Let the Gaming begin!! Wooohooo!

As you all know, the first MOTD MINI Monte Carlo Night was a wonderful success! The PittStop MINI Club LOVED hosting this terrific event and we are extremely excited and proud to annouce that we are going to be bringing you the 2nd annual MOTD MINI Monte Carlo Night in 2008!!

We would love to hear from everyone about interest in the event. Please post here to let us know if you are interested in attending (no worries, this isn't a committment - just getting an early idea about interest to help with planning.)

We would also love to hear your comments and suggestions on how we can make this year even better!

Monte Carlo at the Dragon here we come!!! Wheeeeeee!! :D

 

I'm in. More tables, bigger space. That's all I can think of.

 

First: A much, much larger room. Second: More tables so all who come can have a chance to gamble. Third: More a/c - It was HOT in there. Fourth: Don't have it on the same night as the Midnight Run.

 

Robin and I are in. Like the others said, more tables and space. Robin said to make sure you bring back the same DJ!!

 

Yay! Wonderful to hear the interest and we appreciate the feedback. Please keep it coming! We are planning on doing everything you all mentioned.

- Definitely a Larger room (probably the adventure center, but not sure yet)

- More gaming tables (The first year was conservative, we had to see if everyone would like it. This event is expensive to pull off because of all the table rentals and staffing.)

- We will do our best about the heat. The AC was cranking last year, but still didn't keep the room cool. We are hoping a larger space will help make it cooler.

- We are planning to use the same event company and definitely asking for the same DJ (he was sooooo good!! )

- MINI Monte Carlo night is on Thursday night now! We have officially scheduled it with Mark. (This wasn't a possibility last year because it would have conflicted with the welcome dinner and everyone is typically quite tired the first day of arrival. Since MOTD is extended and the first night is on Wednesday, Thursday is now open! Yay!!)

 

I'm so glad to hear it's Thursday night. I think that's a perfect fit for the event.

 

I'm in, with my wife this year, and likely my brother and sister in law will be coming as well!

 

im so there

 

I didn't make your first Monte Carlo Night but I'm sure gonna hit the second one. Count me in.

 

This was alot of fun last year. I wasn't able to get a seat at any of the Blackjack tables all night, so I think that more space is a must, but Roulette was fun and the DJ was great!

Count me in for next year!

 

yeah it rocked.. and im glad to see it on thursday!!!!

 

If I make it to MOTD again, I will certainly be there for MC Night!

 

We will be there!! Had a blast last year and wouldn't miss it. I'm not sure how it could be done but maybe set some kind of limit on how long you can be at a table. I know there were several people that didn't have a chance to play some of the games at all and there were others that were at the same table all night. Maybe with a larger room and more tables that won't be an issue though.

 

I totally agree with doing something to encourage people to cycle around the tables....

Maybe there is a way to do it that won't feel like a "limit"?

-A raffle specific to each kind of game to encourage people to play at least once at every table to get the special raffle entry.
-door prize-y games that don't take gambling money, along the lines of what the DJ does (fun) but which are not related to the gaming prizes, but also encourage people to cycle around to qualify for other prizes.
-Progressively ordered tables, so the newbies can play with newbies and the experts can play with "contendahs"...

These are just brainstorming ideas, anyone got some more?

 

My daughter and I will definately be back! Agree with all the suggestions, had a great time and a little more space and A/C would be welcome.

 

It was a great change of pace! There were 4 of us who went and we had a great time. I agree with many of the people above about the size of the room, more tables, and AC. I still use my red cups all the time (gotta have those again!) The prizes that you all gave away were amazing! I will be there again for sure.

 

Thank you everyone for the wonderful feedback! It is extremely appreciated.

We have some Good news:

The DJ from last year has been officially booked! Wooohoo!

We are going to be hosting MCN in the tent this year, so there will be plenty of room.

We also have what may be some "bad" news:

Since we didn't know how the event would be received, last year, we did things as minimally as possible, which resulted in a shortage of gaming tables. This year we want to eliminate that issue and we would really appreciate your feedback on how much this event is looking like it will cost.

If we significantly increase the amount of tables - Yay!! We will also be looking at a significant increase in costs - Booooo!. We are going to work on securing as much sponsorship as possible to help with the cost, but right now we are staring at a cost of approximately $55.00 per person - that's purely to cover our costs. This event is unique with costs because of all the tables etc.. and professional staffing that are required to pull it off and bringing all those tables etc.. and staffing to Fontana.

We would like to provide MCN in an ideal setting with plenty of tables, entertainment, terrific prizes, a cool favor and swag bag for all guests, and an open bar - but that comes with a large price tag. How do you feel about a maximum of $55.00 per person? (We are working on securing sponsorship to reduce this cost, but we need a starting point.) Is that a price you are willing to pay for the event to be done with all the features we want to include? Or do you consider it way too high and prefer we make reductions in the event to lower the cost?

Our biggest options for reducing costs are:

1. Reducing the number of tables & staffing (which nobody seems to want)

2. Having a cash bar but providing two free drink tickets to everyone who attends.

3. Having a purely cash bar.

Please let us know your thoughts to help us decide which direction to take our planning.

Thanks so much!!!

Pamalalalalalala

PS: We are strongly considering NOT doing a t-shirt for MCN this year. What are your thoughts on this?

 

If it helps with cost I would think strickly cash bar would be the way to go. If people want to have a drink, let them pay for it and the ones that don't drink or want to drink don't have that expense.

I would really hate not getting a t-shirt!

Can

 

$55 would actually make me not want to go. As much money as it cost just to go to North Carolina that is a lot of extra money.
I think if you want a big turn out you need to lower the cost. I like the idea of a cash bar to help lower the cost.
I didn't get a shirt last year, so it wouldn't bother me to not have that as an option this year.

 

i hate to say this, since im a drinker, but a cash bar only makes sense to me

 

If we make it to MotD 08 then we'll DEFINITELY be going to Monte Carlo Night
$55 would be a lot, but based on how much fun we had last year (and with sponsorship possibly dropping the price) then I'd still be in for 2 tickets (I would just skip something else )
T-Shirts would be missed, I don't know what the costs involved are, but maybe a pre-sale of shirts could help with some of the costs??

Just my 2¢

 

Go with the cash bar. I doubt not having an open bar will deter people. After all they're there to play/gamble, not get loaded. $55 is steep for a single event and would probably hurt your overall numbers. That's not to say it isn't worth the price charged but many of us come to MOTD on a budget.

I also say ditch the swag bags and favor if price remains an issue. People would probably rather have more tables and more playing time than party favors and bags.

 

Thank you all so much for the feedback - please keep it coming.

I was afraid people would be very against having a cash bar, but this is really giving me hope. Maybe the best route to take is to throw the event with the idea of having a cash bar, which will have us landing more in the $40 -$45 per person range before sponsor dollars. We will make sure non-alcholic beverages are available to everyone at no charge.

Maybe we are jumping on not having t-shirts too soon, Drillslinger brings up a good point with the pre-sales - we are going to have the event available to sign up at the same time registration is launched this year, where as last year, we were much later getting started. There are always a ton of t-shirts at MOTD, we thought maybe people were sick of them, but it seems, people are fans. Maybe we can at least make them an option and see how they sell. - Thanks Drillslinger

The swag bags don't really have a cost except for the bags and MINI of Pittsburgh was generous enough to donate them last year - hopefully they will consider doing so again this year. The favor is only a couple dollars per person. I would like to put that at the bottom of the list for cutting. It's really cool and we think everyone will love it. If you wanna find out what it is, you gotta be there!

Keep your ideas and input coming! Thank you!!

Pamala

 

For us, attending in 2007 was a last minute decision, but it was one of our favorite events. (I think we bought tickets/shirts from Pamala at the get-together after the Welcome Dinner.) As we left the gaming room that night, we were hoping this event would be back in 2008.

Looking at $55 per person had us debating whether to attend--but in all honesty we would probably still attend. The $40-$45 range pretty well removes all doubt for us. As people have stated previously, a cash bar to help with the event costs sounds good and Drillslinger's idea with the shirts is an excellent suggestion.

I agree with the need for a way to have people moving around to allow more people to get to the tables. More tables will definitely help, but at the same time, more people will be attending than last year so the same problem could occur. A 'poll' to get an idea of possible attendees before the event sounds like the best way to determine turnout. But then you would need to be careful about selling additional tickets at MOTD before Monte Carlo night or there is a possibility to have more people than space again. I've been trying to come up with a suggestion to help with this issue, but haven't come up with anything better than what has already been mentioned.

 

Thanks for your comments Mishka. I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed the event so much too.

The space/table issue will be addressed this year regardless of the number of attendees. Last year we weren't able to afford the recommended amount of tables by the event company. We didn't know how the event would be received or how many people would show up and we couldn't take the risk on that much of a financial loss. We are feeling confident (due to the tremendous positive feedback) that the event will sell out online this year, so we are taking a deep breath and going with the number of tables they recommend for the number of guests. We are considering going with a 500 person limit (a little more than double the guests we had last year).

The tent gives us a ton of more space and we can go up to 1,000 people but we can't make that type of financial commitment to the event company without knowing we would sell out for sure. It's also quite intimidating to jump from a little over 200 guests to 1,000 - yikes! I think we will start with the 500 when registration opens and see how it tickets sell. If they go quickly then maybe we can increase the number of tickets - the event company would have to be agreeable to us doing that, they would have to be able to staff it with shorter notice.

We have a much earlier start to plans this year, people are aware of and loved the event, and tickets will be available at the same time registration is this year. With the type of numbers we are looking at, we need to have presales to be able to cover expenses. We would love to have it be a completely open event, but there isn't a way for the event company to prepared on that basis.

As the event grows, we will also need more volunteers to take care of our guests. Not having sales at the door will really help cut down on time in line to get into the event. We are also going to streamline how some other things are handled this year like having a stationary drink ticket table (even with a cash bar, Fontana wants us to use tickets) and a separate table for people to pick up t-shirts if we have them (which we are leaning that way again thanks to Drillslinger ). We want to make it faster for people to get through line and get to playing.