Events Skills Conference Series

Presented by Pastimes 

Some skills are learned best from experiences and interactions with fellow staff at events. For the last year, there haven’t been the opportunities we used to have to polish old skills, gain new skills, and interact with each other. Even with digital events, those opportunities are precious and few.

The Events Skills Conference Series are Judge Academy foil-supported conferences presented by Pastimes; designed to create a space for all judges to polish skills gone rusty or get exposure to the kinds of skills and knowledge they would have gained naturally from attending events.

Anyone with a Judge Academy account is welcome to apply; however, only certified Judges will receive foils. Sponsorship includes one pack of four promos for each Judge Academy Certified Judge at the Conference. There is no regional lock nor cap for this event.

The conference will be held over Zoom and Discord. You can join the Discord here. The week before the conference, a Judge Conference Catagory will appear; feel free to explore the rest of the Discord until then! Chats and general conference announcements will happen over Discord, while the lectures themselves will be given over Zoom.

This event will begin at 10 am Pacific Time and run till about 6 (1800) pm with a party to follow.

Presentations & Activities Schedule this month:

• 1030-1130 – Applying for Success: A Staffing Managers Panel – Featuring: Carlos Ho, Mike Hill, John Carter, Johanna Virtanen, John Alderfer, Jurgen Baert,
  and Meg Baum 
  • A panel-style Q&A with some of the world’s most well-known staffing managers throughout time. This will be a panel discussion centered on their experiences as staff managers and their advice on improving your application game for events both online and digitally. Any questions asked in this panel will be run through a moderator and submitted (at the latest) the night before the conference; if there is time after submitted questions, any remaining time will be semi-open mic.
• 1135 – 1235 – 11 investigation lessons taught by Among Us with Emilien Wild
  • In 2020, the game Among Us became a viral success. Deception and lies being at the core of its gameplay, solid investigation skills were required to be a top player. Let’s review together what we learned from it!
• 1235 – 1300 Lunch and Trivia! 
  • There will be a break halfway through the conference. Because this conference is not bound by the conventions of time and space we will be offering Trivia with prizes during the break.
• 1305 – 1400 How to Give and Take Appeals with Rob McKenzie
  Been a minute since you were the Head Judge? Never taken an appeal? This is the one for you. A presentation about appeals and how to make them smooth for both floor and head judge. Tune in for tips and tricks to giving your players and judges better experiences during appeals.
• 1405 – 1500 Toby Doesn’t Talk About Policy with Toby Elliot 
  • Feeling a little rusty? Never got a chance to flex those policy muscles in person? Don’t Panic! Who better to help you get back in the swing of things than the man who wrote it himself! Presentation to be followed by  Q&A session.
• 1505 – 1600 My Life in the GP Kit with John Alderfer 
  • A presentation on tournament logistics.
• 1605 – 1730 Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app with Bill Stark and Alex Green
  • See below
• 1735 – 1800 State of the Program with Nicolette Apraez
• 1800 – 2200 PARTY!

We are excited to announce some special guests for this conference!

Bill Stark and Alex Green from Wizards of the Coast will be joining us for a presentation on Wizard’s newest events scorekeeping software Eventlink!

About the Presenters

Bill Stark has been with Wizards since 2008. A former pro player he has worked for Magic R&D, the Wizards Play Network, and now the Core TableTop Technology team. He is product manager for Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app.
Alex Green has been working with WPN retailers since joining Wizards in 2015. He is currently the WPN Retail Relationship Supervisor and his team works to help retailers joining the WPN or needing help with WPN programs.

About the Presentation
Learn about Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app, powerful new tools for judges and organizers alike to organize events as we return to in-person play following the pandemic. What are EventLink and Companion? How do you get access to them as a judge? All those questions and more, plus an interactive demo and Q&A session.

We are not taking applications for presenters, but welcome applications to help admin the conference. If you would like to learn how to run your own conference or learn more about how conferences work, I encourage you to apply to help admin this event. I will only be taking a limited number of admins for each event. Admins will receive an additional conference packet for their hard work.

At the end of the conference, there will be an after-party also in the Discord! There will be games, raffles, prizes, and various shenanigans! This part is optional but also totally awesome.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or prophecies, please feel free to email Meg Baum at meg@pastimes.net!

This application will be updated as more information becomes available. Any important updates after acceptances have gone out will come via email.

If you are having troubles applying, please make sure you are logged into Judge Academy 🙂