[Guide] How to plan&advertise your public event

to moderators: if this thread is deemed sticky-unworthy, please burn it in righteous fire!

From idea to good idea

You got a good idea and say 'hey! this can be a public event!', now you are wondering how to best organize and advertise it. First thing you need to do is verify whether your event idea is indeed as good as you think it is. My own first 'check' is to see if I can explain it in 2 full wow-chat messeges (510 symbols), if I can't it is probably too complicated. A far better thing to do, is to tell your event idea in short to some friends or guildies and ask what they think.

When you've simplified your idea if it was too complicated, discussed it with friends and added some corrections, you should stop and think "Who will attend this event?" When you ask this question, the answer is very rarely 'everyone', most likely you will end up with a list of guild-names + some randoms. Now you should go and talk to officers/leaders of the guilds you intend to invite. (the list of leaders and officers may be incomplete or not up-to-date! It is safest to poke guild-members in-game and ask who their leaders/officers are)

Tell your event idea to the leaders/officers, ask what they think about it and whether their guild is interessted in attending. Another advantage, is that guilds usually have their own events that they don't advertise, and only way to avoid clashes is to plan a time in advance. As you talk, ask them for their suggestions.

From a good idea to a plan

At this stage your idea has been reviewed, criticised and corrected. You also know roughly how many people will attend your event. Now it is time to think "How long should it last?" and "Do I need assistants?" If you are throwing a party, and you are the only waiter, and 40 people come - you are screwed! All depends now on your understanding of Role-play. You need to make a realistic match between required work and ammount of assistants, between the fun your event provides and how long it takes. For instance, a 10-minute-speech can be a very fun thing if it is fiery and provocative; but almost nobody would listen to an 1-hour-long speech!

Sometimes your event has a 'complicated' detail or a set of rules you need to explain; write them down. PvP events may have rules that forbid Corpse-camping or say that all should come in RP gear. Your event has a time, a place and people involved - write it all down as well. Some events happen in several stages (for instance, gather at a castle, hold a speech, ride to war, return to castle and lick wounds), mention and describe them all. When writing your event plan, you must keep three things in mind:
-It must provide all relevant information (rules, time, place, people involved, what happens and in what order whom to contact etc)
-It must inspire people to want to attend (usually a short IC-advertisment)
-It must be short enough for people to bother reading (1-2 word pages is a good aim), or so awesome that they are ready to read it all.

If you have trustworthy friends, let them review your event-plan and event-advertisment.

Broadcasting your plan

By now you've already spoken to guildleaders/officers about your event and know who comes and who doesn't. You also have a general idea of a good time. First of all, throw calendar-invites (place, time, short description, and tell that full info is on the forums!) to the guild-leaders and make them moderators. Whisper them asking to invite their guildies. This will get you the bulk of your attendees.

Now post your advertisment on these forums, remember that on average events need at least a week of warning-time. If you are curious whom your forum post will reach, here is the list of guilds and their attendance. Green means officers and leaders attend the forums, Olive means that only leader or only officer was seen. Orange means only members. Red means no replies.

The Staghelm Prerogative
The Shining Strand
Dieudonne Seal
Ere Argus
The Cult of Shadow
The Argent Crusade
The Greymane Era
Honest Dogs Company
Nature's Grasp
Stormwind City Guard
Second Gurubashi Empire
Chapter of Holy Anethion
Winterblades
Sechalo
Blazing Shields
The Dark Sphere
The Shadowcourt
Blackblood Clan
Sin Belore
Forgefire Wayfarers
The Hand of Nightmares
Whitestar
Brotherhood of the Hold
Holy Lightbringers
Kingdom of Arathor
SI:7 (organization)
Bloodwind
The Forlorn Cartel
House Mistmantle
Old Town Syndicate
Krickle's Gang
Dwarven Rifle Squad
The Disciples of Light
Darkspear Tribe
Orcs of the Red Blade
Sunfury Elite
Sixty Thieves
Crimson Flame
Mistrunner Tribe

Barrier of Light, Moonshade, Clandestine, The Third Way, Brock Dem Labz have checked-in but cannot be color-coded for various reasons.

PS: If I forgot anybody, or the color-coding is incorrect, speak up!

I daresay Disciples of Light could be colored yellow-ish. At least 1 officer (me) checks the forum more than daily.

The Dieudonne Seal, I forgot to mention in your thread. *flips out his card* I'm a member! I can notify them of relevant topics and will annoy the guild leader to get his account sorted here. Perhaps upgrade to orange for the time being?

PS: Thanks for the awesome compilation and work!

Rargnasha and I both are officers, as are Mazzguul and Morgeth which also frequently check out this forum. As I recall, Rargnasha and I both responded to your Yay! thread.

As for the Darkspear Tribe, Unathi is an officer of that guild and has also replied to your thread.

Good guide, though you got the Cult wrong. I'm de facto GM and saw it, can pretty much guarantee other officers visit here too.

I am officer of Sunfury Elite and I replied in your thread. And could you please change that yellow colour to something else it is pretty hard to read. Great advises anyway thank you very much

Changed color. Changed labels for Dieudonne, Sunfury, Orcs and Darkspear

The shining strand could be added there as green I think.

Good work Exaythe !!

Oh, right! Forgot about the Strand. Really sorry. Added!

And the sphere too :<

Sphere added as well. Thanks for pointing it all out.

Looking really fine indeed!

Also, you can stick Stormwind City Guard right up into green - a good handful of both officers and members frequent these forums, including me ^^

Another point: I know that several officers of Stormwind City Guard hang around the forums daily (for example Geldar and Aniane).

I'm not sure how you count the color before green, but I'm also more then sure both leader (me) and officers of KoA (soon KoS) check the forums daily too. I will log in and check if every officer do in fact, and will get back to you here.

Who are the Mistrunner Tribe?

Border between Green and Olive is somewhat vague; but if leader and several officers reply, it is certainly green. If only leader, or only 1-2 officers reply its Olive.

The idea is, that even if some people have vacation, off-week, broken internet or are VERY pissed, you can still reach a Green guild. Wheres Olive may fail.

PS: What, are people now going to force their members and officers to visit these forums only to get green!? JULIA! I demand compensation for providing advertisment

Hmm, cause you see a lot of people are out of KoA right now doing their thing, in wait for Cataclysm. I'd say that more then two officers do hang here daily, but as said not all are actually still in the guild. Me (GM), Anaei and Elegost I know lurk about, and are still 100% in the guild.

Forgefire Wayfarers added.

But aye, you are right that Anaei checks regularly in the events threat. Not so sure about Elegost. But aye, ultimately it is up to you: do you think that if you have vacation/are away an event advertised here will surely reach KoA?

I am pretty sure, yeah. It should be said that even if KoA knew right now, not many would show until Cata. But when Cataclysm comes KoA will be resurrected one way or the other (and its only three weeks to go, so).

Updated with the Blazing Shields, Sechalo, Shadowcourt, Blackblood Clan.

Tis amazing, almost entire community is on this forums! Except the Crimsons.

Need confirmation about whether 60 Thieves and Mistrunners even exist.

Antistia wrote:Good guide, though you got the Cult wrong. I'm de facto GM and saw it, can pretty much guarantee other officers visit here too.

Yeah, we do. Saw the thread, but saw Antistia posted allready, so

By the way, its 'The Cult of Shadow'. Great guide!

Spliruz here, part of the management in The Honest Dogs Company.
I can testify that the entire management thus far does in fact view this forum on a regular basis.

Guild leader of The Greymane Era here, officers within the guild at this time also include Nygarth, Jomir and Anaei, all of whom are an active part of this forum - Not that you wouldn't have guessed that.

Honest Dogs and Greymane added!