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RocketPineapple: 2014-08-12 04:39:49 pm
RocketPineapple: 2014-08-12 01:10:37 am
RocketPineapple: 2014-08-12 01:10:23 am
RocketPineapple: 2014-08-12 12:09:56 am
my hat is my friend
Okay, I think we can finally get this thing off the ground.

Who?: Any of you lovely Australians (and New Zealanders, technically, but I imagine it might be a bit difficult and expensive for you guys) who are willing to come along and help out or run a game or just have a good time! We don't have a name as of yet (though AWSM - Australian Winter Speedrunning Marathon) was pretty awesome. Kappa

What?: A 2 day speedgaming (and possibly just messing around) marathon. The Aussie community hasn't really had a chance to get together with us being so spread out, but let's make it happen. Haven't made the contact yet (since we haven't really got anything to pitch yet) but we're looking to raise some money for Beyond Blue, as well. It's a fantastic cause and a great Australian charity. I'm not expecting huge fundraising amounts - hell I'll be floored if we make $500 - but it's something small we can do to help out mental health care in Australia and another reason for us to get together and have a good time.

When?: Thinking a weekend in September 2015. This way we have plenty of organizational time and things won't be left until the last minute. Gives plenty of notice for people who want to come along, this way they can take plenty of time to make sure they're able to. Mid-semester break for students, a weekend for the employed.

Where?: This is the big one. We were originally looking at Sydney, however, the only real options that have come up yet are in Brisbane. I'm in Brisbane myself so these have been easy for me to check out. This isn't entirely ruling out Sydney or Melbourne (but obviously I can't easily check those out so I really need other people to look and let me know if they have options, and soon). Based on what we have so far we're running on the idea of Brisbane.

At the moment we have 2 potential venues. I'd offer my house, too, but I don't think it would really work out. Tongue I'll list pros and cons of each.

Option #1:
The Edge, State Library of Queensland. http://edgeqld.org.au/venue-hire/innovation-lab/ This is what Liam and I were able to check out today (the Mezzanine is another option but was in use so we were unable to look). The Innovation Lab is well set up and the Mezzanine, while it does not have the AV setup the Innovation Lab does, would also be suitable, I think.
+ Enthusiastic, friendly, helpful staff. It was really quite nice to talk to the staff there because they were very keen to help out and interested in what we were doing. That's a big plus, I feel. The woman we spoke to has already emailed me back with the application form which I'll be filling out in the next week or two (in order to get a price estimate).
+ Window areas for hanging out. There isn't really a good place for practicing, but we could hire out a couple of tables in the lobby for general talking and chilling out when not in the main room. Excellent for socialization, which is important. There is also a coffee shop there and there's a pretty outside area that looks out on to the river and to the city that is also good for hanging out.
+ Dedicated internet service. This is an added expense but we can use a solid internet connection that we wouldn't be sharing. Good uplink.
+ Plenty of powerpoints/ethernet cable links.
+ A/V setup including a projector. Extra setup would require hiring but most things we will be providing ourselves.
+/- Location: Good and bad points. Positive being that it's fairly central (the State Library is in South Brisbane, short walk from the South Brisbane train station and Cultural Centre bus station, right across the river from Roma Street station), negative being that there are no real food shopping areas within a 5 minute walk, there's no nearby supermarket and the best bet is the South Bank parklands. Also, while it's in a nice location, the room is quite open and airy, which is nice, but also makes it harder to control lighting.
- The floor is hard. Which sucks if you're probably going to want to take a nap in the corner at some point, like I no doubt will. Tongue Also the chairs aren't amazing, so we'd probably want to bring in a couch or something which is not going to be easy. The smaller room does have a couple of couches, though.
- Cost. This is the big one. It's not going to be cheap. It's going to be at the absolute least $1000 for the weekend, I imagine, with room hire, window bay hire, security, internet. The room itself is $440 for a day ($330 if we take the smaller option) so with two days of that, plus window bays and internet and anything else, we're going to be looking at a fair amount of money. I don't have an exact figure yet (I won't until I submit the form) but I will be sure to update this thread with that amount when I do.


Option #2 :
Brisbane City Council library in Indooroopilly. I would've said Brisbane City but they didn't have the room of the right size available for hire. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/facilities-recreation/libraries/library-facilities-services/hiring-library-meeting-rooms (under category 2). Yeah, there are other ones, but I'm biased towards Indooroopilly, it's right near where I live. Wink
I can't give a full pros and cons list yet because when I had a look the staff were not very helpful (telling me I need to book without answering any of my questions). Going to hopefully find a different staff member tonight and get back.
What I can say is: it's (a lot) cheaper than option #1, the room is a good size and comes with toilets and a kitchenette, it's in a shopping centre so there's access to plenty of food options (including 2 supermarkets), however I can't, as yet, guarantee that the internet would be up to scratch, and I certainly can't guarantee a good space for chilling out (outside of the carpark which isn't exactly a nice place to be hehe). It is advertised as available for 24 hours a day though so obtaining the space for overnight marathon usage is quite doable.


Why?: Because we all should get together and have a great time for a good cause.

So that's what I have so far. I have no experience in doing this (I have enthusiasm) so anyone and everyone who wants to help out, please, feel free to contact me. My inbox is open, my twitch channel is http://twitch.tv/rocketpineapple so you can message me there, you can post in this thread, or you can hit me up on skype (captain_procrastination) or steam (rocket_pineapple). The more people who want to help out, the better! Spread the word, get hype, and hopefully we'll be able to get something awesome started!

And if anyone has any concerns or issues or anything they want to talk about, please go ahead! Smiley
Thread title:  
would recommend not having it july, too close to SGDQ?
my hat is my friend
Yeah, I thought about that, I don't know when else to have it. December this year's too soon, next year's too far away (in the sense that it might stagnate and get forgotten about, but it's also a possibility). It would be a good 2-3 weeks after SGDQ. But I am interested to hear suggestions on other times we could have it. Smiley

September's another thought, too, mid-semester break and all.
Edit history:
Softman25: 2014-08-12 01:21:07 am
Softman25: 2014-08-12 01:20:34 am
Softman25: 2014-08-12 01:15:10 am
Just to put it out there, there is an extremely unofficial push to have a 'speedrun corner' at a major Anime / Vidya convention in Adelaide, in 2015. (AVcon) This would be sometime in July. (This year, the con was 18-20 July.)

The natural advantage is that it would be free with no cost to 'us' - the runners. (It generally costs to get in, but if you're doing a run, we can probably smuggle you in somehow!)

We may or may not be able to roll donations through it, both on-site and online - unsure of policies in regards to that kind of thing.

Also, having the 'support' of the convention means we're going to have both the speedrunning community (on the stream) and the 'un-initiated' (on-site) - which would be cool.

The obvious downside to this as an option for a meetup is that it's in Adelaide...which is where no one at all lives... (Except me and maybe some feral creatures roaming the wasteland)

Unsure whether any of that is a consideration at all, but just going to put it out there under the 'why the hell not' principle. Cheesy


EDIT: Just in case anyone thinks otherwise - no - I'm not affiliated with the con in any way. I just know a lot of the people who run it. The basic story is that I did a speedrun panel this year and it went down well. The initial idea was to go from a panel room to 'main stage' - but someone else then had the idea to expand to the aforementioned 'speedrun corner' - lasting over the weekend of the con - or just one day - depending on interest. I then said that at some point I would pitch this to the speedrun community at large. I was going to wait for an 'official' go-ahead from the con - but considering the machinations occurring in this thread - it felt like a good time to strike the conversation up, and either get shot down or accepted - now - as opposed to later. (And no, I'm not insinuating that anyone would have had such a thought - but better safe than sorry.)

tl;dr - I still belong to the speedrun community, and not in the pocket of some convention Tongue
my hat is my friend
Oh man, that sounds really good too. Any more info you can provide? I don't really know what else you'd have to say on it but hey. Tongue
Plays games quickly. Eventually.
That does indeed sound cool. I can drive to Adelaide, so I'd be down for offering some runs and stuff if the dates don't clash. The only thing I'd hope is that the organizational duties of the 'Speedrun Corner' is managed externally. Don't want poor Rocket to be managing two events at once, haha. If it's sorted externally, then we could promote it in here for sure. \o/
Quote from RocketPineapple:
Oh man, that sounds really good too. Any more info you can provide? I don't really know what else you'd have to say on it but hey. Tongue


At this point, not really on the info side. I can try drum some up - but essentially, 'I' (meaning we) would have full reign over how it's run, except for needing to comply with the con's guidelines. (e.g. if we run 'mature' games - age checks at the point of entry, that kind of thing. But that's semantics for now - general organisation comes first!)
Edit history:
turb0liam0: 2014-08-12 02:16:55 am
Well, as for option one, I live basically across 2 roads from the venue. So If i don't make it i 'm probably smoking something. So i'd prefer the first option, though i'm not picky. It does mean i can offer my pc though.
SEGA Junkie
That is a huge cost for an event unlikely to have more than a dozen people, though. We'd be looking at like $100 a head. I don't think we can justify that.

Starting to agree with September (or maybe Easter) though. Might as well put Brisbane's natural advantage over the other major cities to use Cheesy
I'm going to try my best to offer as much support as possible for this event. Hopefully I'll have some form of income by then. Lastly, we'd need to just obtain confirmations for people who could actually attend this. Because the more confirmations the better.
ecksdee
I live all the way down here in Melbourne. It pains me that a marathon may finally come to Australia and it's still barely out of my grasp ;-;
my hat is my friend
So after some discussion we've decided to push the Brisbane event to September in order not to clash with the Adelaide event. Even more time to save up for flights etc. Wink

As for the exact dates, I'll look at university mid-semester breaks. It might be a tad awkward with just the one week to work with but we'll figure something out.

Indooroopilly Library was entirely useless again. Waited for about 10 minutes, no staff members came to assist us. I'll give it another try in a couple of days. The internet connection there may unfortunately be a deal breaker, we'll have to wait and see (if anyone can give me some information).

Again, since we've got time, if anyone has any information regarding venues in any other cities (Sydney or Melbourne specifically), I'm willing to hear it.
Sounds good, I think after we take a look at the other venues and once we raise the money for this event, we can begin taking game submissions.
Cheese It
Of the two Brisbane options, the cost kinda sucks, but Option 1 having friendly staff is a major plus to me.

I have absolutely no idea how one goes about looking for venues, but if Rocket could give me a crash course, maybe Astron and I could team up (I'm near Melbourne) and look for stuff down here.
my hat is my friend
Honestly, Liam was the one who found the first option. So he's probably the one to ask. As for the second one, yesterday was a public holiday. Might try again after uni today, I'll have more time to look around and hopefully they'll be able to give us answers. The internet might be a dealbreaker there but we'll try and find out this week.

I'll also get the form from the first place printed so I can get an exact cost.
Any more information to report on this? It'd be a bit of a trip, but I'd be willing to come up for it. The cost for The Edge seems high for a first-time marathon, but I can't imagine a venue big enough and steady Internet for two days is going to get much cheaper.
Edit history:
turb0liam0: 2014-08-26 08:48:48 pm
Well, i'm fairly busy this week and the rest of my trimester, but through my spare time, i'm going to look at some hotels in both Fortitude Valley and Southbank. As for more information on the event, Ummmm, I don't know of anything else important to note. Also, if any of the Brisbane runners wanna hang out and search with me, Just let me know.
I'm from Brisbane. I'd love to help out if I can.
The more people the better, I still have yet to look around for more options. I'm just busy at the moment, I'm in my exam week, once i finish my exams the first thing i'll do is go search.
my hat is my friend
I haven't been around much, been busy with uni (to the point where I haven't contacted the Edge yet because I honestly don't know what we want). If there was a good way to indicate how many people would be around I'd offer up my house, depending on whether or not my dad would be okay with that haha. If it was more than like, 10-12 people, though, that wouldn't be viable Tongue
If you were definitely able to host it at your house you could always just say "only 10-12 people can come to this first one" and choose based on who would want to run what. A bit annoyingly exclusionary, but you've gotta start somewhere. If it went well and there was enough excitement for a second, slightly larger one, then we could look at hiring venues.
I don't think there's enough charact
September next year is a lot of time to plan a marathon. 
I should be free by then. I'm hoping by then, I'll not be a piece of poo.
I'll support this in any way needed. 
Also, if we do end up getting more than 10-12 people and it's hosted in someones house, just organize who should be in the rooms when needed.
If we do do this, we'll be back in the old days of SGDQ, slowly but surely rising in popularity. By then, we shall take SDA by storm, and then, THE WOR-I'll stop.
my hat is my friend
I'm not the right person to exclude people, since I'm hardly a speedrunner, I wouldn't feel right having that 'advantage' when there are people who are actually more serious runners than me who would have to be excluded.

I just got my assignments sorted. I'll keep looking.
Quote from RocketPineapple:
I'm not the right person to exclude people, since I'm hardly a speedrunner, I wouldn't feel right having that 'advantage' when there are people who are actually more serious runners than me who would have to be excluded.

I just got my assignments sorted. I'll keep looking.


Well I'm on holidays currently, and you have my number if you want to look around with me.


Also, i spoke to Rydges in southbank, We can honestly forget that, they wanted to charge like $2500 minimum for a room with only about 10 chairs and a whiteboard/table. There was also a 400 person room for $10000. Only decent thing they had was adjustable lighting.
my hat is my friend
Yeah, sadly at this point hotels are out. Really limits our options, we don't want to be too pricy, especially not for a first marathon.

I'm also going down to Victoria tomorrow so I can't actually look much in person, haha.