[arg_discuss] ARGFest needs your help

[Brooke Thompson]

Hi all!

Just wanted to give you a quick heads up on ARGFest. Yes, it's months  
and months away, but we're in the process of building the foundation  
of ARGFest 2010 and looking to the greater ARG community to help us  
out. Currently, there are two big chunks out there: Location & Website.

Location:
As you may be aware, ARGFest has always been a roving conference. This  
gets harder and harder to do the bigger we get (and boy do we have  
plans for 2010!). To make the process easier, we've formalized the  
location proposal bit and have been asking people to provide us with a  
lot of information on various cities. In part, this shows us that  
there are people invested in the location and let's us know what the  
ground team will look like. But it's also designed to show us some of  
the resources that we can draw on and use - even more important this  
year as there (may be! we hope!) a game festival as part of ARGFest.  
If you think your city would be an outstanding host, please consider  
submitting a proposal! If it's not chosen for 2010, it'll certainly  
help us get a head start on a location for 2011.

Website:
We're making an effort this year to reach out beyond the ARG community  
and want a shiny new website to help us out with that. The goal is to  
have it launched by the end of October and we've issued a design  
challenge to help us out with that. If you're a web or graphic  
designer, please consider submitting something. We'd love your help  
with this! Design comps are due by the end of this month and we'll  
make a quick decision and then work with the designer (or team) to get  
it built and launched by the end of next month.

More info on both are located on our site: http://www.argfest.com and,  
of course, you can contact me directly.

And finally, I'd really like to encourage you all to get involved.  
We're still in the organizational stage, but we'll have lots of  
opportunities (and needs!) throughout the year as we pull this  
together. One volunteer need that I'm rather eager to fill is someone  
with PR experience. Also fundraising - with the addition of a game  
festival, we'll have some great opportunities for sponsors which is  
good, because as ARGFest grows, so do our costs. So, if you've got  
experience with either of those and want to help out, let's talk! And  
if you don't have experience with those, don't be shy! We've got lots  
to do. Maybe not right away, but trust me... we're gonna need your  
help :)

Brooke