Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #648: Working on the Road

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

Part of my job is traveling. This podcast talks about what it's like working when traveling as well as the many things that have to be done before or after you've traveled.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Now to drop my kids off at school. Okay, well today, today I go to the airport. Because today I'm going to London for the Mythic Championship 2 slash Magic Fest London. So the next podcast you'll hear from me will be me telling all about my time at the Mythic Championship and at Magic Fest. But I thought since today I was going to leave, I'd do a little behind the scenes stuff and talk a little bit about all the stuff that goes into working somewhere else, like working on the job. And so there's some travel in this job less so than I so real quickly once upon a time when I first started this job back in

1995 I did a lot of travel a lot of travel like the summer of 96 I was only in the office three weeks of the whole summer I just went everywhere but eventually I met my wife and we started dating and so I traveled a little less

and then I had my we got married I traveled a little less. And then we got married. I traveled a little less. We got our first child. I traveled even less. And then when my twins were born, I struck a deal with my wife that said I would travel twice a year. And one of those usually these days

is to San Diego where I run the panel. And the other is a floating thing where I go wherever I want to slash other people really would like me to go. So one of the things is in Wizards, they're aware that I only travel twice a year and then they know I go to Comic-Con. So the other trip, every year there's sort of this, you know, there's some encouragement of where they'd like me to go. I mean, it's also my pick where I go, but there's definitely... So, for example, last year was I went to Grand Prix Las Vegas, and that was we were doing this big birthday celebration, and there were like five major Grand Prix's around the world, and this was the close one, and it was going to be the biggest magic event of all time,

and so they said, please, please can you go to Las Vegas? I said, that sounds fun. So I went to Vegas. And the year before, Hasbro was starting its very first convention called HasCon. And they're like, oh, we want to make a big deal of HasCon. Please, can you please go to HasCon? I said, fine, I'll go to HasCon. And the year before that, I was at GDC. I did my talk at GDC. That was something I wanted to do. That was more, that was when people were asking me to do this. That's me going, I want to do this. But anyway, every year I wanted to do. That was more, that was when people asked me to do this, me going, I want to do this. But anyway, I, every year I have a trip. And so originally for 2019, I was going to go to the second HazCon because they had said,

oh, there's another HazCon, please, please, please. It'd be really nice if you could go to HazCon. Could you please go to HazCon? And so I said, yes. I said, okay okay I'll go to Hascon and so for 2019 that was my scheduled trip other than San Diego was to go to Hascon but then it got postponed so

Hascon's now next year so next year I'll be going to Hascon but it got pushed back so that means I had an open slot and so I could go wherever I wanted and the interesting thing was, nobody else was really, like, often there's times where there's a lot of pressure. Oh, please, please, can you go here?

No one really said anything. So I, for the first time in a while, just like, where do I want to go? Now, I haven't been to London in a while. So when I was 15, I did a trip around Europe as part of a youth group. And then in 1999, I believe, was Pro Tour London.

Kyle Rose won that. I went to that. That's the last time I was in London. The only time I've been in London on business was Pro Tour London. So I haven't been there in a while. In 1999. That's a long time ago. So, A, I was excited to go back to London. I like London.

B, I have a fondness for War of the Spark. It was going to be the Mythic Championship, all about War of the Spark. Players were going to play for the first time War of the Spark. So that just seemed really exciting. Like it seemed to be something I wanted to be part of. And I have not been to Europe in a while. In fact, the last, I think, five years I've been in the States. My second trip's been in the States just for various reasons. So I thought, oh, okay. In fact, I think my last trip outside the U.S. was to Amsterdam for the Magic World Cup.

Either Amsterdam or Nice. I went to Nice and I went to Amsterdam. Well, Amsterdam, I guess, was for a pro tour, I think. And I think Nice was for the Magic World Cup. Anyway, I hadn't been to Europe for a while. I like Europe. So I opted in for this trip. So I'm very excited to go.

So anyway, let me talk a little bit about why. Why do we travel? Why? So first and foremost, one of the things that Wizard of the Coast has actually been one of the pioneers in is what we call organized play. One of the things that we figured out really early on was, you know, if we want to be a game and we want to have, like, one of the most important things about a game is that you have people to play with. And yeah, maybe you have friends, you know,

hopefully you have friends and who, I mean, friends who also play Magic. I believe you have friends. Hopefully you have friends that also play Magic, and maybe you guys play at your houses or whatever, but for some people, they don't have friends that play Magic. Or they have friends that play, but they want to be more competitive, and the friends don't want to be as competitive. They don't have a way to play the way they want to play where they want to play.

And so, one of the things that we decided very early on was we wanted to have a robust, organized play system. And a lot of that was centered in game stores. We do a lot working with the local game stores to, you know, run all sorts of things, Friday Night Magic and a variety of different things. Over the years, we've had all sorts of different programs that are run through the stores. but um so way back in 1996 um so Scaf Elias um who was one of the original play tefters one of the east coast play tefters that designed antiquities and uh fallen empires and ice age and alliances

um Scaf was watching other sports you know looking at how other things and said that there really needs to be an aspirational part of it. And so Scaf was the one that really pushed for the idea of having a pro tour. So the pro tour was Scaf's baby. And when I first got to Wizards, I had done a lot of organized play when I lived in Los Angeles because I was writing for Wizards, for the duelists and stuff, and because of that, I had advanced knowledge of the cards. For example, I would do puzzles,

but I needed to know the cards so that the latest puzzle had the latest cards in it. So it required me knowing things ahead of time, and because of that, I couldn't play in sanctioned tournaments. And because I couldn't play in sanctioned tournaments, I decided the way I would get involved was judging. So I used to help judge events. So when I found out that Scaf was starting up a pro tour, I was very interested. And so I asked to be the liaison between R&D and the pro tour. And Scaf said yes.

So I was, for the first, well, first eight years of the pro tour, I went to, when I say every years of the Pro Tour I went to when I say every Pro Tour I think I skipped one for my daughter's birth but I mean I went to every almost every Pro Tour

for the first eight years the reason I stopped at eight years is that's when my twins were born and that's when I cut back the last series of travels

I did before my twins were born I used to go to the Pro Tours that was my travel for the year I'd go to the Pro Tours which was four or five events and then once the twins were born I went down to two events so I stopped going to Pro Tours usually I would go to the Pro Tours. That was my travel for the year. I'd go to the Pro Tours, which was four or five events.

And then once the Twins were born, I went down to two events, so I stopped going to Pro Tours. Usually I would go to Worlds back then, back when Worlds was the old school Worlds. I used to do Worlds plus one other thing. And then at some point that changed over to San Diego. But anyway,

so part of building up the system of having Pro Tours involves having big events that originally we ran them, and then we started over time helping other people run stuff. And so now, for example, Wizards runs the Mythic Championships, but we work with Channel Fireball, who runs all the Magic Fest slash Grand Prixs. But anyway, so we started getting into the business of making events.

Now, be aware, there's two different kinds of events that exist. One is events we run. So that would be, when I say we run, I mean, they're magic events in which it's us or a partner running it, but it's all magic. The entire thing is magic. That would be the Mythic Championship Slush Pro Tour. That would be the Magic Fest Grand Prix. That would be, there's a series of different things we do, but basically the idea is it's an event and the whole event is magic.

Then there's events in which we're part of the event. So a good example there might be a convention, like San Diego Comic-Con is a fine example, where, in fact, we don't even have a booth, but Hasbro has a booth, and then we have part of Hasbro's booth. So our booth there is sort of part of, we share part of Hasbro's booth. They have a giant booth. And so some events, we don't run the event. We're very a part of the event.

Events that we run, obviously there's a lot more that goes on. There's more people that get sent. there's a lot more that goes on. There's more people that get sent. There's a lot more moving pieces. Events that somebody else runs, we just worry about our component of it. Usually, for example, if we're at a convention, we have a booth. And then, okay, here's what our booth's doing. And, you know, we'll organize the booth itself. But anyway, we have been doing events since, basically, since 1994.

I guess the first world championship was the first event we ever ran. That was in Milwaukee at Gen Con in 1994. That's the one that Zach Dolan beat for trying to stray to be the first magic world champion. So anyway, one of the things is we have really gotten good at producing events. It's something we do. We have a whole department that does it. I have been to infinite magic events. I've been to a lot of magic events. I don't even know how many. A lot. Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about sort of why all the travel stuff exists. So first

off, we run a lot of events. For starters, we, the company, Wizards of the Coast, run a lot of events. So obviously, we need to send staff to do that. Now, in any event that we run, there are staff that gets sent, and there also are, well, there's three people. There is staff that is wizard staff. There is paid contributors or contractors, people who come and work. They're not wizards employees, but they're paid by us. And then there are volunteers, the people that come and volunteer their time. And all the events we run are a mix of Wizards people and contractors, paid contractors and volunteers.

It's a very robust system. Running events is a very complex thing to do. And as you'll see as I get into this, there's a lot of moving pieces. So part of going out of town is there's a lot of things that you have to do. And so it is something that's very you know, it's

something that has a lot more moving, like, if we're doing our job correctly when you show up at the event, the event just runs smoothly and it's awesome. And that's great. And for you, the consumer, it should just be a smoothly run awesome event. But behind the scenes, there's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of things that go on. So let's talk a little bit about R&D. Now, obviously, there's people that run the events. There's people who their job it is, is to make events happen. For example, Scott Larrabee runs tournaments and he's been running

tournaments for a long, long, long time. I actually know Scott. Back when I used to live in Los Angeles, I used to play at a place called the Costa Mesa Women's Center, which was down in Costa Mesa, which is about an hour south of Los Angeles. And it was the hot spot on Saturday night is where you went to play Magic. And Scott used to run that. Anyway, I met Scott back then. Now, Scott would, many, many years ago, 20 plus years ago, come to Wizards. And I've known Scott for a long time.

But anyway, Scott does a lot of traveling. He runs events. And that's what he does. Now, R&D, our job is not to run events. Our job is to make the cards. But one of the things that we believe in R&D is that it's very important for R&D members to be able to go to events. So once again, let me divide up. There are two different kinds of responsibilities you could have at events. What I will call an active responsibility and a little more passive responsibility. So an active responsibility is you are doing some function. For example, back in the day when I used to go to the pro tours, I was in charge of the feature matches and I was in charge of production on the final day. So that was my job. I did those tasks.

That is what I did. And I would get up early in the morning and I'd have to be there probably an hour before the players showed up. And I was there until we were done and helped wrap up. And it was long days. You know, it was getting up at 8 a.m. and getting done at 8 p.m. or sometimes even later. That was active. That's an active job. Passive is that you're going and you're observing and you're learning. Like one of the things that a lot of R&D does is we have more passive jobs.

It's our jobs to go and observe. You know, how's the format working? What are players thinking about? How's limited working? How's constructed working? How do players like the latest set? While we get a lot of feedback on social media, and that's very valid and very good

feedback, there's something very different about being in person. Face-to-face communications is something that just provides you with some stuff that's hard to get online. There's a lot of nuance and emotion and things that it's hard to get in words that you can really get when interacting with somebody. Also, the type of person who is online is different than some of the people that will show up in person.

I mean, there's overlap. But it also just lets you meet a different kind of Magic player. You get to meet sometimes with people that are a little more casual. You know, the people that get on social media every day, they're very much part of the online community. That's a very, very enfranchised player. And there's a lot of players that really enjoy Magic that, you know, they don't necessarily live Magic every single day, but it is something that, oh, there's a big event, I'm going to go to the Grand Prix, and I get to meet a lot of players at various levels. But anyway, most of the time the role of an R&D person coming to an event

is not that you're working any one particular thing, although there are things that you will do. Like, for example, sometimes we'll run a panel. Sometimes we'll do what we call spell slinging, where people can play against you. Sometimes I'll sign autographs. You know, there's a bunch of different things that we can do where we interact with players.

So it's not as if we don't have things to do. I mean, there are actively things we do. But a lot of our jobs going there is more to sort of interact and interface with people and come back. And one of the things we always do when we come back from an event is R&D has what we call the Tuesday Magic Meeting. Every Tuesday we get together to talk magic. Usually at the Tuesday Magic Meeting after an event, the people who are at the event

will talk a little bit about the event, how things went, what we learned, if we learned anything about format or about whatever we learned, you know, just sort of sharing the lessons. And we find it to be pretty valuable. The other thing, it's a nice, one of the things about working on a game is that there is a real, getting to see the audience enjoy the thing you worked on is a very powerful thing, and it's something that we like at R&D to sort of get some experience in, and that just going somewhere where, you know,

people are excited to meet you, and they're excited about what you do, and, you know, it is a very... One of the things that's important about any job is you want to be filled, and you want to be happy, and there is something really, really fulfilling about seeing people playing the game that you worked on. to be filled and you want to be happy and there's something really, really fulfilling about seeing people playing the game that you worked on.

So R&D tries really hard to get as many of R&D as possible to various events during the course of the year. Usually the way that works out is we will make, usually early in the year, they'll make a list of here's all the events or the major events that are coming up this year. Usually here's all the Mythic Championships and here's all the Magic Fests that we're sending somebody to. And who would like to go. And the idea is trying to let as many people as possible get a chance. And so usually each person in R&D will travel to at least one event a year, ideally.

I'm in a nice spot because I don't travel a lot and there's a lot of requests for me to come. I have a lot more flexibility where pretty much if I'd like to go to an event, just because I don't go to that many events, usually I can just say, I'd like to go to this event. We'd love to have you at that event just because I have a high profile and people are excited to meet me. So usually any event that I say I'd like to go, it's the reverse. It's more often they want me to go and me not wanting to go just because I promised my wife.

So whenever I'm, because I just don't offer to go all that many places, when I do, I pretty much have a lot of save where I want to go. So that's nice. So anyway, people tend to sign up and there are a few people, by the way, they'll end up with active jobs like Paul Tian, for example, does commentary.

So he goes to all the events because he's doing part of the commentary and such. And so, for example, does commentary so he goes to all the events because he's doing part of the commentary and such and so for example, right now in R&D for London Aaron Forsyth, my boss, he's going Dave Humphries, who is the set designer, I was the vision designer

I was the lead vision designer, he was the lead set designer of War of the Spark, and so this is our baby, so Dave and I wanted to go because we wanted to see how it did. Paul Cheon, obviously, he's doing commentary. And then Brian Hawley is one of our managers of the play design team.

And I know play design spent a lot of time on this set, and he was very interested to see how, just from some play design issues, how the set is doing. Because a set with 36 planeswalkers has some challenges and, you know, play design worked really hard on it. So he just wanted to go to see how that was playing out. So anyway, R&D for this particular trip was sending five people. It varies, like I

said, Paul, for example, is working it. So how many people we send depends a lot on the roles and stuff. But we really, really think it's important for people to sort of have the opportunity to do it. You know, it's valuable for us. We think it's good for the players. What we found is the players really like interacting with R&D. And so one of the things that happens in Win Your R&D is usually there's some stuff set up so you can interact directly with the public. The most common thing we do is called spell slinging.

Previously called gun slinging, but we we're we're planeswalkers, so we spell sling. The idea of spell slinging is we sit there and play people with magic. We sit and play and normally we'll have a bunch of different decks

to play. My plan this time is I want to play a lot of Limited because I'm interested to play it because it's going to be the pre-release. It's a pre-release weekend. So I'm interested in playing a lot of people. I'm going to make my own pre-release and play with people. So anyway, so usually you're scheduled to do that. Some people like me sometimes will do autograph stuff or we'll sign things or take pictures and stuff. Often at events we'll have panels. So there are two types of panels.

One is what I'll call a presentational panel where we're giving information. For example, at both Battle for Zendikar and for Kaladesh, we did big events at PAX, which happens to be in Seattle, but still, it was a big event. We did big presentations. Both of those, like for Battle of Zendikar, I was on the stage with Will Whedon. We had a different kind of thing for Kaladesh. But anyway, each of those, there was a

presentation. That was something in which we prepared and practiced and scripts were written and we, and we, you know, we have slides and like those are well rehearsed and well carefully crafted. So when it's time to do the presentation, you know, we're not winging it. We know what we're doing. The other kind of stuff we tend to do, and this is kind of like what I do at San Diego, is Q&A. Like, we're not preparing. We're going to get there. You're going to ask us questions.

We're going to answer your questions. And those don't require quite as much prep because we don't know what is going to be said. Sometimes we will give some information. Like, some San Diego's, when I'm able to, I start by saying, hey, let me share something with you you don't know. And then we go to questions.

It just depends what I have. So sometimes if there's a little bit of prep, we'll go through that and make sure the slides work and stuff. But yeah, so it depends. So if you're going to go somewhere and you know that it's going to have a panel, there might be preparations for that. If you're even on any panel, sometimes there's panels where we're at the Q&A type stuff, where you at least figure out who's going to be on it and when it is and where it is, and you plan for that. Other things that sometimes happen is when we go to like a Mythic Championship, there's video coverage. And so often some of us will do interviews or do segments. Like a classic one I did when I was in,

I think it was Barcelona, is it was the 20th anniversary of Magic. So it must have been in 2013. And I did a segment where in 20 minutes I talked about the 20 years of Magic. I did one minute per year, and it was a 20-minute segment where I talked about the 20 years of Magic. It's still on YouTube if you want to watch it. But anyway, so sometimes there's stuff like that

where it's sort of, you know, like things we think are interesting that aren't, you know, that are, there's a lot of downtime at the Mythic Championship. So anyway, I often will do video stuff like that. Okay, so let's say I'm going to go on a trip. So I want to go on a trip. Behind the scenes, what's got to happen? So first off, you have to get permission to go on the trip. happen. So first off, you have to get permission to go on the trip. Sometimes people come to you, like for me, sometimes people come to me and say, we want you on this trip. And then it's just a matter of saying yes. And then I don't have to figure who's paying for it. The person asking me is paying for it. Sort of behind the business scene is you have to get what's called cost center,

which is somebody's got to pay for your travel and your expenses. And so you have to clear it ahead of time and make sure that whoever is going to pay for it okays, because if they don't okay it, then you don't get a go. Like I said, this one, getting the okay for me is relatively easy, but part one, you have to get that. And so it may be R&D is paying for the trip, maybe Magic Brand, different people can be paying for the trip. Then you have to get travel um way back in the day we used to have a travel department and you would just say

i need to go here and they would figure everything out and they would talk with you now you you do a lot of your own um scheduling there's a portal uh and you go in the portal and you find stuff and look at times and then uh there's people who can help you if you need help there's like a service we have but most of the time you just sort of book it yourself, and then there's people who can help you if you need help. There's like a service we have, but most of the time you just sort of book it yourself. And then once you get your ticket, and there's parameters and things about what you can and can't book, and you have some flexibility. If you like a certain airline and that airline's going there, you know, you have frequent flyer miles on a certain airline. There's some flexibility.

The way the travel works is there's a budget, basically, and you can sort of, anything up to that budget, you're free to do. You don't even have to ask permission. And then if you go over the budget, then you have to start asking, is it okay if I do this extra thing? Why? And depending on why you're doing that, you can get, they'll overwrite

stuff sometimes if, you know, I'm over, but I'm overwriting a little bit and here's why. You can get them to make sometimes if, you know, I'm over it, but I'm going to override a little bit, and here's why. And, you know, you can get them to make exceptions. So once you book it, the next thing is clothing. Okay, so if you are at it, well, once again, there's two types of events here. There's formal events where there's staff, and it's large enough that there's a staff there. And then there's a staff outfit, a uniform, which mostly usually is some sort of a wizard shirt, usually a polo shirt that has the Magic logo on it.

And then whatever pants you want. You can wear jeans as long as they're looking nice or slacks or whatever. Mostly it's just you want all the staff to look similar so you get who the staff are. And we have, so the way it works is they want you to have the latest logo. It's a big deal if you are dressed and not in the, they want all the staff wearing the same shirt, and so it needs to be the same logo. It needs to be the latest logo. Magic logo and Wizards logos have changed over the years. I have a closet full of shirts of old Magic and Wizards logos. And so, anyway, for this trip,

during Dominaria, we changed the logo. With the release of Magic Arena and Dominaria, sort of combined, we released this new logo. It's not the logo that's on the back of the cards anymore. And even that logo, we had changed many times before. It's kind of funny. So the logo on the back of the cards is blue. And many, many, many years ago,

we changed it from blue to yellow. So it was the same. It looked the same, but it was yellow instead of blue. And many, many, many years ago, we changed it from blue to yellow. So it was the same. It looked the same, but it was yellow instead of blue. And it's funny how many people, when you said the logo is different than the back of the card, like, what do you mean? Like, it's a different color. And like, really? And like, look at the back of the card.

Now look at the box. One is blue. One is yellow. And people just, it was very interesting. They did notice. Now the back is a different font. So it's very clear it's a different, it's a different logo. But anyway.

So in order to go to an event, you need to have a shirt. Actually, not just a shirt. You need all your logo wear to be the right. So we have this cool thing where there's this catalog you get, and there's, I don't know, like 20 different kinds of clothes.

There's like polo shirts and pullovers, and there's jackets, and there's sweaters, and all sorts of stuff. And you can get whatever you want. And once again, there's a budget and stuff, but you can get whatever you want, provided the person in your cost center pays for it. So for example, for this trip, I needed to get three polo shirts because I'm working three days. So the Mythic Championship is going to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I guess the Magic Fest started on Thursday, but I'm not getting there until

Thursday. So I will not be there until Friday. So this is a three-day event for me. But anyway, I needed three shirts, and then I needed a new jacket because the jacket I had is an old Wizards jacket that just had an old logo. So I'm now wearing my brand-new Magic jacket. It has the new Magic logo. So if you see me in London, or if you saw me in London, this is my new jacket. Or if you saw me in London, just to make you check it. So you need to get all your outfits and make sure that's all well and good.

Okay. Next is what we call the pre-con. So I think con stands for convention. I think pre-con means pre-convention. Although we use it to do any event, not just conventions per se. So what a pre-con is, is everybody that's going to the event gets together in one room, and we walk through all the issues of what's going to go at that event. So there's a bunch of things that we do. So first off, and these aren't in any particular order, first off, we identify who's going.

So you learn who all is going to be there and what are the responsibilities for each person. And if you need this, who do you go to? And so there's a personnel part of just understanding. We also generate a sheet where we get phone numbers and stuff. So it's like, oh, if you need to reach this person, this is their phone number. So one of the things that's important is if something goes wrong, here's the person you talk with.

Now, let me give you a real quick behind the scenes is something always goes wrong. I've never been in an event where everything that was supposed to happen happened exactly the way. Now, sometimes the things are minor. It's not a big deal. Sometimes they're major. But the role of us running the event is to make the end consumer seem like, oh my god, nothing went wrong. This was a smooth event.

And it's funny from watching behind the scenes how often things, like, how often we're able to sort of correct for stuff behind the scenes so that on the surface, nothing ever seemed wrong. And anyway, it's, we'll see whether I have any time for stories today. But there were definitely, there was numerous, and sometimes, by the way, things go wrong and it's not a secret. Like the very first Pro Tour, because of the weather, we had to start late. There was a Pro Tour in, I think, Valencia that flooded, and they had to stop because of a flood. You know, sometimes you have things that go wrong that are, I mean, there's no hiding it. It's gone wrong. And other times, you know, there's events where something happens, and, you know, the site's supposed to provide something they didn't provide,

or, you know, there's supposed to be some access to something. What's really common when you're at shows that aren't your own show is you're promised something by someone, and then they don't deliver on that, and you're supposed to be in this room, and you show up in that room for an event, and there's another thing also booked in that room and stuff like that. So anyway, so at the pre-con, we go through all the people. You understand who's doing what and where you need to go. It's like for me, for example, one of the things that I do at events is I do a lot of interviews. So I'm one of the spokespeople for the game.

So there is what we call core press and mass media. Core press are people who write about magic, magic websites or people who do videos. People that are they are all about magic. And that's the core of core press. And then the mass media is oh, well the local paper we're in London. Well, the London Times or whatever the local London paper is

is going to come and watch the interview us. So, for the core press, I do a lot of interviews just because I'm one of the most well-known magic people who work at Wizards. And so when I'm at the event, they go, oh, do you want to talk to Mark? Yeah! So I tend to do a lot of core press interviews.

And then for mass media, I'm one of the spokespeople. I'm trained. So normally when there is mass media, oftentimes I will talk with them just because I'm very good at making magic sound quite exciting. The secret is it is exciting. So, for example,

I always have to know who my PR people are because someone's going to be coordinating all that and I need to know at each event who am I interacting with. And so, you know, also, like back when I did the video, understanding who the director was and, you know, knowing all the components of who are you working with and who do you need to let know about stuff.

And so that relationship with all the people is really important. Next, we lay out the event, how it's laid out. So there's always a floor plan. If it's our event, there's a floor plan of the entire event, showing everything and what's where and who's doing what and everything is mapped out of the location. If it's a convention, then we have our booth has a map. And then normally we have a map of the whole convention to let us know kind of where we are and what else is going on at the convention. But there's a lot more focus on our booth when we're at somebody else's event.

When it's our event, it's the floor plan of everything and everything's mapped out. And that also is the time to understand where you're going to be and what, you know, the places that you'll need to be understanding where they are. When you get on site, you, I mean, it's one thing to see a floor plan. It's another thing to walk through it. So while you see the floor plan, you do want to walk through when you got there. Next, we go over schedules. There's a lot of moving pieces at a magic event. There's a lot of things happening. And each person has their own different series of events going on. So normally what happens is we go through the schedule and talking about the major things that are happening.

Usually that's the master schedule. That's not including, like, if I have an interview, that's my personal thing. That's not on the master schedule. That is on the PR schedule. So the master schedule tends to is on the PR schedule. So the master schedule tends to be the major things that are going on, and then it gets broken down by smaller things. Sometimes the master schedule will try to consolidate everything, but there's so many things going on, usually that's a little disconcerting. But anyway, part of the pre-con

meeting is walking through all the things that are going to be happening so that you have an idea. the pre-con meeting is walking through all the things that are going to be happening so that you have an idea. Like, for example, last year in Vegas, there was a wedding. And I was in the wedding. I was reading the love song of night and day. And so just being a heads up of what's going on. Now, one of the interesting things for me is because a lot of what I do, like, a lot of my jobs are more one-on-one jobs. Like, you're doing an interview.

That's just you. Or you're doing an interview. That's just you. Or you're doing a panel. That's just you. Some of those stuff tend to be, when I get there, I find out some of that stuff. Like, I don't know right now. I leave today on a plane.

And while I know, I know generally the things I'll be doing, like I know the kind of activities I'll be doing, I don't know my schedule yet. So like, I know I'm spell-slinging. I don't know when I'm spell-slinging. I just know that I am spell-slinging. And that will, I mean, as much as I can be prepped ahead of time, I will be. But some of those stuff, I'll find out when I show up.

The other thing is they'll walk us through our hotel. And they'll walk us through the relationship between the hotel and the venue. Normally, we try to be as close as possible. Like, in London, we are staying at the hotel hotel and the venue. Normally, we try to be as close as possible. Like in London, we are staying at the hotel next to the venue. I can walk to the venue. Most times, the venue is walkable. It's very close. There have been a few times where you have to take public transportation.

I was at a magic event in Amsterdam, I don't know, five years ago, and it was far away. It was like a 15 to 20-minute ride to get there on the little train. Like, like it was, it was, okay, we got to figure out how to get there. And there's a map and you know, you have to figure out how to get there. So normally you want to map that out to figure that out. And a lot of the pre-con will walk through like where we're staying. We'll talk about, um, the other thing they tend to provide us is here's a listing of like restaurants. And usually if we're visiting a city'll be a little bit of if you want to travel or anything here's some of the highlights of the city um so the way it works by the way is if you go to an event um you are allowed a couple

days uh in the front to adjust especially if there's a time change um and all that is paid by wizards but if you would like to spend extra time so that you can look around and do some sightseeing or something, Wizards will book you extra days at the hotel at the same rate, because we book so many things, we get a really good rate, and then you just pay for the days. Obviously, your trip is paid for,

your travel is paid for, because you had to come anyway, and the days you're working, including a few days up front, are paid for, and then any extra days, you just have to let them know ahead of time, and you cover it, you pay for it.

But it's a very, very cheap way to travel if you want to, because you're just paying for the hotel days for the days that you're staying. And usually it's at a reduced rate because we booked a giant block of hotel rooms. And back in the day when I used to do a lot of travel, I would always,

I would usually come three, four, five days early. Like, when my wife and my little daughter, Rachel's six months, went to Sydney, we went a week ahead of time so we could see Sydney. So a lot of my international travel, these days, because I'm trying not to leave my family, like, I'm leaving, I'm going to get there on Thursday, and I'm going to start working on Friday. Like, there's no gap.

Aaron, for example, went a couple days early. He went to Stonehenge. You might have seen pictures of him at Stonehenge. So Aaron had never been to London before and so he wanted to do a little bit of sightseeing so he did some sightseeing. Probably after my kids are off in college, I will bring my wife along. I probably

will travel a little bit more, bring my wife along and maybe we'll go early and do some of the sightseeing because while I have been to a lot of countries, my wife has been to less countries than I have been. So the pre-con is notes on the city, notes on... Oh, usually there are also notes, like, for example, I am flying into Heathrow, and it turns out I'm far away from where our site is.

So there's information about how to get to the hotel and stuff like that. There's a lot of just, basically the things you need to function. And one of the things that, from a behind the scenes standpoint is, while there's some excitement to traveling, like it's fun to travel.

And then one of the reasons that I know R&D tries to give everybody an opportunity is, it is, traveling is exciting. You get to go to other cities around the world. Then you get to meet magic players. I mean, that is just overall a really fun experience. But it is a lot of work. It is very tiring.

The way it works is if we work over a weekend, you can take some, when you get back, you're allowed to take a day or two off since you worked over the weekend. So normally what happens is if you travel, when you get back you get a day or two to crash. If there's a time change, it gives you

a little opportunity to readjust. Like I'm going to London, that's an eight hour time change I believe. And I'm going to London for a short period of time. Today is Wednesday. I'll get there Thursday morning and then I leave Monday. Monday afternoon.

So it is a anyway definitely a quite quite the quite the quite the event to do anyway a lot of what I was trying to say today

is sort of just let you in on like there's a lot of moving pieces behind the scenes of doing travel it's something we think is important something we prioritize

but it's, like I said, we want it to seem on the surface to be very smooth, you guys, but, uh, and like, I, I, I'm almost at work, so I don't, I don't have time to tell all the, uh, the crazy behind the scenes stories, but, uh, um, here's, I'll do one real quick is, so I'm I'm in charge of the final day of the Pro Tour and I, my job is to get the top eight, give them all the information so they show up the following day to be

at, because they, we have to run the top eight and stuff, so anyway I do the top eight, I give everybody the message I say be here tomorrow at 8 o'clock blah blah blah, and then I come to find out that there was a mistake made do the top eight. I give everybody the message. I say, be here tomorrow at 8 o'clock, blah, blah, blah. And then I come to find out that there was a mistake made and the top eight was wrong, that there was a player in the top eight, Scott Johns, apparently, who his score got recorded wrong.

And one of the people that I talked to, one of the people that I talked to and said, be here tomorrow at 8 o'clock, wasn't actually in the top eight. And I had to scramble to try to find that person. And after that, I started getting contact information. And at the time, cell phones weren't super prevalent yet. I did not get contact information for people. And so I had no way to contact them. So I had to show up early in the morning and find this person and let them know that they weren't going to play,

which was a pretty heartbreaking thing to do. But anyway, okay, I'm now at work. So I am off. I'm shortly, I mean, I gotta run and grab a few things, but I'm off to the airport. So the next time you're here for me, I will have come back from London and I will share with you all the fun times I had at London.

So anyway, I'm very excited. And I'm here, I'm here at Wizards. So you know what that means? It means this is the end of I had at London. So anyway, I'm very excited. And I'm here. I'm here at Wizards. So you know what that means? It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.