So, I just got back from the Casual game night that I have been pouring my efforts into since November - the holidays kind of messed around with our schedule, and we were bi-weekly, but since the turn of the new year I switched us to weekly and the payout has been amazing with the small bit of promotion I have been doing here and there to draw new players in. (Had our largest turn-out tonight! WHOO!)

Tonight, I had a really cool special guest though. He was from Holland. And he brought his X-Wing gear and rolled some dice with us tonight. I know he is on the forums, and may see this post, (so if he does, say "hi!") but I just wanted to throw it out there that I was totally floored and honored to have him come find us while he was on break from his work that brought him to the Denver area.

Last week we had someone from the Virginia area (I pointed him in your direction NoVa Squad for a local meta), and it has just been a really cool experience to play with people outside of the meta since they sometimes will fly different lists since everyone has their own local meta!

I know it's not likely to happen often, but our recent visits made me curious: has anyone else had a cool special guest for their game night join them?

I had a visitor from the Singapore meta, a very nice gentlemen, we had some good games, it was nice to host, and I made a friend that I can hopefully one day visit and play against in Singapore

We haven't really had a gest like that here in my local gaming group in Sweden.

However, when I and the family went to Florida on vacation for three weeks, I brought an X-Wing squad and attended a monthly tournament at the Coliseum of Comics in Kissimmee. There I met Tim Wright, their local organizer, and a few local players and had a blast. Two months later they held one of the US's Regionals. Next time I need to plan my vacation accordingly...

The fact that I won the tournament and got some store credit to buy the Rebel Transport as it was released while we were there was just more awesome!

what kind of "Promotions" have you been doing? just want to know so I/we can do that at our LGS? and what works or doesn't? fortunately we are near an AFB and the Airforce is generally loaded with geeks.. matter of fact ALL of our players are Air force or Air force retired..

We have flyers for our local group in the two stoes we play in. They are placed next to where the X-Wing toys are in teh store so anyone buying ships will see it.

I'm just excited that I'm getting more irregulars showing up each week. The best game store in the area is on the worst side of traffic for most people, so a lot don't make it out. Well, I've been working on getting people to play each week. I've started a Facebook group for the city that has players at numerous stores involved. We are almost at 40 players now. I've gotten people who show up every now and again more often. There is one guy who makes it every week now. He even bought his own minis! It's starting to get there.

I should probably create a poster/sign for the gaming bulletin board. Any good Star Wars recruitment posters out there I can use?

I hadn't thought about making propaganda posters either. Definitely interested in what others use.

Just google Star Warrs Recruitment Poster and there are a ton!

Made some here:

I have not hung any posters, but that is because the store I play at the guys who work there will promote the game if they end up talking about it to a customer.

I have used the regional group for Colorado X-Wing to promote the store at first, then moved onto the Store's Facebook "game group," then moved onto the OP forums here to keep people updated who do not use the Facebook (there are a lot out there who do not use it), and yesterday I also found the subreddit for DenverGamers and made a post there too.

I have been religious in making sure I reply to EVERYTHING and make sure to keep all players updated to the best of my ability. If odd numbers of players show up to a game night, I sit out for the first round or so, making sure everyone that came, gets the chance to play so they do not feel like their time was wasted (I generally have a friend over to my place for a game here and there to keep my levels of gaming up too). Our meta here is fairly large here in the Denver area, so I have been very fortunate with that too. Oh, and if you say you will be there - BE THERE. Do not skip showing up even if you expect no one. I showed up at the start with a few of the weeks by the holidays where no one came along. I hung out for 30min-1 hour just hanging out in case something changed.

I know a lot of the things i listed are common sense and have been stated before - but these are the things I have done so far to generate interest. Our store championship is also sold out with 26 or 28 people, with 5-10 people on a waitlist. Get the info out there, and be patient. I personally staggered my postings so I could manage growth accordingly - unknowingly to myself until I realized it yesterday, but I think doing so really helped. It allowed me to focus on smaller groups at a time, especially important if you have newer players showing up who may not know the game very well, so they are not overwhelmed easily, and you can ensure they have fun. With nearly 6 waves on the table, there is a lot going on these days.

Anyhow, back to class.

You guys in Denver have been killing it recently. The scene in the Springs has fizzled a bit post-holidays, but with Championship dates announced, hopefully it picks back up.

I'm taking a trip to London/Edinburgh in July, and I hope to find room in my luggage for a list or two for a similar experience. I'll also be in Rochester, MN in June (an hour south of the cities), so hopefully I can make a trip up to FFG to say hi.

For those who have traveled and found a game, what advice would you give?

Alex Davy (Co lead designer of X-Wing) is going to be doing a Q&A at our store championship at Paradox Comics n Cards in Fargo, ND.

Alex is apparently from Fargo and grew up gaming at Paradox so the owner contacted him and asked him to come talk to us during our store championship.

I'm pretty excited.

For me, it was fun to play against Siggi (of Outer Rim Smugglers fame) and the Icelandic crew when I was vacationing out there. They were super welcoming and let me borrow their ships and everything.

As for locally, had a visitor from Minneapolis just before Worlds and then met him again when I went to Worlds. That was fun!

Conan O'Brien was a guest at our X-Wing game... Actully if that were true I would A)Actully have fun playing game although he would act like he does during "clueless gamer." B) Even then the game would be much more fair since the matches I play are based on equal number of ships type games instead of equal ammount of points. I actully havent played in months.

Made some here:

Can i mooch these? as in make copies. those are cool.. got a file i could use?

I could send you the file, but I really just googled "star wars recruitment poster" and looked at the images. There are a TON.

Here are the links of the ones I used:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a4/d6/b5/a4d6b56a0d737f9a5fa797f1b8ae554c.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/07/fa/ca/07faca6f5c9ad1a9f25f26f4a8e7b814.jpg

I put them up last night. There are 3 regulars now each week. When we have tournaments, we have 20+, but we are on the wrong side of rush hour traffic for many. Trying to draw people in.

I was working out in CA for a couple weeks at a time, so I packed enough ships and all the needed accessories to play a couple different lists in a Plano tray/box and put it in my carry on. I definitely google/facebook searched for stores in the area before I went though, to find the "normal" gaming nights. I also played in one of their tournaments & got 3rd or 4th. Overall had lots of fun in Bakersfield, CA at Otto's.

I am looking forward to being able to go back to home myself and bring my X-Wing stuff to play with the guys in NoVa Squadron when I'm home later this summer. It's too bad my times home don't coincide with any of the big tournaments the group has begun to coordinate!

Made some here:

Yeah these images are super sweet. I would totally use something like that if there was space at the local gaming store. I would almost consider hanging them up on my campus to drag people in.

Hi! :-)

Actually before Wednesday evening I had already visited the Wizards chest on a couple occasions. I bought my falcon, firespray and a couple of other expansions there. Great store, friendly staff and gamers! I'll definitely be back, hopefully in the near future. I had a blast playing you guys and everyone was really friendly and welcoming. See you soon!