the way Matt was wheeling and dealing right as if he was Delboy from Only Fools and Horses is I've never seen anyone to kind of take to the the character and the role of that faction. To the point where you don't you know, you go into like, a news agents and you have that scam where it's like, what if I give you 20 pounds, and you give me 10? And I'll give you another 30 but it was all of that going on. And everyone was just around the table going? Sure. It was masterful was a masterclass of the

Matt Prowse: 7:39

Hopefully you weren't getting irritated, you got to balance it with the game like you don't want everything to end up being a five hour turn. So that was the moderating it.

JP: 7:50

It was it was fun. It was fun to see how you should play it. What are the games are you enjoying right now? Like anything? Kind of in the modern ish era that you you regularly to get to the table? Yeah, well,

Matt Prowse: 8:03

I've got the travel bug after Toby to a lot of holidays kind of saved up and I seem to be on holiday all the time. But travelling. So we played a bit of Concordia as a real real good one. Yeah,

JP: 8:16

We like Concordia

Matt Prowse: 8:16

Different sizes. And I think the combination of card play and worker placement, everything's a strong one. I've been playing so much Dune Imperium. Absolutely, absolutely. Fabulous game. I love it. I've been teaching it at games clubs and getting it out. I love the expansions. Everything adds to the game, even the smallest little tweak. You're familiar with Dune Imperium family family atomics rule. And the latest expansion just allows you to clear the deck row and see more cards in the game. And that change because you know, there's 100s cards and you only see 30 of them in any given game just gives you much more opportunity. And that's just a fantastic add. Yeah.

JP: 9:00

I found that with the I haven't played the mortality because I think it's in the mortality expansion, isn't it? The atomics right? We're literally got a game of it tomorrow night. Can't wait. But yeah, I've only ever played up to the rise of Ix. But yeah, every time I've played even just base Dune Imperium, it's always been it's been a delight. It's been a joy in that. Yeah, you know that that victory point, that one VP that you earn is like, feels like epic. I've got one VP God, I've earnt that, you know,

Adrian: 9:29

When you get to 10 someone pips you to a level.

JP: 9:33

That's just every VP feels. And it's, yeah, it's such a good feeling as you're playing to like, you know, 200 So you know, one VP is just like, . First time for me. Yes. Good. Good. So let's move on. Then. Let's move on from kind of a bit about your kind of favourite games and into Full Board Gaming and the seed of the idea and I've had where, where did this come from? Because obviously, we've known each other for years played a few games at TI. And was this a seed that was bubbling around in your in your brain? At that point?

Matt Prowse: 10:11

It definitely was. I've always organised little gaming events, you know? maybe 30 or 40 people, we've got some really good gaming venues around there. But Devon is literally gaming nirvana, there's so much going on. But I wanted to organise a, I've been to other cons, I have a thing in my character when I see something. And yeah, it can be a bit of a sort of type thing. I can do that better. And I can't always but sometimes, you know, you can contribute it, you can tweak things, and you can make things. So you can add, you can add value. I think the way the world is that international travel is getting more expensive, some sort of UK based holidays, you know, the growth area, I travelled so many times to go to gaming events, I'm quite happy to do it, spend a weekend you know, train travel, hotel costs, food, so I'm sure other people will. So you know, not just my events and for gaming, but I'm hoping that many, many more people will spawn these events around the country because there's 10s of 1000s of gamers. I love UK Games Expo. But most of my gaming friends don't go to it, you know, so whatever. 20,000 people are there. There's another 100,000 people that aren't attended. I'd love to come to Expo, Expo is awesome. Like, please get ticket and go. Yeah, definitely. But also go to your local events COVID happened and sort of originally, I was going to do something at the same venue for maybe 50 people over one night. But after COVID I do lots of other local things and Torbay, and I see hoteliers through sort of school events, what we're talking about work and apprenticeships and things like that. And we're just looking around the rooms again, last chance and to the sort of organisers of other events, at least this article where we talked about it before they were really up for it. So when I started talking to other hotels say, look, you've got a great convention that I would love to have you got a really rubbish weekend in the year where you're empty. And if I can fill your hotel with people, you know, can we have delicious teas and that quite keen on that idea. So I hope more people do it.

JP: 12:18

Win win then isn't it.

Matt Prowse: 12:18

There are never events or golfing hotels, can't play golf when it's tipping down with rain in the middle of February. You know, there are other event hotels, I haven't looked departments yet, because the locations are a bit open, I want my conventions to be really accessible. But if people will go away and listen to you know, 80s tracks for three nights, they'll go away and play board games if they'll go away and crown green bowling, you know, for gaming stuff, ageing, population board games really accessible. I think in you know, outside the UK, places like Florida where there are enormous ageing communities that will go off a little golf buggies and play golf. Board games is just such an accessible thing. And it's I've heard people talk in the past about World of Warcraft being the new golf. Board gaming is a new golf really, I think. But I'm not knocking golf. It's a good example of a hobby that takes a lot of time, you know, can be relatively expensive in getting your clubs all sorted out and tracked around and but people are happy to travel for.

JP: 13:22

Yeah, I quite like that comparison. Because like my, you've got some family members who are big into golf, and they're always talking about their latest driver or their latest set of, you know, hybrids or whatever. And yeah, I'm just kind of counteracting that we've got this new game, but they don't care. That's the difference. But I'm equally the same as they talk about golf. I'm just like,

Adrian: 13:45

Any hobby that you invest a bit of money in that way you can find a community to talk to on a regular basis, you always sort of 'this is what I've got, or what have you got new?'

JP: 13:54

Principles the same as a hobby is, is that if you're passionate about something and you get joy out of it, then you naturally just want to obviously do it more and you want to find more kinds of places and more like minded people that share the same kind of values share the same interest to share it with and, and that's why these conventions are really good. And I quite like what you said earlier about, you know, you should try and invest more time into your local conventions as as good as Expo is and it's fantastic. But it is quite overwhelming. And it's quite large. And, and it's quite nice to have that kind of smaller, more concentrated convention, where actually you get to meet more people from your local area that you've never met before. And suddenly you you know, you're kind of building more friendships that you haven't never thought you would actually do in, you know, before he kind of attended. So yeah, I completely.

Matt Prowse: 14:51

I really do think I've got the best friends of the world. They're just so fantastic. They're so you know, accommodating and accessible, friendly, that they want to get involved in stuff so so that's all good. I made a conscious decision. I was umming and ahhing about day visitor's, I guess residential visitor so I thought no that if you want to do daytime gaming or like a night of gaming, I can point you at clubs literally at the same weekend in an easy accessible area. This is something slightly different. Everybody's saying also literally all the organisers and conventions that I've ever met, have the stress of you have to police it and I've got to take people get you know, make sure people left the hotel, they can't bring their own food and not have any of that duty like you're staying on the resort. You know, you can bring food if you want to bring a bucket of KFC and be respectful of your other gamers. Because it's breakfast and dinner as well. You know, I just thought you know, it's nice to have a nice the hotel food is you want snacky things you want to pop out into Torquay, that's good as well pop out, you know, going on the route.

JP: 15:52

Exactly, exactly. So yeah. So this your your kind of first full event that that you're organising, then you obviously mentioned it's in the Torquay area, like whereabouts specifically is it going to be?

Matt Prowse: 16:06

So there's a group of four hotels together called sort of Torquay leisure hotels, and at the moment, we're in one with one coaching group, separate rooms and everything gaming space, we've got about easily accommodate 300 people with lots of space, if things do escalate, I can sort of activate hotel two, or we can follow on a bit more, you know,

JP: 16:28

We've got to

Matt Prowse: 16:32

We'll be very happy. But I think pitching for about two to 300 people will make it a roaring success, sort of fix it in the minds of the hotel, interest other Hoteliers and other other people. There are powers within Torbay that look at kind of the tourist industry and, you know, events that are happening. I'd love to build it into a festival of gaming over a couple of years and bring in loads of other stuff. So there's so many other things we can do. You know, it might be a movie night in Cavern, which is big limestone caves, but if you're screening, screening some sort of d&d movie and that that'd be really thematic, you know, I'd love to get some cosplayers in gets paraded through the town, but I'm a couple of years ahead of myself, let's build it up. We've got the English Riviera Centre, which is a fantastic venue. So the potential for conventions in Torquay is pretty good. I did I did sort of wave the flag and sort of celebrate these hotels to other game convention organisers. But you know, no one, no one's picked it up. So I thought, well, that's me doing it, then.

JP: 17:33

Yeah, yeah. Well, as you say that there's an opportunity there was a gap anything, why not? If it benefits, the hobby benefits the local area and the community? Go for it. So you just need somebody to strike the spot? Yeah, isn't it?

Adrian: 17:46

Especially you hear you talks about that festival atmosphere? And I've heard about it when people have talked about conventions abroad. I've never heard anyone suggest that they want a festival atmosphere over here, maybe typical British demeanour. It's certainly something interesting and different. I don't think we see over here.

Matt Prowse: 18:07

Yeah, so there's things be the resort hotel, it won't just be we are in one hotel. But there are the other three left we can fill up. But there's other sort of entertainment going on. So if you want to listen to sort of cabaret and stuff and just go off and do that you can do that, as well. But to add more particular game related stuff or nerd culture into it would just be sublime and be awesome. Know that there are there are other things that there's a Torbay air show that gets 10s of 1000s of guests. I'm not I'm not thinking quite that big, Torbay steam show that gets a couple of 1000 and I think we can easily you know get get to that level pretty quickly. There's somehow Yeah, loads of seaside towns like this, though, needs more events. So if you're in you know, a Victorian seaside town with lots of somewhat creaky three star Victorian hotels do the same thing. Just lots of potential. All you need is tablespace. It's so easy hotel event organised to get what you need what we're going to do. tablecloths.

JP: 19:11

Yeah, we're bringing our own games. It's yeah, we've got plenty of them. We never have time to play enough of them. So yeah,

Matt Prowse: 19:20

We're pretty mellow groups. You know, we're not we're not going to be sort of chucking chairs around or, you know, outrageously drinking. I'm very much hoping so if that's your idea, please don't come. We don't

JP: 19:30

We don't want you there.

Adrian: 19:32

Cosplayers, no?

Matt Prowse: 19:35

Well, in this area as we grow it. Yeah.

JP: 19:38

Yeah. Well have a designated area that they cannot leave. That's fair. I mean, so what was the kind of like, differentiates that you're wanting to try and achieve then with your convention than that? What's what's the difference? You said that you went to the conventions and you think actually you see opportunities to improve and do different things. So like, what what is it that I was the the culture, What feelings do you want people tend to get away or come away from your convention?

Matt Prowse: 20:08

I should say often I rethink myself and they know that they've got that covered, and that's perfect for here. But I've volunteered at loads of things. You know, I volunteer If you're charity things I've volunteered at other people's conventions. And I'm just thinking, hang on a minute. If I'm volunteering for someone else's financial gain, that's not fair. So I'm not gonna make a big deal of it, but nobody, that formal gaming events will be a volunteer, everybody will be paid. And the guests are paying a premium for that, that everyone will have a couple of quid and their overall price. But you know, the maths are pretty easy to do, if you've got 300 people, you will pay two pound extra to make sure the staff are paid. That's 40 working hours at 15 quid an hour you can afford to do so it's just, you just got to build it into your model. And then everything works. I'm not doing this to make my fortune I'm doing it really to enabled me to attend more events and plug mine but mainly to attend more events and play lots of games. But, you know, if if I can get the business to pay for my train tickets and claim the tax back on them, it's little savings like that make a difference. If I if I'm there professionally, that's the reason.

JP: 21:14

That makes sense.

Matt Prowse: 21:17

Again, because it's a closed group in the sense that it's residential, nobody's just joining for the day. I did, I didn't know we're not but that's, that's I think, a little bit different. And we're going to focus on. What I want from a con, I want to be able to get there easily because I don't drive so I want to train to get there maybe a little bit of a walk carried back then I'm done. I want a snug comfy room, it's nice and clean. I don't need to stay at the Ritz because I'm not gonna be in my bedroom, other than, you know, to sleep at night to go and play games. I don't want a timer to click off on I've got a sort of stop. So our gaming rooms are open 24/7 I'm not expecting anyone to game 24/7 But if they want to they can, you know, be nice to be able to clean around them. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna have a games library. So that's sort of standard thing. And the bar has been set really high by the conventions. I'm so impressed with how many games you know, are in libraries now. So, you know, that's a good thing to kind of keep up with. Yeah, that's pretty much what I want from it really. Game space. I love Expo. But I don't really love it to go and play games, the rooms are a bit too loud for me. So my game Expo has been doing the organising and helping out with other people and my worker placement is getting people to the right rooms and make sure they've got their tickets and stuff. But only about 100 people per gaming room with plenty of space is enough. And then you go into the next room. If everybody wants to cram into one room that's 300 in one room, I suppose that's that's up to them. But then if someone wants a quiet space, there's just more quiet spaces.

JP: 22:51

Yeah, you're right. It's very loud Isn't it like the the sensory overload that comes in that like gaming Hall three Expo. And you kind of just zone out after a while yeah, until you walk outside, and then you go Bloody hell

Matt Prowse: 23:04

You can't police people to cal it down. It's just impossible, it's unreasonable to expect them to because they're having fun. And fun is loud. Yeah. But if I can vote on a room with a couple of tables for Twilight Imperium, a sort of an upstairs room with some little competitions going on. And I'm going to run some sort of casual tournaments, but the idea of, we'll see who wants to be in the tournament, they're responsible for going off and playing their games, you know, tell us what the scores were. And then we'll announce the second round there should be minimal organising of stuff and people will do their own thing you know, that there'll be staff there will be at a reception desk but because there's not a lot you need from us, except a little bit of policing the games library. So go in a van and get driven off that there's not a lot of stuff that we need to help you with, you know, I'm expecting more more experienced gamers to probably want to come to this one. But you know, you've got to be pretty involved in the hobby to want to go away and do it for a weekend. But if people talk to me and let me know they're coming, I can make more provision if there are more newbie gamers or family gamers and stuff that I can make more provisions and stuff. We've got a year to do that. So it's just a communication through Facebook or discord and keeping in touch you know we can grow it. HandyCon is great. Hotel, play games, hurrah. The City of Games that happened in Bristol, probably the model for what I want really, again hotel all enclosed, off off and play games. And you sorted

JP: 24:40

Yeah, I think it's that that boardgame holiday isn't it? Like treat it as a holiday or weekend break. Where you know, you're probably going to spend 80% of the time doing the thing you love and playing games with lots of people but you don't always have to do that and the fact that you're at venues where as you said you know, I'm just gonna pop out to the Marina and just take an hour and have a walk around soak in the sights hopefully the sun shining, you know gone grab some food.

Matt Prowse: 25:10

Cannot guarantee the sun is going to be shining, but there are fish and chips, you could go in the harbour get some nice fish and chips. You know, you could go and do something else, you go and listen to entertainment, you can go into some ten pin bowling downstairs in another room if you want to. Yeah. Other stuff you can do.

JP: 25:23

Yeah, so you can mix it up a bit as if it was like a weekend break with with your gaming group or group of friends or your family or whatever. And, and that's quite appealing, actually, I think for definitely, for me being in the hobby, it's like, brilliant, well, weekend. And let's just think for anyone else who maybe is not as much in the hobby but likes to play board games, but then doesn't have to spend, you know, 12/16 hours a day playing board games, they can dabble, they can go and do a bit and go and do something else and come back later and do a bit more, go and do something else. And I think that that flexibility of where the venue is, logistically where everything is around, it is quite key. Right. And yeah, man. Yes.

Matt Prowse: 26:04

Yeah. So should be good. But you know, this is the first one. It's kind of like the the first pitch to the paying public. If you want something else from it. Tell me, you know, I know. There are other things other events do really well. Mr. Grogan does awesome charity raffles. So I don't want to impinge on that, you know. I'll go and take part. But that a GridCon, or the thing Expo does, you know, so so it's all good. Good to him. But actually, it happens. I don't need to add to that.

JP: 26:34

Yeah. Yeah, start leaning into what you can do. And yeah, and how you can differentiate, right? So yeah.

Matt Prowse: 26:42

I think the things things to talk about, and it's just one of the things that annoys me hotel, sometimes. Hotel bar prices. I just sort of twigged that, you know, we've got a regular pub bolted onto the hotel, so it's just normal drink prices. So I still, being 53 go into a pub, buying a pint and thinking Oh, my God, how much is that? Because that's just a fact of my age. It's not like £1.60 anymore.

JP: 27:05

I remember those days. Or maybe there were two pound. Maybe. But yeah,

Adrian: 27:10

Threepence ha'penny? Yeah.

JP: 27:12

Old money. But no Yeah. Going out drinking now, I don't do it. Not very often. There's sometimes we go out with a wife and we have a night out. And I think I could have bought two board games for that. So that's, that's just the reality.

Matt Prowse: 27:29

Where I'm at was over, I got really into sort of cooking dinner as well and had a bottle of wine alongside gaming. Plus, I think, the perfect evening. Yeah. And I was on holiday recently with lots of expats in Greece. And we sort of there's there's three of us that are avid gamers, and the rest were sort of politely interested, but we've kind of sussed, you know, you can have a little sort of demo game of Just One in your back pocket and literally explain gaming, and it's just so much fun, you know, for converting dominoes into Mexican trains, just adding that extra little level of, you know, a continual thing. Oh, there were loads of things.

JP: 28:04

Nice. Nice. Yes. So when is this the specifically when it's your first convention?

Matt Prowse: 28:08

2nd of February 2024. So it's a basic event is a Friday night, Saturday night, go home Sunday event. But if you want to bolt on an extra day, for the Sunday night, you can I know lots of conventions have mission creep and start to kind of extend either end. And I think we can do that in the future. But because the way the the resort hotel is structured, things tend to start on a Friday, and something else will be going on on the Thursday. So unless you build up a bit bigger, I can add on the other end, but I can't I can't add on the Thursday yet. That doesn't mean people can't sit there. I'll be there in person. I wish some people my team. So we can probably find somewhere to gain like a local Game Shop or something. Yeah, great. So we can do something. And you know, I'm hoping £144 pound per person for the event. Plus all the parties will report on that is reasonable. It's less than I spend when I go to equivalent other events. And I think adding the the decent evening meal in, sort of helps helps out with that. But you're useful candidates to pitch that at, what do you think, price is alright? What do you think?

JP: 29:19

Sounds good to me. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good to me. I mean, I've spent more. And as you say, and then you're spending, you're beholden to kind of where you are with the prices of food, and drinks and things and, and a lot of these places, you can't just nip out and obviously gonna go and get food because you'd have to get in your car, you got to drive into the centre, and you just can't be bothered. And usually when it's a town or an area you don't know, well, yeah, you're kind of less likely to go and do it.

Matt Prowse: 29:53

Yeah, or when you come back, somebody quite rightly saying you can't bring that into the hotel, sit in your car and eat it, you know, yeah. They should do that. Because that's the rules of that convention, I can pretty much understand it. That's why these events happen. But I can avoid that. Mainly so I don't have to do it.

JP: 30:07

I don't have to do the policing of it. Kind of moving the conversation on a bit, so that's a bit about what Full Board Gaming is all about out, and kind of when it is, so looking forward to that. So kind of moving a bit backwards to the process of building a convention and what it takes to kind of go through it because it's alright for us, we just turn up at the end, when everything's done all the hard work has been kind of expended. But for someone like yourself, who has to have the seed of the idea has to go through, what does this convention look like? What what's the vision of it? What should it feel like? I mean, where do you start? Like, how do you start? Where do you start specifically to build your convention? Was there any advice you can give to people maybe thinking the similar thing?

Matt Prowse: 30:56

I think you don't have to be someone like me to do it. You know, to start off with organising something requires some skills. So you get some practice in organising something. But most work opportunities, you can get some skills in organising something for your work to get get some practice, go to some events that are similar to what you want to do, you know, build to other people's events, because you share that anyway. Because you support in the board gaming community in the hobby and everything. And understand what do you want to present? You know, what, what do you want to add to the, to the kind of hobby atmosphere? What do you want to add to the events? Where do you want to do it? You know, where do you see it, the gap, just what I'm looking at, where to have events, and I'm looking at having other events in different places. I don't want to clash with someone else's, you know, you can never stop clashing with something somewhere. If it's 300 miles away, I think that's fair enough, you know, different categories. Everything okay, so you got some experience, you know, what you want to do? Consult, get opinions, because people will be happy to talk to you, you know, we're a pretty open community. Get on Facebook, get sad, just ask, you know, try, ask if you can get involved in someone else can I help, you know, there's lots of volunteer opportunities. I've moved away from volunteering, but I'm extremely grateful for all the opportunities I've had, love Expo love the expo team, love all the people I've met love the directors, you know, love the event. I've just, you know, there are opportunities for other people. But it's really good work experience, as well as lots of people that volunteer need a bit of practice and getting those skills and they're really transferable. So it's all good stuff. Set up any business, you want to do something, have a plan for three to five years and sort of start pencilling out doesn't matter, back of cigarettes packets, like it just just look at what you're gonna have to put into it as to what you're gonna get out from it. Now, this sort of venture, I'm putting some money in in quite a lot of time, and nothing's going to come out for a while, you know, for instance, I've made bookings, made commitments, my pay off event isn't till February next year, so I have to kind of plan that out in stages. But you should have an expectation that you are going to have to put quite a lot in yourself running any business. You know, be realistic look at your commitments. Look at look at what you're doing make it fun, make it something you're engaged in because you don't want stress again, fantastic mates in the board game industry that just seem very very stressed about it. Again, I'm lucky, I can't say I never get stressed. I've got good ways of managing it, through going off to conventions Yeah,

JP: 33:22

Yes the irony isn't it, that's your release valve. So when your conventions getting too much I'm gonna go to another convention just release the stress

Matt Prowse: 33:31

Well absolutely. Or I'm gonnna lock myself in a room and play T.I.. But when you've got got your idea what you do and you've got a convention, look at venues but practice your pitch. My buddy Dan was on Dragon's Den and he was successful is pictures of tech to society. But you know, practice it make sure it sounds like a good idea to you and it probably sounds good to other people, be professional about it amongst our nerdy gamer community, they just make make sure you you're given a flash presentation you understand that you can answer questions, and then if you've got credible idea people will jump into it that's my sort of checklist really so you know you guys, could do a Whose Turn Is It Anyway convention coming up in the future.

JP: 34:18

Who knows we've not even thought about it

Adrian: 34:20

but sounds like something JP's organising!

JP: 34:25

You knows I love organising, I'm the one that is the.. basically I'm a project manager. By by craft. So what do I do I manage time and people and get things done and delivered right? It's that so no, it's no secret that behind the scenes to work in everybody and go come on guys, get everything move on.

Matt Prowse: 34:48

Behind the scenes, I've got my Gantt charts and timelines and things going on.

JP: 34:53

Don't get me excited man!

Adrian: 34:57

Someone like myself, like I've organised a couple of like games nights and I've organised a couple of tournaments and all that kind of stuff and all the sort of the those first few sort of bits you talked about as nodding along and and after that. I'll be honest with you, I was like, oh, no, that sounds like a lot more. Have you got any sort of tips or anything to go from maybe that small, sort of someone who organises their local events, like you, I believe you haunt my old local of Clifton Road games and run some events there in the past Yeah.

Matt Prowse: 35:23

Cliffton Road games, one of the best gaming shops I've ever been to in my life anywhere in the world, you know, and sponsoring my event as well

JP: 35:33

There we go. I'll put them in the show notes.

Adrian: 35:36

How do you, so how do you go from sort of organising those like those nights and those local tournaments and stuff like that? What's the what's the biggest first step from going from that to, you know, potentially a convention or something?

Matt Prowse: 35:49

The big first step should be, am I having fun doing this? Or am I stressed as hell, you know, and if you haven't fun doing it, then escalate, do some more, make it make a look at what you can do get people in overnight for something, do something for an evening and the following day over a long weekend, build it up. Also build a team, get people involved helping you do it, do it as a sort of nonprofit just a fun thing. If you can turn it into something more structured, and you start to involve hotels and contracts, then you really need to make it a business and set up a limited company just to protect yourself as well. But I'm 53 and I'm talking to students and apprentices and things at school events. I wish I'd set up a company decades ago, no, it was a challenge. Everyone do it before you 53, you know, much easier than you think there are, there are technicalities about it. And you need to think about your commitments and you sort of legal obligations, but they're not that challenging. It's just more scale, just need to understand what they are and make sure you adhere to them. Yeah, so I was worried about sort of tax returns and stuff. But this is coming back to your 10 grand don't need to worry about it was safe.

JP: 36:56

Yeah, it's just a bit of bit of research isn't it?

Matt Prowse: 36:59

But knowing that, doing your research, you know, you can I've spoken to accountants and solicitors that they're interested in startup companies, you can start up companies become bigger companies, and they'll give you a bit of free time at the beginning and their advice to get going. So I'm very grateful. For all the help and support I've got, I set up a Facebook group and invited all my gaming friends into it to be involved. So if you're happy to contribute, jump in and give me your opinions. And I can't tell you that I've gone with everything because I've got a structure that I want to have. But again, that advice is fantastically useful, and really good. And it builds relationships. And again, transferring skills, and there are so many skills in organising things that will help with pretty much any careers, you know, communication skills, organisational skills, pitching things, lots lots of useful stuff in there. JP fodder,

JP: 37:53

JP fodder.

Adrian: 37:56

I know what he means this is my CV is a bit like that, just random skills I've picked up from everywhere ends up on it. But yeah,

Matt Prowse: 38:04

I saw a discussion about whether you should put gaming in some way your CV and there are some people that absolutely not, absolutely not, don't mention it. For God's sake, don't talk about gaming. That's, you know, such a big part of your life. You're misleading. Definitely. And you're holding yourself back. There's so many so many good positive things about gaming.

JP: 38:24

Yeah, it's quite well, it's quite funny you talk about that. Because I know Adrian, you've got a little inkling for the future to have a discussion around how this hobby transfers skills, real life skill, real life situations. And it's so true when you kind of sit and think about, you know, some of the skills that you do pick up. I'm not talking about backstabbing, and lying and cheating, some skills that you need or wheeling and dealing, although that can be useful. But now I think generally in life, there's Yeah, you can pick up so many skills from this hobby on some level

Adrian: 38:57

Yeah, so it's on mine. Yeah, it's on my CV for sure. Because like just mentioning things like supporting people who've set up businesses and stuff like that. And there's just so many invaluable little skills where you kind of say, by volunteering, that you can pick up and just just even supporting a friend doing what they love doing, you know, and that kind of stuff that you've just, yeah, you end up learning, just as if anything, I found that those lessons have taken to heart more, because I'm passionate about what I was doing, than perhaps some of the sort of, you know, you do pick up skills through the grind of the day to day job. But if you're passionate about what you're doing, you tend to pick up those skills and the lessons stay with you longer I find. So quite a lot of my I do a little bit of support with people for interviews occasionally. And I used to do my old job. And I used to tell them all the time, if you're saying there's something you did that you that you think applies to a question you've been asked. And it's something you're passionate about talk about it because the passion will come through about it when you talk about it. Right. And so it's kind of you know, that sort of make sure you're getting involved and making sure you like just put those things in your CV and talk about them in interviews. Oh, that's tangented quite massively there.

JP: 40:04

We've got into career advice.

Matt Prowse: 40:07

But it's important you know, and so many things, learning things quickly understanding rules, picking up teaching, support, easily another one cashed in there.

Adrian: 40:17

Yeah. Good way to line up

JP: 40:22

Yeah, coming soon this summer, I think much. Yeah, pretty much good stuff. Good stuff. Anything else you want to add to that matters of building convention, any kind of the challenges you faced, that you want to share? And go? You know, what lessons learned? Don't do that?

Matt Prowse: 40:38

Well, I've got some are happy to come back and talk about them. But so far, you know, it's been pretty challenge free, you know, everybody's really open about it and ask great ideas. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. Other conventions and other gaming, industry related things are already positive, you know, I think you plug my convention or plug your shop or convention, it's a really great way of building the whole community.

JP: 41:02

Yeah, this industry is great for that, I think, in the fact that people are just happy to help each other, you know, it's not like, oh, we'll do it, we'll do it. If you just do this thing, or you have to pay us money to do it. Like literally, like, generally happy to contribute, aren't we and make this this hobby grow. And we want to get this hobby out to as many people as possible, because we love it. And we decide we want to get everyone in the church.

Matt Prowse: 41:26

But I think you've got to respect as well. These things are people's businesses, you know, so if it's going to enhance them, they're probably going to listen to you, if you're just trying to crib something for free, they're probably not gonna listen to you. So it's about it's about mutual support and development.

JP: 41:38

So that's great. We talked about a bit about the convention and we talked about how you can kind of go about getting this your own convention started and taking some lessons learned and advice from yourself, Matt, but more importantly, like for those who are interested in Full Board Gaming, how do they book how important probably the most importantly, how do they say I'm coming to the convention, I'm interested, let's go to Torquay.

Matt Prowse: 42:02

So they go to fullboardgaming.com. And they click on the link for the Torquay Convention, which is the first one coming up at the top of the page. And they just phone the booking team. So the venue, booking team, they're open from sort of eight till 6pm every day, they call through the booking reference that's on the on the web page, and they just make the booking, they talk about any special dietary requirements, you know, whether they want an apartment or family room or what exactly what they want to do. And then we can get them accommodated and get them here.

JP: 42:34

Simple as that.

Matt Prowse: 42:34

Yeah. Be nice if they go in the discord or the Facebook group, and then talk to us and let us know that they're coming, get involved in some discussion on some games and things. But when I got to cons, I don't really want to have an itinerary of I've already got this arranged, which was awesome. Oh, that's cool. Let's go and jump on that one. You know, don't don't mind the other way round, some buddies will plan out the entire games that they're playing. But I just I don't want the extra pressure. I've got finished by two o'clock to go into that game.

JP: 42:58

Let's play this game. Yeah, it's quite. Yeah, sometimes. Let's play this game again. And again. Yeah, yeah, no, it's just different people like to do in different ways, aren't they? Some people like to know that when they turn up, they've got a game penned in by the start. And I'm like that to be fair, I like to know that I get there at nine. I'm going to hit the game straightaway. But then you right? Depends on how long the game goes for. You don't know who you're going to be playing with. So you've got time constraints such as you just don't know, do you? So it's quite nice to have the free form I think and see how it goes. See who's got what on the table. Have a wander around. So who needs players, Can I join you? Yeah, great. Suddenly, we made three more friends. You know, that kind of stuff. So yeah. Cool. We were going to have all the details for Full board gaming in our show notes. So if anyone forgets exactly what we just said, we'll have all the links and in the description, so we'll go check them out there. Yeah. Get get people to your site. Great. Okay. Let's move on then Matt. And we do a section with our guests. And basically, this is Adrian's brainchild. By the way, I'm gonna let you Adrian introduce this, because it's your brainchild. I feel like if I explain it, and introduce it, I'm taking something away from you. And I think no, this is Adrian's baby. So niche number ones off you go what is it?

Adrian: 44:24

So niche number ones is a question with something very niche and not quite like not the generic What's your favourite board game or anything? Like what should you know? It's, you know, what's your favourite board game? With this addendum on it right? And normally, what we find is they sound like ridiculous questions. But then when you start talking about that game, you find out these little treasures of games or people's favourites that that they may not talk about all the time, but that I'm with you. Yeah, they just kind of hits a certain sweet spot of are in this situation. This is absolutely my favourite game. So that was kind of the concept and the idea. So we kind of do a few episodes, we ask a handful of questions and then following those episodes, any of the ghost guests get a handful of those questions asked to them as well. Okay, so let's kick off with the first one then. So your favourite game that you don't know why.

Matt Prowse: 45:11

Okay, personally, I'm pretty good at knowing myself, and knowing the things that press my buttons. So can I just twist it into I don't quite know why? So Terra Mystica. I absolutely adore Terra Mystica, it's got lots of things in it that I really like. But I'm not quite sure why I like it so much and I play it now. I love the asymmetrical nature of it. I love that. It's challenging. I love that it's not balanced. I love trying to kind of like you know, compete against fire. I know you've got a really good race. I'm still going to get you. Yeah. I love the arguments sometimes when people say oh, that's not good. Do you have the advantage, I'mgona smash you You know, it's kind of and it's weird because it was refined a bit. You know, Gaia Project, there's a smoother version of Terra Mystica. But I just don't like Gaia project. I should do. But some of the things they've taken out of it some of the tightness because it gets too much. But you know, the satellite networks you can cross over entire project, but you can't in Mystica Yeah, this is my land, and you're not coming over here

JP: 46:17

So be warned. So basically, bugger off. It's yeah, you're not coming through? Yeah. Yeah,

Matt Prowse: 46:22

I like that sort of contested element. Interesting. And I like to sort of take that element of I got there first, you know, you can you can see where people are gonna go, you know what colours they like. So if you're not on the board, and you're not getting there first, you know, you've lost the race.

Adrian: 46:38

See, I've not played Gaia Project or Terra Mystica. But every time someone explains it, to me, it sounds like a different game to the game that the last person explained to me like, there's something there must be something about this game. I must give it a go. Because literally every explanation someone gives me, I would probably tell you it's a different game to last time someone explained that game to me.

JP: 46:57

It's an odd one to sit and explain, isn't it? Like you are right. I think everyone gets something different out of that game, all that system. And for me, I do prefer Gaia Project. I actually like Terra Mystica, to be fair play any of the versions but yeah, it's yeah, it's really hard to explain. You just gonna have to play it Adrian

Matt Prowse: 47:21

I like the stories, you know, the epic clash between two different races and stuff. And you know, one succeeded, you know, in the background, this particular race that builds little bridges between, and swept the board, you know, points. So this is just nice.

JP: 47:36

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well, nice one. Yeah. So I tell the next one, you can finish off the last one, right, the next one, the favourite game, will your favourite game that never hits the table.

Matt Prowse: 47:48

But I've got so much nostalgia for this one tell you what doesn't hit the table Axis and Allies, right? So it goes in the 80s playin Axis and Allies, I just adore it, I really like it. I like it, it's really seen me. I get I get people rubbishing it, Oh Ameri-trash. And I don't get angry about many things. But that sort of title is probability driven rather than random dice driven. So if you've got, you know, a good chance of winning something, you're probably going to win it. But I like the way the dice and the mechanics of it control things in the same way that powers in the Second World War happen. I like that. I like that. I think it's a really good simulation of the situation in the world. And like that, if you've got kind of an AlIied players that don't quite know all the ups and downs of the game, you you've got to see a kind of together, but are doing their own thing as well. It really works. Yeah.

Adrian: 48:41

If someone's not bought into the idea of well, we're going to actually aim at this or we're going to defend India, for instance, and put into more pressure for that. If they're if both like America and England aren't into that, initial England that's bought into that. It's just gonna fall apart. I do I really like Axis and Allies, although I do like the idea of the simulation thing. But all it takes is if that first turn goes badly if you if you extend yourself for that first turn goes badly, we played for hours knowing you're doomed basically. Yeah, but yeah, no, no, it's good choice.

Matt Prowse: 49:16

The reason it doesn't get to the table is a downtime between players. And that's a bit of a killer for it. So playing on an app is much easier. So many board games are just better on apps, because you just haven't got the faff around, but acknowledges the first game that I sort of linked up with so little hats for the different players that are moving. And then if you get the Pacific and the Atlantic one and bring them together and playing the whole world with six people and in China and stuff, it is just fantastic. And if you're all into it, but you don't mind the downtime, because you're telling an interesting story and seeing what happens. You know, I've got a whiteboard for it as well. But it is I'd like to sort of let the the events sort of make it more of a mega game with more players. It's great.

Adrian: 50:02

Let's we'll make a games. Yeah, I really want to do

JP: 50:03

I'd love to do a mega game and like 12 hours or over a weekend and like your prop... The fact you just said you got hats. I love that. I could wear a hat and just pretend to be a nation for 16 hours and basically just hamm it up like literally I love that that's gonna be great we need to get War Room

Adrian: 50:26

Sounds like we've got someone who's able to host now we got War Room can we get a game everyone asks it it's one of those where again you kind of have to get six or eight people willing to sacrifice 12 hours of their day

Matt Prowse: 50:40

Yeah, I've got a convention coming up

JP: 50:45

I think we've got the ideal place.

Adrian: 50:47

So last one, we're going to ask you from the niche number ones so favourite game where you are reluctant to play either because of the box art or sort of the graphic design of it but it's now your favourite

Matt Prowse: 50:57

Part that's really tough because I'm not I'm not really bothered about box art you know it's just one of those sort of background things it doesn't bother me, it could be a plain box, if it was a good game then awesome, the box can be really misleading as well by this Dragonlance Gemstone game or something and the box looks really kind of TSR dragons and sort of Dragonlance story arc. And it's it's like a 10 by 10 grid with 10 Little coloured gemstones on it and hang on. So it's not a bad game necessarily, but the box art is completely irrelevant. And like a movie trailer, you know, you can tweek the box art any way you like, put a picture of the game and people playing it, and we're happy to play it. So I try not to be... Oh I got one, right so I'm not gonna go into favourite games here because I love I love all the people the bling people bring to Terraforming Mars I love the little plastic bits but whatever their setup is, that only get me through about a quarter of an hour and I'm bored with it. But whenever I see it at conventions, are more and more epic, coloured little tiles the game I think these are called 3d printed, love it. But oh yes, it's the game still.

Adrian: 52:16

It's a niche number naught

Matt Prowse: 52:19

Yeah, and I should like everything about Terraforming Mars. I just don't.

JP: 52:22

Yeah, you you kind of fall a little bit in the TM camp, don't you? Ya know, I know you've got Ares expedition, which you like,

Adrian: 52:29

Ares expedition. For me. It's just I like the mechanics. It's just spread out over four hours when it doesn't need to be typically, especially like, I think a lot of the tactics and strategy can come from drafting and drafting adds like half hour on to the game easy. So yeah, I'm kind of, I like it. It's just takes too long. Yeah. I do agree. Like, slowly because the card art is I've said my piece on that before. I don't like the card art on it, or the complete random mix of it. But you're right. Every time I see a new dual-layer player board or a new set of plastic, or epoxy bits that people have made. I always think that does look good.

Matt Prowse: 53:09

And I love your episode about board game bling. So so people can still literally Terraforming Mars by having more epic mountain scenes. Explosions or craters, then we're good.

Adrian: 53:27

It'll get you through an extra 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

JP: 53:31

So great. Okay. Well, we come to the final question for you Matt, which is, generally apart from Torquay Full Board Gamings first main event, what are you excited for, what's coming up for you

Matt Prowse: 53:46

So much gaming and reconnecting with mates and things so so conventions are a really good way of keeping in touch with people. Thankfully, the pandemic kind of drove discord use a bit. So we stay in touch a lot more now and play a lot more online. You know, Board Game Arena, Tabletop Simulator things. But this is just not the same as face to face. Spending time having a couple of drinks, you know, catalyst that will be that sort of periphery for gaming as well and families and just meeting their friends and the people they persuaded to come as long as well. So what have we got, an ever growing list of events coming up. There's a Devon Board Game and hotel coming up, but a little hotel, about 60 people. That's the start of March. And then yeah, we're there. Lush, fantastic. Then we got Airecon. The 24 hour gaming marathon, Expo, GridCon. You know, there's lots of stuff going through the year. But there's still a lot of space for other people to organise events, please do. Yeah. Just the expanse of the gaming industry all over and more players and more stuff happening. Just it's ongoing excitement, really new games, more stuff coming out the latest hotness.

JP: 54:54

It's always exciting, though, isn't it? Let's be fair like this every week is Oh, that looks cool. Yeah. It's an easy question to answer because the answer is everything, everything. Yeah, I'm excited for everything.

Matt Prowse: 55:06

As we sort of expand mobile gaming and get it going, getting something else going and another sort of, this is a Southwest thing, getting something going in one of the great northern cities or Liverpool somewhere that was nice catchment area that's really exciting as well. I've been thinking about sort of boutique holidays for maybe 10 to 12 people book a castle go and play board games you know, you bought gaming house does your meals teach you games and stuff? Like that sort of thing could work and looking at little channel of thoughts and stuff for you know, bizarre places for holidays, but I couldn't do my own but with 10 other people making brings it into the realm of possibility.

JP: 55:46

Financially doesn't it mean you can share cost of that between you here?

Matt Prowse: 55:49

Yeah. But again, I think that's sort of event things like Hoseasons people can do board game and weekends on their own don't really needed some venture just talk a little cottage offseason. Couple of 100 quid between twelve of you, it's nothing is it really,

Adrian: 56:06

Just booked it up between me and three other mates. We're going away for a Bloodbowl and boardgame weekend. Just booked a little cottage in the middle of nowhere.

JP: 56:14

What's your team?

Adrian: 56:15

What's my team, Norse

Matt Prowse: 56:18

Chaos

JP: 56:21

Nurgles? No, I havent played Bloodbowl since the 80s unless you count the digital version that I had, Bloodbowl 2 on the Xbox, I've not played the actual physical, my brother's got it. So we keep saying we're going to sit down and play it because it's just going to take us right back to Christmas. 1989

Matt Prowse: 56:41

The digital version counts, it's absolutely fantastic. Gaming, you know, not have to paint the miniatures. It's nice to paint miniatures. I can't do it. I'm absolutely useless. But if I can just edit them, you know, digitally get the game go. And that's what matters in it really excited. And again, much more accessible. Probably 1000 people playing Bloodbowl now on the Discord server. Yeah. So easy to get your team developed and killed.

JP: 57:09

Smashing faces in Yeah, it's a great game. Good. Yes. Anything else to add?

Matt Prowse: 57:18

No, just shout out for other exciting things. Assassin's Creed Mirage. Prebooked that today. So I just, I'm a firm believer in all kinds of aspects of gaming are all good. And everyone starts to merge into each other. I'm sure they'll end up in Assassin's Creed board games, big IP, these things will happen there

JP: 57:35

Brotherhood of Venice, I haven't got it, but it's definitely one out there. Right.

Adrian: 57:41

There's Yeah, second hand market.

Matt Prowse: 57:45

Okay. Okay. So I'm sure there'll be a good Assassins Creed board game out there at some point.

JP: 57:50

Controversial, we've never played it

Adrian: 57:52

We've never played it. But I've seen a lot for sale and it only delivered a couple of months back.

Matt Prowse: 57:56

Other than that, honestly, thank you so much for having me on the show. We really appreciate it. Nice to connect with Adrian, and reconnect with JP as well. Yeah. Good to talk. So. Thanks again.

Adrian: 58:07

No, it's been good to have you on.

JP: 58:08

Yeah, thank you for joining us and chatting, chatting all about your convention and we look forward to seeing how it develops. And hopefully we'll hear about your progression over the coming year. So yes, please come. Yes, everybody check it out. Check out the site. Great stuff. Thanks, Matt. Cheers then And that wraps up another expansion pack episode where we just want to say thank you to all our listeners as always, and we love engagements. If you want to get in touch with us. You can do that via a variety of our handles. You can email us at players@whoseturn.co.uk , You can get us on the Board Game Geek and subscribe and become a fan. You can get us on Facebook at Whose Turn Is It Anyway Podcast, on our Instagram@whoseturnpodcast , and if you want to see us do some videos and stuff on Tiktok@whoseturnisitanyway and we'll be back again with another main episode next week. So see you later.