I live in a medium-size city with several gaming stores hosting casual games once a week or once every two weeks. Also, together these stores host store tournaments every one or two months. The players are mostly knit together by a moderated Facebook group, with another Facebook page out there as well.

Most of the initiative for happenings are either from the store employees or an enthused volunteer with some measure of recognition from FFG. There's also the guy who runs the Facebook group, though I'm not sure what he does other than confirm new members of the Facebook group. I don't think I've met him in person.

This all seems very ad hoc. That might be good, but I wonder if there are also ways of organizing the local community in order to improve the game-playing experiences.

What are your situations and experiences in this regard?

Portland is a medium sized city?

Yeah, Portland is over a half million people. Not many city's in the US reach over that.

You just have to give people a reason to gather to play. Hold Events and get the word out and people will come. The hard part is being the one who runs thing usually means you don't get to play in them.

Keep a consistent schedule for your events, like first Saturday of every month. This will allow people to get use to the idea the event will always happen and will count on it.

Portland is a medium sized city?

You don't think so? If I were to say 'big city', I would think New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio.

EDIT: scratch that. San Antonio is the biggest small town in the United States. [/aside]

Live in Ann Arbor, with Get Your Game On and Fun For All being the two stores. Get Your Game On seems to prioritize other games, with a lot of shelf space devoted to Games Workshop products, and video games. They have a selection of like 5-6 different types of ships though. Fun for all is a card and comic book store, with lots of space devoted to MTG and all things comic related. However, behind the counter is like 5-10 of each ship on the wall, they have a good selection. They also seem to have more things going on there, with half the store devoted to a game area.

Live in Ann Arbor, with Get Your Game On and Fun For All being the two stores. Get Your Game On seems to prioritize other games, with a lot of shelf space devoted to Games Workshop products, and video games. They have a selection of like 5-6 different types of ships though. Fun for all is a card and comic book store, with lots of space devoted to MTG and all things comic related. However, behind the counter is like 5-10 of each ship on the wall, they have a good selection. They also seem to have more things going on there, with half the store devoted to a game area.

Okay, but what is the structure of the community? do games happen when people just happen to be at the store? Do people just play casually within their own circle of friends?

The Sacramento area is also very ad-hoc. I'm working with one of the stores to put together a league in an effort to unify some of it.

Most game stores that support X-wing have a regular league night, and often also have a tourney every month or two. There's usually something going on in the Portland / Vancouver area. Dice Age, Red Castle, and Rainy Day all have regular events.

You don't think so? If I were to say 'big city', I would think New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio.

EDIT: scratch that. San Antonio is the biggest small town in the United States. [/aside]

I thought it was fairly large the last time I was there.

You don't think so? If I were to say 'big city', I would think New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio.

EDIT: scratch that. San Antonio is the biggest small town in the United States. [/aside]

I thought it was fairly large the last time I was there.

Well, it hasn't gotten smaller, to my knowledge.

I guess it all depends on your sense of scale. If you really insist, I'll edit my OP to read: 'medium-to-large size city'

As CatPeeler said, the Portland area has a pretty thriving community. I run most of the events at Dice Age Games in Vancouver. Our regular night is Tuesdays and our tournaments are always on Saturdays. With the other places in the area there is a pretty good spread of organized play. Most have their regular night that is different for each store so anyone should be able to find a place with games going on on any given weeknight, though it might require travel. I try to have a Saturday tournament/organized event at least every other month. Next one is looking like August 9th.

Not sure exactly how you'd suggest going about making it more organized?

Jim

Your description already indicates that you've got a solid community with regular events going on. What more do you need?

As CatPeeler said, the Portland area has a pretty thriving community. I run most of the events at Dice Age Games in Vancouver. Our regular night is Tuesdays and our tournaments are always on Saturdays. With the other places in the area there is a pretty good spread of organized play. Most have their regular night that is different for each store so anyone should be able to find a place with games going on on any given weeknight, though it might require travel. I try to have a Saturday tournament/organized event at least every other month. Next one is looking like August 9th.

Not sure exactly how you'd suggest going about making it more organized?

Jim

Your description already indicates that you've got a solid community with regular events going on. What more do you need?

I'm not really sure. By and large, our community really does thrive, and I'm quite happy with it.

I'm just curious if other communities have some added value from greater integration.

I will confess, however, that I would like something more than endless 6-asteroid-100-point-Death-Matches. Yet, with the community as it is, the 6-asteroid-100-point-Death-Match is the default style of play. To get something richer going would require a bit more organization, I think.

My town is only 24000 people, our local council area is only around <80 000. some towns over here have less than 20 people. that being said we are trying to grow all our miniatures and x-wing communities, and there was a regional comp held in our area in neighbouring town approx. 1 1/2 hrs. away. Some our our guys went and placed not to bad for their first x-wing tournament.

Some of us organise private matches from time to time. Two of us played our first Epic Match this week. I lost, but it was fun and we shall probably do this again some time.

My town has about 15000 people in it total, 3 of them x-wing players who show up to the local game store for any event. We hope to bring in more, but so far, interest seems to go more towards Attack Wing

I could see trying to get a huge mega-game scheduled over at Critical Sip (the bar inside Guardian Games). 1000 points per side or something, big ships galore.