How are folks handling product distribution at their prereleases, particularly midnight events? We generally get the full capacity of 88 for our 12:01 am events, and we want to ensure that all 88 people receive the correct color pack so we can begin as quickly as possible, without passing anything out before the Wizards-sanctioned distribution time. This time, we're going to try a few things to speed things up:

• Players check in when they arrive and receive a “ticket” that notes their assigned color (for most players, their first choice, but for a few, their second or whatever they're assigned if they stated no preference). The TO will ask all the “greens” to hold up their ticket, we'll run around and trade green boxes for green tix, then “reds” etc.
  
• We're not using WER-assigned seating for build. We've done this in the past and received a lot of complaints - players come to these to build with their friends and to discuss the new cards, and get grumpy about sitting with strangers. It's especially been a problem for families. Cheating has not been a problem at this store.
  
• Judge announcements at 11:50 pm. While we'll have a few stragglers coming in while the HJ is talking, it'll let us say “You may open your packs and begin construction!” as soon as they're passed out, rather than having people fidget during announcements.
  

That's pretty much it - anyone have any tips to run things faster? The event is four rounds, so we want to get folks out the door by about 5:00 am so they can get a few hours of sleep before coming back for the noon event.

I played at a Theros pre-release while visiting Virginia, and they used tickets. I understand my local shop had some logistics issues, so I'm definitely suggesting something similar this round.

Open the packets ahead of time, and sort them by color. Seat the players by color preference as well. Now you don't have to mess around with giving the right color to the right person, everyone in a certain area will be the same. That should speed up distribution times. This also makes people sit with new friends, as they already have something in common with each other. This does prevent families sitting together, which can be an issue, but for the midnight prerelease, there should be very few new players, so most will know at least a few other people. Also, since the players have something extra in common (they all love playing with a certain color) they are more likely to help out others with deckbuilding.

Alternatively, put your clock 5 minutes slow. Start distributing the packs 5 minutes ‘early’, and let all players open at ‘exactly’ midnight.

Hello,
When a player signs up we give them a seating ticket (table number with seat 1 or 2). This is where they are to sit when we start to muster. They also get a ticket that indicates what pack they want. We have an amount of them equal to the number we have to use. When the stack is empty we are unable to service that faction anymore.

This works really really well. We can have people in their seats a little prior to start time and this speeds things up a lot.

There will be 2 or 3 of us going around with one of the factions at a time which makes this very quick. They trade us the cards for their packs.

This allows people that signed up together to sit together as well. We don't really have a problem with people that want to move (this is very few people that wanna swap if any)

Thanks
-Ryan

As hinted at before, one of the things my events worries about is color (or faction) distribution. If everyone wants X in the first event of the weekend, then no one can get X in later events.

The way we've handled this is to open only enough color or faction cases to handle the current event. So if our event is 88 players, we'd open 18 of the 5-colors cases (90 players worth). That little bit of overage allows some flexibility, without punishing players in later events.

Generally speaking, our players are understanding enough of both player's desires for specific things and our attempt to share the wealth across many events that they play along pretty well. Some people will wind up with second-choice colors, but very few have to go for a third choice.

Charisma and training your players to not be jerks helps. :D

I know for my THS Pre-Release we just used a simple sign-in roster when they paid. They'd indicate their chosen color, and secondary choice, if it came to that. Then when it came to distribution, we had all of the people who signed up for white line up to collect. When they all got their product and sat back down, we repeated the process down the color pie. Once everyone had their product, then we gave our speech and then let them open up. No assigned seating.

Greetings…

What we've done at my FLGS is:
- We have players sign up via a registration slip. On the registration slip, we ask them to note first/second/third color choice.

- As we get the registration slips, we put them in color piles so we keep track of how many want a specific color. If the a pile reaches it's maximum, we announce it (no more first choice options); any that we've already collected with that color as first choice start getting second choice.

- When we are ready to start the event, we call players up by color (“all of those that are Born of Red, come collect your boxes!”); we double-check through the registration slips that they filled out. If someone is bounced out of their primary color, we can give them their secondary color right then.

This had worked for us at all the events which require “color choice”; we've only run out of a specific color twice, and all the players tend to be happy about how we handle it.

At the non-midnight release, we also generally stack the boxes in plain view; this way the players know whether they can expect to get their first choice or not.

Until that time…

Hi all,

We are using a quite similar method, but here it is as well:

-Preregistration starts the Monday before the events. We ask players what color they want, and they can choose only one. We check off on a “color list” every registration made and make sure our expected stock is not exceded.

-On the day of the event, players are not allowed into the actual gaming area before we are ready to distribute the products. If your area is not large enough for this, you probably won't have a problem in distributing by color any way. Players are asked to enter the gaming area one color at a time. Their seating numbers have already been posted, so the players can check their seats before this time. The product is placed in their hand, and the players are seated.

-Problems in our system arise when someone wants to change colors between registering and the event.
Our solution is to as everyone that wants to change colors to wait until all five colors have been distributed, and then they can come and choose a new color of the once we didn't run out off.

Have a great prerelease weekend!

At our last event we printed off a number of tickets for each colour equal to the number of packs we had. When people pre-register they pick the ticket they want. If that colour was sold out, everyone knew it was sold out. At the event you turn in your ticket for your colour. If you lose your ticket, sorry, but you get last pick.

Being a physical token, if someone wanted to switch colours, or trade with someone else, it was super easy.

Originally posted by John Carter:

The way we've handled this is to open only enough color or faction cases to handle the current event. So if our event is 88 players, we'd open 18 of the 5-colors cases (90 players worth). That little bit of overage allows some flexibility, without punishing players in later events.

Generally speaking, our players are understanding enough of both player's desires for specific things and our attempt to share the wealth across many events that they play along pretty well. Some people will wind up with second-choice colors, but very few have to go for a third choice.

John, I'm so glad I'm not the only one that does this! I give additional fun things out that are based upon the number of wins each color gets at the end of each event so having one event with all of the ‘white’ players would really be imbalanced. Taking pre-registrations for colors to give players a better chance to get their first choice has also increased the number of pre-registered players so I can be better prepared for each event!

At about 11:50 I ask players to get seated and start going over announcements. I give players a chance to ask questions about any cards or interactions then at exactly midnight I start handing out the packs, in order of registration. Players get their pack and are told not to open it until I let them. At this time, the players are discussing what they are hoping to get and possible combos. It usually only takes about 5-10 minutes to get everyone their packs (this is for a 50-75 player event).

This has worked really well since I put it into placed with RTR.