I demand to tap your brains!

Lurin

Lurin

Paragon
So, for those of you that pay attention, SoMN loves to run specials and stay active as we continue to build up our monster camp etc. (viewtopic.php?f=106&t=16239) We are pondering a kickstarter to help raise our Props level over all for PCs and NPCs and are looking for ideas for Donation 'levels'/rewards.

For example -
$15 - New player starter pack, comes with belt clip, pouch, and coin purse, Good for new players or npcs!
$40 - Masked Avenger - Personal Leather mask for favorite NPC type or PC race (Max 25)

Please think of the following things

1.) We need to be able to create these items, especially for the low level ideas please make sure it's something that could be done in bulk
2.) Goblin stamp type items are OKAY but should not be the focus of the fundraising
3.) The price/donation level needs to be high enough that we can pay our crafters, buy materials, and cover the occasional mistake. (as well as Kickstarter's cut)
4.) Limited run Ideas are okay, we might offer local specials for special npcs etc at the upper ends.

Please note, we are looking at an 8+ month away timeline here.
 
I think kickstarter is a bad plan. They take a percentage of your profits for something you could run yourself. The added publicity from using that website is meaningless for this type of thing. (Look at past larp related kickstarters here) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/search?term=larp. Many kickstarters barely meet their goals. That's because if you don't, you get $0. So the kickstart-ee usually pays the last dollars (probably happened here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anstarra/the-dragons-return-larp-weekend?ref=live So, a potential outcome is you giving Kickstarter a % of your own money.

It sounds cute, but I think it's as unrealistic as Mike V.'s expectation that people are gunna buy his rules book off Amazon and decide to start playing that way.

So: Fundraiser with contribution levels = good
Kickstarter = why???
 
I think the bigger issue with using Kickstarter is that local Kickstarters often don't work very well. You have a pretty limited pool of people to donate. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but it's something to keep in mind.
 
Did anyone donate who wasn't already an Alliance Larper or Legacy (don't know what that is)? If they did, did those donations outweigh the cut that kickstarter takes? You lose 8-10% between kickstarter and amazon*, which means that HQ may have lost as much as $1200 by using Kickstarter instead of just doing it themselves. $1200 buys a SoMN style Cabin and 4 mattresses to put in it, or 1 SoMN trailer... that's a lot of money. Cost/benefit 101


*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter
 
Look at it this way: They spent money ($1,200) to make money ($11,095). Pretty standard business stuff.

They took a chance that they would reach a wider audience. No one but them can really tell if it was worth it, but clearly someone thought that it was.

Think about this too: They (and other chapters) have had PayPal links up for accepting donations for YEARS and it seems to have not paid off since they went with kickstarter. Something is doing something right...right? PayPal is a very easy, very secure, very safe way of sending money in the Mom and Pop way you're suggesting, and it hasn't worked out to this level of a response before as far as I know.

That alone tells me it was worth the $1,200.
 
Indiegogo would be way better for you, than kickstarter. I have done both, a lot. Crowd funding sites add a certain amount of legitimacy and a lot of convenience for the donor. Yeah the perks are a headache but they are incentives to donate. "What I can get 6 gobbies/dollar on the kickstarter as apposed to 4! Nice, time to break out that wallet."

I donate to crowd funding projects all the time, often just for the perks. If you have tangible perks like masks and such, you will get people from other LARPs donating just for the mask. You'd really be surprised where donations come from. Some people who will never use the perks donate to something because they think it's cool, I know I have. I have gobby equivalents in LARPs in Europe and across the country from donations. I will never use them but hey LARPers gotta stick together. My family and facebook friends donate to stuff I do, that they have no interest in, just because they like me.

Indiegogo takes a small percentage. Smaller than kickstarter. They also have an option where you get the money you raised, even if you didn't hit your goal (they take a slightly larger percentage if you don't hit your goal but 4 costumes is better than none). They transfer directly to a bank account and/or paypal, which is epic. Amazon payments are the worst. That was the reason the companies I work for moved away from Kickstarter.
 
Ya'll are focusing on the wrong part of this here, I was looking for ideas of what might bring folks value from a 'improve our over all phys rep' drive, not an argument over whether or not to kickstarter specifically.
 
I've always been a fan of Challenge Coins. I don't know that you'd pull enough people in to make it viable, though.

T-Shirts aren't a bad idea. They're cheap enough if printed in a bundle to make them worth while. Almost everyone wears them. If you get a good design, they're appealing for people outside the game. You just have to make sure you aren't spending enough on the rewards to make them not worth the pain.

I'm also pretty sure that one of the things that drove the HQ kickstarter forward was the $:Gobbie ratio. We all love to help out. But we're also a bit like dragons and like our hoards of shiny things.

Tote bags also aren't a bad idea. They're generally pretty cheap.

ETA: Many games have hundreds of photos from over the years. If you guys have a few that are really awesome/dynamic looking you might offer them as prints, with the consent of the players in the photos.
 
Challenge coins?
 
A quick google search will let you know what those are. They're basically collectible coins with some design printed on them. For example, if the larp coin minter is set up to do challenge coins/small batches of coins, you could do a gold coin with a dragon's head on one side, and a SoMN '13 Supporter on the other side.

You could do pretty much anything from http://www.cafepress.com/ (there are other options out there).

Lurin said:
Ya'll are focusing on the wrong part of this here, I was looking for ideas of what might bring folks value from a 'improve our over all phys rep' drive, not an argument over whether or not to kickstarter specifically.
Click to expand...

Hey, something important came out of that - Indiegogo is better. They cut out amazon (3-5%) and it sounds like they take a smaller chunk (less than 5%).
 
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