Judging at Con of the North

The one thing that makes a quality games convention are the events, and Con of the North has had a wide variety of great events of all kinds over the years thanks to our Judges and Referees. Without you, we'd have no convention. Thank you very much!

Judge or Referee?

Event GMs are a combination of volunteer and convention attendee. Some GMs spend most or all of their time at CotN running events, while others run few events and play in many. For a long time CotN Volunteers who are not going to play in or run events have not had to pay, while almost always GMs had to purchase a badge. Now we have a program for GMs who are just volunteering their time and effort to get the same treatment.

Judges are GMs who pay to attend the convention. They receive a Player and a Judge badge, and can thus play in events as well as run them. Only Judges who submit events for the Events Book receive Judge Premiums like the “$5 off or a T-Shirt” choice, Pop Vouchers, and event prizes. Also, only Judges can apply for a Theme Room. Judges can submit their events after the Events Book deadline and have their events in the Onsite Supplement.

Referees are GMs who are not going to play in any games. They do not pay to attend the convention. They recieve only a Referee badge, do not get any Premiums, and cannot apply for a Theme Room. Referees must submit their games for the Events Book to get Referee status.

Both Judges and Referees can purchase items from our Vendors and get the Convention Hotel rate. They both must follow the guidelines for attending the convention and running events, including checking for Player badges before letting people play in their events.

Survey Responses

Last year's survey asked what things our attendees would like to see or do at Con of the North. Many of those responses were event requests of some form. Those we can't fulfill directly; all of the events at CotN are run by our volunteer GMs. With that in mind, we'd like to pass along the survey responses to let you know what your fellow attendees are interested in playing or doing at the convention.

Specific Systems

AD&D First Edition, Car Wars, Carcassonne, Civilization (Computer), Clan Wars CCG, Classic Battletech, Deliria, Doomtown CCG, Flames of War, Heroscape, Neverwinter Nights (Computer), Star Wars RPG, Teenagers From Outer Space, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, Warhammer Fantasy RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Rogue Trader Tournament

General Gaming

Board Game Rental, Board Game Tournaments, Eurogames, Gaming Console Tournaments, Historical Miniatures, Historical RPGs, Introduction to Miniature Gaming (armies provided), Introduction to RPGs, LARPs, RPGA, RPGs "other than D&D or Cthulhu", Teamplay Computer/Console Tournaments

Non-Gaming Events

Art Contest, Art Show, Auction, Costume Contest, Live Music

(If you are interested in organizing one of these or any other non-game event, please contact us at info@conofthenorth.org.)

Event Submission

The deadline for getting events into the Events Book is September 6, 2008. All judges who submit their events before the deadline are eligable for either $5 off their convention registration or a t-shirt!

If you haven't run events before, we recommend reading through the full Judge's Packet, which includes news, guidelines, a graphical version of the time slot system, and more information about running events at Con of the North 2009.

Questions? Drop us a line at info@conofthenorth.org!

Online Event Submission

• Preregister with the Judge and Referee Online Registration form if you aren't already registered.
• Use the Online Event Proposal form to write up and submit each of your events.
• Feel good knowing you didn't have to mail in your events!

Mail-in Event Submission

• Download the Event Proposal Form when it is available.
• Fill it out and print a copy for each event you wish to run.
• Send the printed forms along with your registration payment to:
  Con of the North
  PO Box 20092
  Bloomington, MN 55420

Guidelines for GMs

As a Judge or Referee at Con of the North, you agree to abide by these guidelines:

• Prepare for your event before the convention.
• Begin and end your game on time.
• Be courteous and polite to all attendees.
• Make sure all players in your game have registered for Con of the North. (They must be wearing a Con of the North 2009 Player badge to play in your game.)
• Avoid unnecessary profanity, descriptions of violence, or other conduct which may offend attendees.
• Avoid excessive noise or other activities that may disrupt other games.
• Most importantly, have fun!

Theme Track Rooms

If you or your GMing group run similar games for most of the convention and you'd like a bit quieter area to run in, we have a deal for you! Submit your games in a group as a Theme Track and you could be running them in the relative quiet of a converted sleeping room on the same floor as the convention.

To apply for a Theme Track Room, you or your GMing group must:

• Come up with a name for your theme. It could be simple like "Cthulhu" or somewhat more descriptive like "Superhero League of Minnesota".
• Run at least 28 hours of events that fit your theme.
• Submit all of your events together by the events deadline along with the Theme Track Proposal Form or a short note listing a primary contact, theme name, theme events, GM name(s), and any special requests for your theme room.
• Have all of your GMs register for the convention, preferably when submitting the Track request.

If approved, your theme track will be listed in the front of the Events Book and marked accordingly in the event listings. At the convention, you will receive a single table in one of the sleeping rooms of the second floor of the hotel. (That's the same floor as most of the convention.) You will also receive keys for that room. While running your theme events you may close the door most of the way but not latch it; all events must be accessible to other attendees and convention or hotel staff. When not running events, you may lock the door. All Con of the North and Holiday Inn rules apply to your events as they would to any other event.

Con of the North reserves the right to reject any theme track proposal. We will attempt to contact your primary contact to let you know the results of your proposal. If rejected and not stated otherwise in the proposal or when contacted, your events will be scheduled normally. There is a limited number of these rooms available, so submit your proposal soon!

Group Table Assignments

If your group typically runs a number of events that either vary in size or in specific event being run, ask us about setting up a group HQ instead of scheduling your group's tables. We'll give you a number of tables for the weekend and you can arrange them as needed for your events!

We hope to have more information posted on the website soon; for now send an email to info@conofthenorth.org if you are interested.

Judge Packets and Forms

Downloads

• Event Proposal Form - Without the instructions, letter, and reference pages. This Acrobat Form is all ready for you to type in your info!
• Theme Track Proposal Form - For those who would like to request a theme room.
• Judge Packet - Includes instructions for filling out the form, Timeslot system, CotN 2009 reference sheet, and a quick update on the convention. This is exactly as mailed, which means it's not an Acrobat form.
• New Info, Theme Track, and Referee Flyer - New items for this year as well as descriptions of Theme Tracks, Judges, and Referees.

Online

• Online Judge and Referee Registration - Complete with online payment options!
• Online Event Proposal - You can submit your events online even if mailing your payment!

Form Printing Help

Con of the North's PDF files require at least Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 to use correctly, but we recommend using Adobe Reader 6.0.1 or higher. You can get the latest version of Reader from Adobe's Download Adobe Reader page. Our forms are done as Acrobat Forms, which you can fill out in Reader before printing.

When printing these files to Letter-size paper we recommend turning off Acrobat's page scaling options. In Reader 6's Print dialog, look for "Page Scaling" and set it to "None".

If the form doesn't print correctly and you have it open in Internet Explorer, try saving the PDF file to your machine and opening it directly in Reader. You can save the PDF file by right-clicking the link to the form and selecting "Save Target As...". (This is a known issue with IE and Acrobat/Adobe Reader.)

Still can't get the form to work? Please contact us at info@conofthenorth.org. If possible, include your OS version, Acrobat version, printer model (if printing), and what form you were using along with what went wrong. We want to help you!