Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #763: Witney Williams

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

In this podcast, I talk with Witney Williams, the director of global events. She and I talk about all the things that go into running large Magic events.

I'm not pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so I've been doing fun interviews and I continue with that. So today I am with Whitney Williams. So this is somebody you guys might not know. So Whitney, hello. Hello, Mark. How are you? So one of the things that I've been wanting to do with this podcast is there are so many people that work on magic and so many people that do a lot of work that I don't think you guys know. So Whitney's one of those people that does a huge amount of work and does a lot of things that you're aware of, but I don't think you really realize there's a person behind it and a whole team, not just one person,

but a whole team behind this. And so I want to introduce Whitney and really talk about what Whitney does and introduce Whitney to all of you. You ready for that, Whitney? Yes, I am ready. Okay, so the first question I always ask is how you got into magic, but you're in the case where you didn't know magic before you came to Wizards. So let's start with how did you get to Wizards, and we'll eventually talk a little bit about how you got into magic. So how'd you get to Wizards? So I was working at Seattle Children's Theater as a stage manager, and one of the stage managers that I was working with got recruited to Wizards by another woman who was previously a stage manager in the Seattle theater scene. So for a few years there, we were all getting pulled in through the Stage Manager Network in Seattle. So I came to work at Wizards in September of 2003 to be the manager of the Pro Tour. So let's talk real quickly.

What do you do? Because I'm not sure the audience even knows what you do. So what do you do at Wizards? What is your responsibility? So I'm the director of global events and what that entails is we oversee the execution and strategic vision of events for from competitive magic all the way to what happens at conventions but we we don't just work on magic we also work on Dungeons and Dragons and sometimes we work with Hasbro on bigger corporate things

like Toy Fair or San Diego Comic-Con. And we also are responsible sometimes for internal employee events as well. So let's talk a little bit about that. So let's take something like, what's the Pro Tours called now? The Mythic Invitational. The Mythic Invitational. The Mythic Invitational. So what does it take to like, you're going to run that. I mean, in non-COVID times, you're going to run that.

What does that entail? What does it take to do something like that? So we really start with, obviously, the programs team starts with figuring out what the competitive magic structure should be for both tabletop and arena and as they relate to each other. And then once we know how many tournaments we want to run over the course of a year, we start looking for venues to do that. The Mythic Invitationals, as an example, are in-studio events. So we've been running those out of studios in Southern California. been running those out of studios in Southern California. And that's been a recent shift for us.

As your fans will know, we have been running those in public convention centers for a number of years. So that's been a pretty big production shift for us. So that's been kind of a challenge for us to find a building that works well for our game and for the broadcast of our game and is also like comfortable for the players to be in for three days for the broadcast of our game and is also like comfortable for the players to be in for three days for a number of hours and that they can get to so we have to take into consideration not only the technical and production needs of an event but also like what is the player experience going to be like how are they going to get there are they is there going to be a hotel for them to stay in or are there places for them to eat around? You know, a backlot in Hollywood does not always check all those boxes. So that's been kind of a challenge. So once we have the building, then we, and sometimes even before that,

we engage with a vendor and the vendor is usually responsible for the broadcast as well as working with the building, making sure we have food and beverage, making sure we have medical, all those kinds of things. Power, internet connection, you know, all those things. And then my team is responsible for actually running those crews on the show floor. So we make sure that everybody's there and everybody has the resources that they need to do their jobs. We also do all the back end paperwork, all the contracting with the talent, all the, you know, the insurance forms and the safety stuff. And there's lots and lots to do. Also, one of the big things that you do is, if you guys have ever been to a big event,

there's a lot of structure to making the event, right? Even, you rent the hall, but then everything inside it you have to make. You know, all the banners, all the stands, like, everything has to be created. And, like, I know one of the things that happens when we go to shows is there's a meeting ahead of time where Whitney and people will walk us

through all the things of like, here's where you're staying and here's where the event is. And then there's always a map of the event. There's always like a blueprint or I don't know what it's called. Floor plan. Floor plan. A floor plan. And it's like it's a major, major thing. You know, like just the

one thing that I find very interesting in this is I've gone to a lot of events, but I don't, I just show up. I do my thing and then I leave. And when I get there, I have a hotel room and there's a nice venue set up. And right, there's all the, there's power and the internet and all this stuff that you take for granted that will just be there, but it doesn't actually happen. And so let's talk timeline. There's another thing I find very interesting. Let's say you're going to book a venue. How far in advance do you normally have to book a venue well ideally we

like to be working a year out on an on an event where we need to rent a venue um in non-covid times uh that good event venues in the united states and really around the world are in high demand so to get into a building that that will be a building the players want to go to and has all the creature comforts that we want, it's going to probably take us, we're going to have to be on the dance card for a year in order to do that. Okay, so I know you're not going to know the exact number, but give me a ballpark number.

How many countries have you run events in? Oh, so many. That's my favorite thing about this job is magic has given me the world in so many ways. Let's say two countries in Asia and maybe 10 countries in Europe-ish. And then in the Americas, I've just really only done events in the United States. Obviously, Grand Prixs have been in Canada and Mexico and South America, but those I have never either attended or produced events in those places. Yeah. So it's one of the fun things about, about, about, I mean,

I enjoyed this on a lower level. You can do as much more is the amount of travel that you get, you know, and it is neat to sort of see the world, although you, you're much more tactical. It's not just seeing the world. It's like I got to deal with vendors in Italy or Germany or, you know, name that name, that whatever country you're trying to set up in. Yeah, absolutely. That's been my favorite part because I do like to travel and I, of course, I like to be a tourist and be on vacation. But working in another country really gives you an amazing sense of the culture and what's important to the culture and how they work. So yeah, I've been very fortunate to make friends all over the world and have like really just have had really amazing experiences.

Thank you. Thanks to magic. So let's talk a little bit about magic. So you, a lot of people I talk about on this, a lot of people I interview sort of, they played magic first and then Wizards was something they drifted to because they played magic. But you're the reverse. So it's sort of interesting that, what was your first experience with magic? So how did you first learn magic?

So I was taught magic when, well, actually, once I was offered the job, I sat down with my husband, who started playing magic in the very early days of magic at Washington State University with some early wizards. So we had magic cards at home. I just had never played. So as soon as I was offered the job, we sat down and Jeff and I played some magic just so I could start getting going. And then I'm a super casual magic player. So I play some magic here and there when duels of the planeswalkers was out i played that quite a bit um because it was like easy for me and super helpful in terms of mechanic tips and things like that uh i'm not a big deck builder

so uh i kind of liked the like grab and go nature of duals of planeswalkers um and nowadays i'm very much like a pre-built deck kind of player if um if i'm gonna play i'm gonna play with a deck that's already been built for me okay i'm a bit more of a dnd player just don't don't tell magic mark that's okay we we also make D&D. That's fine. Okay, so let's walk a little bit through the... Let's say, for example, somebody wants to do something. Because one of the things I find interesting is someone will plan something, right? They come to you and say, I want to do thing X.

Maybe they don't even know where they want to do it. I know a lot of times it's sort of say, I want to do thing X. And maybe they don't even know where they want to do it. I know a lot of times it's sort of like, I want to do something. And then, like, your team's responsible for just bringing that stuff to life. So what's been your favorite thing to run? Of all the events you've run, what was your favorite event to put together? I think my favorite event to put together was the um kaladesh takeover of the paramount at pax um that event was just it was so rich and immersive and so much fun and the the fans had such a great time um and just like such a beautiful set to riff off of so

let me explain for people that don't know what this is and then you'll explain what how you did and just like such a beautiful set to riff off of. You guys did great work. Let me explain for people that don't know what this is and then you'll explain how you did it. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, it's okay. For those that don't know, real quickly, when we were doing the pre-release for Kaladesh, there's a theater, so PAX was going on,

Penny Arcade Expo was going on in the convention center. And right next to the convention center is a theater called the Paramount Theater. That's a theater that does plays and all sorts of stuff. It goes back many, many years. And we took it over to turn it into, so what did we do? We turned it into what? We turned it into the Inventors Fair. So there's like a street between the Convention Center and the Paramount that is it's kind of a little city side street. So we were able to buy out that street along with the Paramount and set up a bunch of tents along there. And Kaladesh has a really amazing visual flavor to it that we were able to riff off of and make it look really beautiful.

And then my favorite part of that project was that we were able to go out and engage with artists from the local community and inventors from the local community and bring their works into our booths for that street fair. So we had KEXP, which is the local indie radio station. We had glass blowers from the Art Institute of Seattle. We had custom-made props from the set out there. It was just a really great experience. And we gave our folks who were working the event style guides for the people that lived in Kaladesh and gave them a base piece of clothing. But then we let them each choose their own accessories and really lean into that sense of invention and creativity that Kaladesh encouraged. And so it was just a really beautiful and fun event. We even had a parade around the convention center for that. It was just a really fun, great celebratory event for Magic. And that was outside the theater.

How about inside the theater? Yeah, so then inside we had the magic the gathering world championships happening um for half of the day of programming and on stage and then the other half of the day we were doing um kaladesh preview content and um like world building panels and things like that um which was really neat and we also had folks playing magic, just regular side events like normal. And then we also had a merchandise booth where you could buy these sweet Kaladesh T-shirts that we had specially designed for the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle, which had shared a lot of it shared a lot of themes with the Inventors Fair on Kaladesh. So it was a really great event

to be able to pull all those things together. You also had a Gremlin dice bag. That was my favorite. Yeah. So what do you think people like, one of the things i like is so is what what do you do that you don't think people like are aware of when you people know events happen right but what what is the like for example um i don't think it's a good event but like when someone comes up with

event we want to run an event what what is i is – I'm trying to get at sort of what might people not know about. There's the obvious thing that you're putting the event on, but there's a lot of stuff that goes on, like not even running the event, the infrastructure. What other stuff is going on there that you have to care about? Well, I think the thing that – like what we always say is if we're doing our jobs well, no one really notices that we're even there. Right. So there's just a lot of back end infrastructure things to keep people safe and to keep people comfortable that people just don't even realize happens. Because you don't realize it's happened unless you feel uncomfortable or feel unsafe. Right. So what is the traffic flow going to be around the floor plan if it's going to be busy? How do you lay an event out to make it so it doesn't feel like it's congested,

especially at a magic event where you're going to have a bunch of tables and chairs and people getting up in and out of those tables and chairs all the time. The tables can't be too close to each other or you feel like you're squashed against your table all the time and you can't get out things like that you really need to take care of your staff because magic events are long and they involve a lot of interaction with the attendees of the event so your judges your welcoming staff your learn to play staff all those people need to be well taken care of we need to feed them and make sure they have, you know, a good amount of rest throughout the day because it's a lot of work to, you know, stay positive and happy and deal with a whole bunch of different people throughout the course of a day, especially at an event like a convention where there's, you know, 75 to 100,000 people that are meandering around that takes a lot of energy out of people. So, and then there's just a lot of regulation around the production of events, you know, whether you're dealing with permitting or safety standards or, you know,

unions and just there's a lot of rules you need to understand and stay within regulations and guidelines and things like that. So hopefully the fans never see any of that stuff. So what is the largest staff you've ever had for an event? The Kaladesh event had, I think, 175 people on staff. Because that was in Seattle, we could have a bigger staff than normal, right? Well, yeah, but it was also just the multiple components of that event.

We had a full broadcast production happening, which is 60-ish people just on a regular day, no matter what broadcast we're doing. And then we had judges because we had side events, and then we had the because we had side events. And then we had, you know, the staff working the street fair. And we had so we had a lot of a lot of people work in that event. So here's the question. I'm trying to I'm trying to remember this.

If you remember this, when's the first time you and I met? Do you remember? Yes, I do. We met at the Pro Tour in Boston in September of 2003. OK, I wasn't actually even hired yet. The person who hired me was like, you're hired, we'll sign the paperwork on Monday, but you have a flight to Boston tomorrow,

so go to Boston. So they bought me a ticket and I got on the plane and I landed in Boston and walked into the Pro Tour and they were like, this is Mark Rosewater, he's going to give you a tour around the pro tour and so like you were like the very first person that i interacted oh i gave you i mean i vaguely vaguely remember this i gave you a tour of the pro tour okay so did i convince you to stay yeah yeah it was fascinating you what was great about that is that you were I was glad you gave me the tour

because you were able to answer a lot of my game questions that I had because I was so new to the game so we we not only because I had a lot of knowledge of production and so I didn't have a lot of questions about that but I had a lot of questions about you know how the game was played and who the player what the players cared about and things like that, which you were super helpful with. Yeah, so it's funny. I used to go to a lot of events back in my younger days,

but I don't travel as much. So one of the things that Whitney knows that you guys, the audience might not know, is when my twins were born, I struck a deal with my wife that I would travel twice a year. And so I know Whitney always comes to me because they're always trying to bargain

what's my usage for this year. Yep. We always try to get you in for the events we really want you for early before somebody else does. But whenever Whitney comes to me, I always know that's a sign that a bunch of people talked

and they really want me to go to this event. We love having you at events and the fans love you. So, yes, you're a very important person. A true VIP. So, it is fun. One of the things that I always do enjoy is you guys do such a great job of putting the event together that I really do appreciate, like, behind the scenes when you, like, we have all these curtains up, right? And so there's a lot of work that goes, a lot of that kind of busy work is behind the curtains so that people don't see us doing it.

But I go behind the curtain and there's just so many people working. but I go behind the curtain and there's just so many people working. Like when you go to like anything where we're shooting something, like there's all the video crew and there's just people lined up with monitors and all the director, the director and all the people. And then there's usually like the lunch area and, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on. This weekend for players tour finals, all those people are still working and our virtual staff room is on discord

so when i walked into the staff room i was like i'm here and i've got snacks for everybody yeah feeding people that's i think that's a big one for uh the feeding people is huge people really really care about food both both fans and staff it's food is one of those things that makes or breaks an event on both sides of the curtain. How much do you do the programming of the event? We don't do the magic programming. We leave that to the programs team to make sure we're running the right formats and that all of the events are just

running in the in the just try to make the most fun and varied format depending on what the event is who it's for right i don't mean the magic play per se but like when there's speakers or panels or like do you do scheduling or is that somebody else no we do scheduling um and we drive a lot of the content generation. And sometimes we even dig in and do a panel ourselves. But for the most part, we try to put together dynamic teams within Wizards to work on that stuff, led by subject matter experts, so that it's really meaty content because our magic fans you know they like things to be deep and detailed and uh they want to meet the people that make the game and we want to bring those people to them so what is your favorite detail you've ever done

something where i one of the things that's very fun when you're doing something is you're trying to get a lot of the nuance. I mean, you come from a theater background, right? Obviously. So what is your, what is your favorite detail you did where you just,

maybe not people notice it, but the people that notice it, this was just, you know, something really, really cool. Uh, when we did the giant Eldrazi outside of the convention center at Pax,

when the Eldrazi crushing the cop car, of the convention center at PAX when the Eldrazi crushing the cop car. My favorite detail was that the Eldrazi had a Seattle street lamp that it was holding that it had snapped into. And Jerry Rubin at Sightlines actually got that street lamp from Seattle City Salvage. It wasn't like, of course, it wasn't one of the street lamps actually attached to the street because the Eldrazi was snapping it in two. But it was a real Seattle streetlight. And then they wired it so that it would be flickering. And then in the cop car that it was crushing, they put a fog machine inside of the car so that the car would smoke. And those details, like I don't know how many fans realized that that street lamp exactly

matched all the other street lamps that were in downtown Seattle that day, but it did. And I just thought that that was a brilliant detail. Yeah, real quickly, just a little more for people to understand, for those that don't know. So also at PAX, but a different year. This was the year that Battle for Zendikar came out, because we were, that's why the Eldrazi were there. We made this, we had this, we had this big hall, and then right next to where we were,

in the front of the building, basically, through this glass, giant glass plane, we built this Eldrazi, apparently breaking through the glass, I mean, an illusion, we didn't actually break the glass, but, and then, right, it was smashing a cop car and snapping a lamppost, and it was awesome. It was, I remember, like, so what will happen is ahead of time, you guys will give us sketches and things

and stuff, and so I remember that you, like, you guys had a sketch, well, it's going to look like this, and then as we go along, you would give us little pictures of things, and then after the event, I remember this. I still have this. You sent everybody at the event a picture of it as a remembrance.

I still have that. Yeah, that was great. It still shows up on Twitter sometimes, which always makes me happy that it's still out there alive, even though it's not really alive anymore. Is there a dream? Is there something you haven't done yet that one day I would love to

do? Do you have any sort of grandiose idea that someday you'd like to do? So many, Mark. So many. But I think the brass ring is probably everybody's waiting for Magic Con. Yeah. Yeah, that's something we keep talking about. Hopefully one day it'll become a reality. Hopefully one day.

It's everyone's dream. Fans and staff alike, for sure. Yeah, we've been talking about that forever. We have. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully one day. Hopefully there'll be a point where people actually gather together near each other again. I know, I know. It's been so rough.

So, let me just, because it's interesting. What is it like from someone who is so living in the real world, making real events, to shift into, like, virtual events? What has that been like? It's been so fascinating i mean first of all it's just like there was a time of transition where it was like is this really gonna happen is this really gonna happen is all of this really gonna get shut down is this all gonna get canceled and we had for a while we had this like rolling spreadsheet of like and we were researching pockets of the illness and like where things were safe and where they weren't um and that's always been my guiding star like i take it very seriously that our decision whether or not to run events could have a real world health

impact for our fans and we take that very seriously. So for a while, we were really looking at what was safe and what wasn't and trying to execute events in locations where it was safe. But then it just sort of was like a big wave that washed over us and we couldn't do that anymore. So then we had to shift our focus to what could we bring to our fans in the digital space. And that really required us to break down what our events provide for our fans and what we could salvage in a digital way. So we had to really think about what our fans like to do.

And we haven't hit it out of the park. We are still experimenting and we're still trying new things. I'm really excited about what Past Times is offering for Gen Con Online. We're trying to infuse a little bit more of the convention or festival feel into what we have planned there. So we're trying really hard to make our virtual magic events as fun and engaging and community building and like magic satisfying as we can. But it's, it's a tough gig. Magic is a game about the gathering

and what I've noticed is that our fans miss the gathering piece like you can put the magic piece in front of them in a lot of different virtual ways but we miss the gathering so it's interesting, as we record this tomorrow from when we're recording this I have a panel on san diego comic-con at home which is uh i i often go to san diego comic-con and it's virtual this year and so i i record my panel like a month ago and i'm really interested to see how you know it's a very it's me on my couch it's it's a very different experience. Yeah, yeah. And all the event producers have really, you know, had to, we've really had to stretch and try to figure out what is still going to be meaningful when we can't be together physically.

So, but yeah, it is, I don't know, it is like this, trying to find things in virtual space is very interesting to me. As someone who plans events, I'm curious how much of the future... Obviously, at some point, pandemic will be done. We get to gather again and have more gatherings. But I wonder... It seems like we're learning lessons about virtual space. Because we're kind of forced to it. Yeah, absolutely. We're learning a ton about what works in the virtual space and don't have to kind of force to it yeah absolutely we're learning a ton about

what works in the virtual space and what doesn't um and also just all these digital tools you know like this weekend our staff room is in discord um and i know gen con online is running some commander stuff through zoom and through discord so like we're just trying to push the edges of the envelope with all the tools and what they do and and just trying to trying to recreate a little bit of a little bit of that magic that you get when you just put people together in the same room it's really difficult so anyway i hope uh when it's not too distant future where we get back to real events but I want to thank you for joining me

because I'm almost to work that I talk I've had 700 podcasts where I talk about design people have heard me talk infinitely on design and it's a fascinating part to me as someone who works with so many different people I just love watching other stuff so you've run so many events

that i've enjoyed um and hopefully at some point i will get out of the house again and attend some other events so um yeah let it be soon everybody stay safe out there and hopefully we'll get back together soon so i uh i'm at my desk, guys. We all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Whitney, I want to thank you for being with us so much. Thank you so much, Mark.

I hope you guys learned a bit about a different facet of what goes on at Wizards of the Coast. I will see you next time. Bye-bye.