The Journey of a Successful Video Game Media Convention

Thomas Spargo

Gamer’s Rhapsody is a video game convention held in Bloomington, MN. The second annual convention was in November 2015 and celebrated video games and their creation through live performances of video game music; panels and workshops. Thomas Spargo, founder of Gamer’s Rhapsody will talk about the convention, reviewing some of the aspects that were sucessful. Additionally, he will discuss the process of starting a business in Minnesota along with project management principles. Whether it’s a game, an event, or a brand new business, a structured project management plan helps to keep any type of project on course and reaching milestones.

Thomas is a recent Augsburg College graduate in marketing and business analytics. In college, he started Gamer’s Rhapsody video game convention taking place annually in the late fall along with a Knexus LLC, an event planning and consultation group. Thomas has been planning large scale events for over 6 years.

Midwest Game Jam Recap

Beth Korth

Victory at a game jam can mean different things to different people. David has a decade of experience building games at game jams and will be sharing a special selection of games and his experiences developing them. He’ll cover selecting and grooming a game concept, how to prevent scope creep, and how to work effectively with a team you just met.

Beth Korth is one of the organizers for IGDATC and an advocate for our community. She features local devs in her Ask An Indie series at TECHdotMN and led the organization of the first Midwest Game Jam.

Beth will give a short recap of the Midwest Game Jam which occurred November 21-22. She’ll talk about how it came to be, the games made, lessons learned, and plans for future jams. For more information on the jam, check out the website (http://midwestgamejam.org/).

Play the games here (http://jams.gamejolt.io/midwestgamejam/games).