Last week, we covered where you could potentially hold your event. This week, we’ll look at organising the mats and terrain for your event.

This is potentially the most difficult aspect of organising an event, as the average gamer may only have access to a single tables worth of terrain.  But fear not! There’s various options here.

Option 1: Venue provided

If you’re holding the event at a wargaming shop that has a space you can use, it’s likely having their own tables they’ll also have terrain, mats, and tables you may use. But first check whether the use of this terrain is included in the venue hire price. They may offer this as an additional charge on top of the venue hire. If they do so, you’ll need to estimate how many tables you need and split this hire cost across the tables so that you include the overhead charge in your ticket price.

Option 2: Ask another TO

If you’ve attended other tournaments, you may know a friendly TO who you could ask for some help. We’ve done this ourselves in the past. We’ve asked the awesome Savage Hammer gaming for help, who kindly let us hire enough terrain and mats to cover 16 tables. TO’s who regularly run events gradually build up their mats and terrain collection, and most are more than willing to help out fellow organisers. Always remember to think about the cost of this rental and to split it over the potential number of tickets you’re selling.

For example, if we’re hiring Battlefield Hobbies for £5 per person per day, that’s a charge of £10 per ticket. If you’re then adding a rental charge of say £200 for terrain and mats from a TO, you’ll need to split that across your potential ticket sales. So, our example last week was 24 players. That £200 across 24 players will equate to a charge of £8.33 per ticket.

That would bring our total overheads to £18.33 per ticket at the moment.

Option 3: Ask for help from your local gaming club/community

This option is perhaps the most common. If you’re part of a regular wargaming club, it may be worth asking the club and the players that are attending for help with providing the mats and terrain. It would be polite to offer a little money to players helping out in this way or a discount on the tickets if they’re planning to attend themselves.

Things to remember

In all of these options, you’ll need to know how many tables of mats and terrain you can get together so that you can plan the number of tickets you’re selling.

Remember to keep track of any costs you may have incurred to include it on your ticket price.

Our Example

Estimated player numbers: 24

Venue fee: £5 per person, per day

Food: £5 per person, per day

Mats and Terrain: £200

OVERHEAD COSTS PER TICKET

Venue: £10
Food: £10
Mats & Terrain: £8.33
Total Overheads so far: £28.33

Next week, we’ll look at possible Trophies you may want to include and the Costa around these.