Military players reviewing their options at First Contact: 2035. Credit: Very Large Huge Games

Want to run a megagame but have no idea how? You’re in the right place! Written by Megagame Assembly’s Chris, this is everything you need to know in one guide, which does make it incredibly long. If you’d prefer to see smaller, easier to digest articles, check out the links below:

Parts 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 are all available right now.

You’ve seen the legendary Shut Up & Sit Down video and decided to run a megagame, whether that’s one of your own designs, adding to and changing one of the free megagames listed on our site, or you’ve purchased a licence to run one that you found on our ready-made megagames page.

You have an exciting journey ahead of you!

Running a megagame is a hard but ultimately extremely rewarding experience. After recently helping to run First Contact: 2035 - a 200 player megagame about alien arrival - I thought I now have some experience which I can use to help other first-time organisers.

A quick side-note before we get into the advice proper. If this is your first time organising a megagame, it is often recommended that you play at least one megagame, but that isn’t always possible if one isn’t running in your area. OMEGA run online megagames which are a great way of playing if you can’t play in person, or you prefer the digital experience.

The other thing to say is, if this is your first time organising a megagame, please do check out So, you want to run a megagame for advice on picking the right kind of game to run. 

Go read it now, I’ll be right here when you get back.

Let’s say you’ve chosen Den of Wolves - a great choice! Now onto the guide.

Assemble the squad

I can’t stress how much better it is to organise a megagame with your friends or other people in your life that you trust. Attempting to do everything yourself could easily turn into a miserable experience that either sees you never going near megagames again, or stopping when things get too hard.

You will need people with a range of skills – probably up to a maximum of four individuals – that will work well together. It’s not always easy to find people with the right capabilities, but if you and your friends are willing to learn new tools and skills, you’ll be just fine. You don’t need to be an expert, but you will need to have the drive to get it done.

The same group of people, plus potentially others, will also be great recruits for your control (also known as facilitator) team. More about that later in this article.

Your group doesn’t have to meet in person to organise everything. Utilise Discord and other free tools to meet up virtually and you’ll be well on your way in no time.

You’re not the boss of me!

Without a deadline it’s very easy to let a project slide – life gets in the way, chores need to be completed and suddenly before you know it, that megagame you planned to run has been gathering virtual dust on your G-drive for a few years.

I’d thoroughly recommend setting a realistic deadline to work towards as that helps most people focus. If you intend to run your megagame in six months, you can plan everything around the big day, rather than let the potential of the game float off into the ether, never to be heard of again.

Another reason to plan out your schedule is you can identify how long you should market and sell the tickets for, as without the players, you will not have a game. You should leave enough time to explain and hype your game, but not so much that potential players feel the date is so far in the future that they forget about it.

Planning for D-Day

You’re going to need to organise a lot of things to get your megagame done; venue, marketing, and printing game materials to name but a few so it’s probably best to grab some easy-to-use project management software. For First Contact, we used a spreadsheet template that one of the team had developed for work, but you could just as easily use monday.com, Zoho, Teamwork or another free online tool.

You should list out all the things that will need to be organised; the sub-tasks that make up those overall items and the timelines to make everything happen.

Keep track of how you’re doing on a regular basis – ideally when you’re meeting your team online or in-person. This is also a great way to assign tasks, and when you expect they’ll be completed by. The First Contact team chose to meet at the same time each week to make it easy to remember and if we didn’t have any specific points to discuss (which was rare!) then the time could be used to do some collaborative work on briefings or other aspects of the game that needed to be completed.

A player counting his spoils at First Contact: 2035. Credit: Very Large Huge Games

Show me the money!

I’ll let you in on an open secret. Megagames rarely make any money on their first run. This is because you’ll likely need to have a lot of components created, maps printed and the venue hire to pay for.

You should create a budget to capture every line item, how much you think you’ll spend and what you actually spent. When you’re starting out this will give you a good idea on how much you will end up spending to put on a great experience for your players.

Future runs of the same game will probably make you some money as you will save on purchasing components, however the largest expense of hiring a venue still needs to be covered each time. I’d recommend you keep some money aside to cover future venue deposits or if you plan to run different games you will have the budget to produce new components too.

Eventbrite have an interesting blog post on creating an event budget here, which may well be more in-depth than required to run a megagame. But the more you know, you more you can get right the first time.

When it comes to using a tool, a simple spreadsheet is perfect and there is an example from Ottawa Megagames here. If you’d prefer ready-made software, although it isn’t focused specifically on event budgeting, Mint is a capable online application that is free and can easily be adapted for the purposes of budgeting a megagame.

Choosing the right date

Most megagames run on a Saturday as it’s the day when the majority of players will likely be available, and since running and playing a megagame can be a full-on experience, it allows everyone, especially the control players, to recover the next day, before heading back to work.

There is nothing to stop you running your game on a Sunday, or for less hours than an average megagame – after all, you’re the boss!

You may also wish to check your local area to avoid big events your potential players may wish to attend. For national events, you would probably do well to avoid the weekend that Gen Con runs in the US and the Games Expo in the UK. Or perhaps interested folks who cannot make those cons would be interested in attending your megagame instead…? Regardless, it’s probably a good idea to think about which date works best for you and your team and has the greatest chance of attracting the most players.

Looking for the perfect venue

When it comes to finding a venue, your primary considerations will likely include an accessible location for your audience, the venue size to accommodate the number of players and control you think will be playing, and the overall price. The venue will be the highest cost you’ll need to bear so getting it right is important.

Secondary considerations are how close is it to public transport, what parking provision is available in the immediate area, will players be able to bring their own food or must they purchase from an onsite cafe, and are there enough tables and chairs to host everyone playing?

Visit a couple of venues before making your final decision and ask your trusted contacts if they have recommendations. You never know, a venue may be willing to give a discount for a local gaming group that is starting out.

Regarding venue size, we ensured we had enough capacity by checking Tagvenue (see below). Separately we have been advised by the community that when looking for an appropriately sized venue, a good rule of thumb is to choose a venue that can accommodate twice the number of players and control you’ll be hosting and that tables can be arranged in cabaret style, although your final layout will obviously be different.

Gaining access to the venue at least an hour before the game starts, and for an hour after you expect it to finish, will be key. You’ll want to get everything set up before the players arrive (probably with the help of your control team) and then at the end, tear everything down so you can hand the venue back in an agreed state.

In the UK, village and church halls are popular with organisers as they tend to be affordable and have their own car-parking facilities, although they are generally not that close to train stations. Another option includes conference venues in larger towns and cities which probably have availability on weekends and may offer deals to customers on hotel rooms and parking.

In North America, popular choices include high schools on weekends, American Legion halls, Masonic lodges, churches and, if you have the connections, college and university buildings. Really, as long as you have the floorspace and appropriate number of rooms the game requires, anywhere can become a megagame venue.

Tagvenue may be able to help you find a venue if you’re located in the UK, Canada, US or Australia. As with many comparison sites, you might be best served by finding appropriate venues on Tagvenue and then contacting them directly to negotiate the best price. Your mileage may vary.

You will also likely want to create a simple venue floor plan that can be sent to players and control before the day of the game. This will let players know where in the venue they should head once they’ve checked in and control to help set up the layout you would like to use.

The floor plan doesn’t have to include realistic measurements but a general layout for anyone attending your game will be greatly appreciated.

Your ticket offering

Pricing and selling tickets can be a little tricky. Until recently, most UK megagames were priced at £30 per ticket, however there now appears to be some experimentation with ticket prices including raising base ticket costs, “choose what you pay”, group discounts and concession models.

In the US, pricing generally runs between $25-$45 for most games, but it really depends on a number of different factors that you’ll have to work out as megagames are not known to most people.

If you’re running the first megagame in your area, you might want to aggressively price your tickets to attract players and then rely on word-of-mouth to entice a larger group of people with a higher ticket price at the second game. If however you’re running your game in an area that knows what megagames are, you could price differently so have a think about your options.

Pricing too low, or even offering a completely free game, could devalue the experience in your players’ eyes, to the point where they may not bother turning up, or fail to tell you they won’t be playing, as it only cost them $5 and something else came up on the same weekend.

The budget you create will also guide you on how much you should price tickets, if you wish to at least break even. Depending on your plans, you may decide to create a loss-leading game to spread the wonders of megagaming through your local community but this is not always viable.

When you come to sell your tickets, I’d recommend Ticket Tailor and Stripe (for the financial processing). There are more details about both offerings in this post, but for me it boils down to cost and customer care. The cost of using Ticket Tailor and Stripe is the same as PayPal at the time of writing in the UK. By using these platforms you’ll get a full ticketing platform and automatic access to the funds seven days after players make their purchases.

This compares to the market leader, Eventbrite, that charges a lot more for using their platform and by default only provides the funds after an event has run.

Another model you may consider using is asking potential players to register their interest using a Google form, or another data collection method. At this point you won’t take any money for tickets, but should you feel you have enough interest, you then contact everyone on your list to ask them to purchase tickets.

This method does increase the amount of admin you’ll need to manage, but you will avoid the cost of refunds should you have to cancel the event due to lack of player interest. There is also the danger that the people who have signed up do not convert into paying players, but they may never have paid for a ticket regardless.

Getting the word out

This can be a difficult one, primarily because megagames are not widely known and a standard elevator pitch hasn’t been developed to easily impart what your players will be doing at a game.

That said, there is the video that was shot by Shut Up & Sit Down about their experience at the first Watch The Skies game, megagame reports by players and designers on our site, and social media accounts you can send people to in order to find out more.

For further ideas on marketing your game, I’d suggest checking out the MegaCon marketing video and Rob Grayston’s Megagame Marketing 101 post.

I have become convinced recently that in addition to utilising social media such as Facebook and Instagram, word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective tool that can be utilised by megagame organisers. Your friends and work colleagues may already be part of your organising and/or control team – ask them to help spread the word. Additionally, there could be board game cafes, role-playing or LARP groups in your area. Get in contact with their organisers online and ask if you can promote your game in their channels. You might be surprised about how much interest there is.

Another good option could be targeting students. For First Contact, we sent individual messages to all the UK university societies that are megagame adjacent, for example board game and LARP societies. As with any cold contact, responses differed between groups, but we certainly saw some students signing up for the concession tickets that we offered. Contacting local universities may be an option for you too.

If you can obtain interested player’s contact details and their permission to send them emails, that is ideal. Set up a Mailchimp account to manage the collection, storage and creation of your marketing emails and over time you will hopefully have a database of players wanting to play your next game with minimal marketing effort.

Marketing megagames is hard but not impossible. If you don’t feel completely confident in marketing straight away, perhaps organise a smaller game and work up from there (or ask that extroverted friend who loves talking to everyone they meet for help).

Megagame Assembly can help

In case you’re not aware, we maintain global and regional calendars on our site and you can easily have your megagame added. Just let us know what your game is called, when it will run (date and times), where players can purchase tickets, an outline of the game and provide an image that you would like to be used and we’ll do the rest.

You never know who may stumble over the calendar and see your game listed, and best of all your listing will be completely FREE!

We also have a Facebook group where you are welcome to post about your game - don’t forget to link to a website or Facebook page for more information and where prospective players can buy tickets. As a guide, you should ensure that you add the date the game will run, its title, and some background on what the game is about. You can provide far more information at the link you provide so try not to overwhelm the post with too much detail.

Players from Trope High really getting into the game. Credit: Becky Campbell-Ladley

Tell me who you want to be

A key part of organising your game can include asking the players what team and role they want to play on the day. It’s generally called a casting questionnaire and you can find out a lot more about them from BeckyBeckyBlogs.

For First Contact, we utilised this casting questionnaire which linked the players back to our roles guide. I’ve found that players like to be on the same team as their friends and even if they don’t know exactly what their role will do, they can check out what all the other players are assigned to play when the cast list is released.

Once you’ve assigned the players based on their interests, you can post the entire cast list to a web page, Google Sheet or PDF document that is sent directly to them via email.

Since GDPR came into force, cast lists are rarely published publicly due to concerns about releasing personally identifiable information (PII) publicly. This is a shame, as cast lists can help hype games and according to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, names alone are not necessarily PII. Generally further identifiers must be combined with a name to identify an individual and this depends on the context of the data collected.

The process to create a cast list can take some time, so you may consider sending out your casting questionnaire around a month or so before the game, and then the cast list a couple of weeks before the big day, once you have cast the players in their roles.

Another benefit of the cast list is it gives those players who want to dress up an idea what they can wear on the day to look the part. Dressing up at megagames is usually optional, but some players like to do it and it can help them with game immersion.

Of course, another option is to allow your players to pick their role at the time of booking. Ticketing platforms often allow you to create ticket groups, for example a four-player ticket on one of the Den of Wolves ships or maps of the venue where you can assign player roles. Once the players have purchased their tickets they choose which roles they would like based on the availability in the team and their interests. To go this route you do forgo the ability to cast known players in key roles, but there is a lot less admin to complete.

Players would likely also benefit from understanding what each role in your megagame does which can be given to them via a free website that you’ve set up. If you can create an outline of what you expect each role to be doing at your game, that would assist potential players to pick what interests them the most. For example, playing on the map or sitting in a council arguing about food distribution all day.

Stay in regular contact

When you have hopefully filled your game to capacity, you’ll need to send all the players the game handbook(s), their team and role briefs, depending on what game you are running. I’d recommend sending the handbooks out between one month and two weeks before the game as this allows your players time to review the content on their own schedule. Some people will read everything straight away, while others will be busy learning about the game’s mechanics on the train to the venue. Either way, at least they will have everything they need in good time.

Another reason to stay in regular contact with your players is to give them information on the game and build hype. Perhaps you want to give out details about the factions in the game in the run up to the big day or do what we did when organising First Contact and set up a dedicated Discord server to allow the players to plot with their team members but also allow control to see what’s happening and think up plot points and give the players advice. Keeping in regular contact with your players shows them you are engaged and on the ball - a real benefit if you want them to let you know if they can’t make the game with as much notice as possible.

You will likely need to stay compliant with GDPR and potentially other regulations when communicating with your players. For example to ensure compliance with GDPR, you must always blind carbon copy (BCC) all the recipients when you send out group emails, but there are other things you need to do too, such as securely storing personally identifiable information that you collect and only ensuring those people who need to process them are allowed access.

If you are not sure what your responsibilities are, then make sure you do research to ensure compliance.

Fire up the printing machines!

You’re probably going to need a map (or two), handbooks and potentially even cards for your game to run successfully. As with any printing, you’ll need to factor in the time after the proofs are sent off to actual delivery, so don’t leave everything to the last minute.

In the UK, megagame designers and organisers have been using Pixart Printing’s PVC banners for great quality large maps that multiple players can interact with at the same time. They’re relatively cheap coming in between £20-30 each, depending on what is ordered and the chosen delivery time.

Additionally, if you need foam core tokens printed, Pixart have you covered too. 1m x 1m boards can be delivered for as little as £20 each. That is more expensive than laminating and sticking your own components, and you still need to cut them out when they arrive, but it may be a useful service that you wish to take up as it will save you quite a bit of time.

Equally, if the game you have decided to run requires cards, you may choose to have them professionally printed, rather than doing the work yourself. In the UK, Ivory Graphics are popular and take around a week to deliver once you have paid the invoice.

In the US and Canada, megagame groups have used Gamecrafter, Office Depot and Staples to accomplish their printing needs.

Regardless if you take the DIY or professional printing approach to creating your components, you’ll need to make sure you have enough time as you don’t want to be up the night before the game cutting components out. Make sure to update your project plan and ensure if it slips you know what that means to the rest of your project.

In addition to your project plan, I’d recommend creating a production list - or use the list that comes in the pack if you have paid for a game. By doing so, you’ll be able to see in one location what needs to be printed, what the lead-times are, any comments you’ve made over time and be able to tick the items off as you have them created. We used this production list for First Contact, which you may find useful.

Printing handbooks can be done on a standard home printer and personally I think only control should have access to handbooks printed by the organiser. This cuts down on potential waste, helps the environment and saves money. You can of course print handbooks for each team if you’d prefer to do so. Players generally have access to PDF copies of the handbooks (as long as you sent them out before the game!) and are usually happy to read any information from there. Players also sometimes print their own handbooks for use on the day, which you could encourage if you wish.

Providing players and control with one-page cheat sheets for each section in the game will be welcomed by everyone. Being able to quickly and easily refer to how a map turn happens or what the council are expected to accomplish during phase three of a turn will make everyone’s lives, including yours and your control team much easier.

Badges for everyone at the game are also a good idea. You can produce themed badges like we did for First Contact that quickly identify players to each other. After all, there’s nothing worse than talking to an ally and realising too late that a member of a hated enemy team has been hovering nearby listening in, but you didn’t know who they were because they didn’t have a badge on.

Other options include blank stickers that players can write their names and role on, or you can print a few sheets of stickers with the team name and role which players can then stick to their clothes.

Facilitators checking players into First Contact. Credit: Very Large Huge Games

Checking players in

When it comes to the big day, you’re likely going to want to know who is actually playing in the game for a few different reasons. Partly because you want to know if everyone who signed up has arrived at the game, but also to make sure if you need to evacuate the building due to an emergency you can make sure everyone who is playing makes it out safely.

You can of course take a list of names and mark them off as players arrive. Another option is to use the apps provided by the ticketing platforms to electronically check players in.

Ticket Tailor provide Tazotix while Eventbrite supply the Eventbrite Organizer app.

The bonus with the apps are that you can ask multiple control or facilitators to check people in while you get on with something else.

Plan the real debrief

For a lot of games, the organiser lets players know where they can go after the game has ended to have a drink, something to eat and find out what really happened. If you have a local bar or restaurant you think would be ideal for this purpose, I’d recommend you let them know rough numbers and what time you expect people to roll up. There’s nothing worse than for 5pm to hit and suddenly the unknowing bar is inundated with hungry megagamers who want nothing more than to chat with each other about what was really going on at your game.

Tell me what you really think

If you plan to run your game more than once it is probably a good idea to collect feedback from the players. Fortunately there are very easy ways to do this, including using Google Forms, Survey Monkey or any of the other free survey tools out there.

For First Contact, we created this form to collect the responses.

When sending out the form, use it as a chance to ask your players to sign up for your mailing list and let them know you will take action on their feedback, if you agree with it. We chose to run a competition whereby one player who submitted their responses would win a free ticket to the next game. We found this drove quite a few players to provide their feedback which was very useful for us.

I’d recommend sending the form out within 24 hours of the game – this will give your players enough time to gather their thoughts but not too much time to forget everything that has happened. Any feedback received in this way is available to you digitally and can be reviewed easily. The downside of this option is of course that probably quite a few players will not complete the form, as real life gets in the way once the game has ended.

Another option is to print feedback forms and ask your players to respond at the end of the game, during the debrief. This way has the benefit of instant feedback and likely all the players completing the form. The downsides include having to manually transcribe the data to electronic form and the potential that the players are exhausted and possibly on emotional highs or lows that could skew the data dramatically.

Facilitators huddling at First Contact. Credit: Very Large Huge Games

Maybe you can hire the A-Team

In addition to the people potentially helping you organise your megagame, you’re going to need a team of control (aka facilitators) to help everything run smoothly on the day. Control can be the same people as your organisation team, potentially with some extra folks or a totally different group, but they’re going to need to be briefed beforehand.

Controlling a game can be a stressful experience, but also an extremely rewarding one! Depending on the game you’re running, you may need different skills, but sometimes beggars can’t be choosers.

It will depend on the game you are running, but most modern megagames utilise game control (likely you if you’ve designed and/or organised everything), plus mechanical and plot control.

Mechanical control generally focuses on the map(s) and other written rules that need to be resolved each turn. Board gamers and people who enjoy implementing and learning rules are great for this kind of role.

For plot control, think of role-playing GM/DMs, the people who have lively imaginations and can bring a world to life in front of your player’s eyes. These folks can think on their feet, but also let players know it will take a turn or two to set things up, which gives them a chance to go away and consult with the other control to figure out the best response.

You’ll need to work out the total number of control you ideally need and which of each type. If your control players can help you organise the venue on the day that’s even better, and if the budget allows it, at least buying them a drink after the game has ended will be much appreciated. As your control team are generally volunteers (and could well be your friends), I’d recommend not charging them to help run the game - after all, they are giving up a day of their weekend to assist you and you’ll likely want them to step up again at future runs!

To ensure your control players know exactly what they will be doing at your game, set up some online training sessions through Discord or another app you’re familiar with. While expecting your control to read the appropriate handbooks will get you so far, everyone learns in different ways and being able to run your map control through a couple of turns online through a Miro board could make all the difference on the day.

Likewise, for your plot control, giving them the chance to ask you rules and setting questions, and what type of game you are expecting to put on (for example, will you allow Godzilla to rise from the depths in your run of Watch the Skies?). This is a great way to get everyone on the same page and maintain the same “tone” for the game.

Clothing your control team

In a busy environment that is a megagame, you might consider (if you have the budget) purchasing something for your control team to wear to be highly visible to the players and each other.

For First Contact, we decided upon hi-vis vests branded with the Very Large Huge Games logo and in various colours for the different parts of the game. However you could choose something as simple as a baseball cap or a specific t-shirt design.

It isn’t essential to ask your control team to wear the same item of clothing, but will likely help their identification across a busy room and looks good in the photos. It’s also something nice to give to your control team as thanks for helping you run the game.

Venezuelan players at First Contact. Credit: Very Large Huge Games

A picture paints a thousand words

You’ll be very busy running the game on the day, but you may want to organise someone to take pictures of everything that happens. After all, it’s much easier to convey what a megagame is like with interesting photos to show your potential future players.

If you are Game Control you will not have time to take the photos yourself but if you know a friend or colleague who enjoys taking pictures, you could ask them to do so on their phone or even better with a DSLR camera. We did so for First Contact and it’s great to be able to have the pictures available for future marketing opportunities, including posting the images to social media.

If you do organise pictures to be taken, suggest to your photographer that you would like a mix of action shots, people around the map, components and perhaps the council meetings, if your game has them. If any players decide to play the game in costume, that’s even better.

You can also ask any players to post pictures they’ve taken to your social media accounts and tag your group, which is another way to encourage the conversation.

In the UK there are no laws against taking photos in public places and no permits are required. For other jurisdictions you should check the local laws to ensure you are compliant.

Some venues may require you to seek approval, pay a fee and/or put up photography notices in order to take photos. You would be advised to speak to your contact early in the process if you wish to take pictures to ensure you are fully aware of any commercial requirements that you need to follow.

You may wish to alert your players that photos will be taken at the beginning of the game in case someone does not wish to appear in the pictures taken. For First Contact, in addition to making an announcement during the game briefing we chose to inform players via email and included this notice in each team package.

Shut up and take my money

Merch sales certainly aren’t a necessary component of running a megagame, but doing so could be another way to give your players a memento of their day and provide you some extra cash in the bank to make running future games a bit easier. While it’s highly unlikely you’ll turn into the next Jeff Bezos by selling megagame merch, it could be worth selling through an online store such as Printful, Merchly or Forthwall (US only at time of writing).

By printing on demand you will save a lot of money on holding stock, but any income is likely to be minimal as it is swallowed up by the printing company.

Another option could be to choose one item to print that you think might sell well with your players and offer the product at the game, online or via both channels. At Very Large Huge Games we are considering selling branded mugs at future games, but the logistics are something we still need to work out. If we pull it off, perhaps you’ll see a future megagame merch article appear here!

Tell us how it went!

When it’s all said and done, we’d love to know how your experience of running a megagame went. We welcome blog posts and podcast interviews with the megagame community, so get in contact and we can arrange for your story to be featured.

Send up a signal flare

It can be hard to ask for help sometimes, but you are not alone in this venture and trust me when I say the rest of the megagame community will want you to succeed! If you have questions, post them to our Facebook group, the Megagame Coalition or MegaCon Discord servers and the megagame community will respond.

You’ll get lots of great advice, and probably a boost to your morale too.

Need a helping hand?

As of time of writing, our friends over at the Megagame Coalition are offering megagame designers and organisers the chance to be mentored by experienced people from the community. If you’re interested, hop on over to their Discord server and @pani for more information.

And finally…

…while this is a guide of sorts, it doesn’t contain everything. Ask for help if you’re not sure and don’t skimp on doing your own research. It’s possible this article will be updated over time, but even then it won’t contain information on every possible scenario you’ll encounter - but it should help point you in the right direction.

And hey, just remember - lots of people have been in the same position as you before, with a dream of putting on a game and making the megagame magic happen. 

You’ve got this!