GooCon: Villa Ridge

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2011
It's my pleasure to announce the 2011 edition of our annual gathering, GooCon: Villa Ridge! This year, the event will be held in the suburbs of St. Louis. The most popular activities from previous years have been kept in the schedule, joined by a number of new activities this year. I can't wait! This is going to be a great time!

Moving the event to St. Louis puts it close to a lot of site users who live in the area, meaning some new faces this year. When I asked around to gauge interest, several locals already indicated that they would attend. It's my hope that those who can't make it to the entire event will still join us on the final night for a large group gathering out on the town.

The downside of moving the event out of Florida's competitive rental market is the increase in cost. This rental house is the only one I found that matches our needs, and it won't come cheap. I've eliminated several other expenditures from the budget to help, and we can cut more (like the first dinner out) if it's still too much. The first night and final night look superfluous on the schedule, but it's all about check-in and check-out times at the house; think of the house in terms of renting for the day and not for the night.

There is another option for reducing cost, which is to make this event two full days instead of three, by dropping several activities from the schedule and proceeding aggressively through the agenda each day. This would save $25-50 per person, plus the extra meal out. Please let me know if you would like us to pursue this option, especially if it would mean the difference between attending and not attending. Of course, I also want to hear from those of you who prefer to keep it a three-day event.

The sooner you register, the better choice of bed you get, so don't put it off. I hope to see you there!

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2011
We have four guests already, with the quick registration of Joanna and Justin Woods this evening. Welcome to GooCon, you two! I'm always pleased to see new guests each year.

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2011
Two more guests have joined the register: Chris Lemler and Erik Bates! The announcement has been up for less than a day and we already have more people than last year!

Some suggestions have been made in private about improving the schedule. I'm going to give it a few more days to let the announcement settle, then begin that conversation.

Scott Hardie | June 26, 2011
For anyone who has been on the fence about attending GooCon: Villa Ridge due to the high cost or the extended schedule, I'm pleased to announce that the schedule has been shortened to a two-day event at considerably lower cost, with key events saved for Friday night and Saturday if you have to work on Friday.

We're now only taking one trip out on the town, to Chinese buffet and bowling, although there's an optional breakfast on the last morning for those who feel like sticking around longer. This change will save $40-80 per person.

I set the event in St. Louis in the hopes of getting many locals to participate, so here's hoping that this entices more of you to join us, although it's totally understood if you still can't make it. My thanks to the other registered guests for helping me to work out the details of the best possible schedule.

For St. Louisans who can't attend the whole event but still want to join us for Chinese buffet and maybe bowling, exact details (address/time) will be announced in early October. Save the evening of October 22 for us!

Scott Hardie | July 19, 2011
GooCon has been moved up one week to October 13-16, so the group gathering for Chinese and bowling will be on October 15 instead. I just signed the rental lease today, so the date is definitely set from this point on.

86 days left... I have my work cut out for me. :-)

Chris Lemler | July 20, 2011
Well Scott I will be looking forward to meeting all the players and you and Kelly

Scott Hardie | July 20, 2011
Me too! I have some fun stuff planned!

The roast of Steve West is something that I have contemplated doing live at GooCon, with video submissions by those who couldn't attend in person. But the difficulty of planning an annual roast with a different subject needing to be present in person each year, and the complex logistics of getting users to submit videos in time (last year we had some apologetic last-minute cancellations and had to scramble), make it unlikely that we'll do that particular activity live.

Steve West | July 20, 2011
I'm not sure I would deserve to be honored like that. What a good idea, though. Matt would be an intriguiing possibility. I'd be happy to contribute to that one!

Scott Hardie | August 7, 2011
We have our seventh guest lined up: Jackie Mason has joined the fun! The more the merrier, and there's still room for more...

In writing about GooCon publicly and privately, I keep referring to locals as "St. Louisans," a term that I've seen online, but it occurs to me that I have no idea how appropriate it is. "Sarasotan" technically describes someone from my city, but I don't think I've ever actually heard it used in conversation. Folks from St. Louis: Is this a real term?

Erik Bates | August 8, 2011
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Chris Lemler | August 8, 2011
I agree with Erik

Erik Bates | August 8, 2011
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Scott Hardie | August 10, 2011
Now that we're getting closer to the event, I have re-arranged the schedule to optimize our time. For those of you St. Louisans (aka Straight-up Thug Gangstas) who plan to join us on the evening of Saturday 10/15, the Chinese buffet is still on, but the plan afterwards is different: You're now invited back to the house for a full round of Celebrity Goo Game Live, and if you'd like to stay even later, a movie presentation. The per-person materials cost to join us for this will be $10, likely less than you would have spent at the bowling alley in the original plan. If you love the goo game and have always wondered what it would be like to test your skills live in the same room as other players, this is your chance! I'll have more details as October draws near.

Erik Bates | August 10, 2011
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Scott Hardie | August 10, 2011
There's no web searching during the live game, at least until we all have Google-branded devices embedded in our brains. That will be, what, next year sometime?

Erik Bates | August 10, 2011
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Scott Hardie | August 29, 2011
I'm pretty sure I can book an entire hour, maybe two, of us just watching gif.tv.

Scott Hardie | October 2, 2011
Here's something you may not know: GooCon has an official soundtrack. Well, more like an official radio station. Last year, I created a Pandora station seeded with every band in Rock Block. This year, I've updated it with all bands added to the game since, and you can enjoy it yourself, even if you don't have a Pandora account. We'll have it playing in the background all weekend, and it serves nicely as a general tour of rock & roll history: It might play a few songs of indie rock, then a few of alternative, then hard rock, then heavy metal, then progressive rock, then psychedelic rock, then oldies and doo-wop, then R&B, then hip hop, etc etc, endlessly wandering through the genres and decades. Occasionally, the transition from one song to the next is jarring, but most of the time it's so smooth you don't even notice; the whole set plays amazingly well together. Enjoy it.

Jackie Mason | October 7, 2011
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