TRANSCRIPT Hi, It’s Matt Pennington here. With winter coming up, I wanted to take an opportunity to let everyone know where we’re up to here at Profound Decisions and what we’re doing. We started the year buoyed up by how incredible 2019 was. I felt we’d had some of our best events yet - and we finished with our biggest event ever. As a result we were finally making real progress on our plan to purchase a permanent site. Work was well underway with our accountants and solicitors to raise the money needed and we were really excited about the possibilities. Inevitably that all had to be put on hold. Once the scale of the pandemic became clear we had to focus on the implications of being unable to run events. We have five permanent members of staff who work for Profound Decisions and I wanted to do everything possible to avoid needing to make anyone redundant. Thanks to the players who trusted and supported us we’ve been able to do that. So the first thing I want to do, is say a huge thank you to everyone, especially to those who allowed us to roll over their tickets. While I understand that many people needed to get their money back - the fact that so many live roleplayers were happy for us to hang on to their funds until we can run an event has let us use the year to try and improve the game rather than having to mothball everything. I was also bowled over by the extraordinary generosity of those players who asked us not to roll over their tickets and donated the money instead. It made a huge difference to us, to know that people cared that much about us and the game we put on to want to do that. Thank you everyone who did that, your kindness was humbling. The backing we’ve had from the hobby has been so effective that we knew we would survive 2020 and beyond no matter what happened. But quite a few players asked if there was any other way they could support Profound Decisions, so we’ve been looking at ways they could help. In August the government announced a temporary cut in the VAT rate to help businesses like ours. I realize that tax rates are not a subject many LRPers are interested in - not unless it’s raising thrones for the Senate! But our total VAT bill was nearly fifty grand in 2019 - so the potential savings are enormous. Unfortunately many of our players who usually buy their tickets for the year ahead have already done so. In very simple terms - we can’t take advantage of the scheme if we have nothing to sell. So we spent some time developing a new idea for “open tickets” that will give players a way to support us over the coming months - as well as providing benefits to those players who use them. An open ticket costs the same as an early ticket - but each one is valid for any single Empire event no matter when we run it. The idea is that if you buy an open ticket now - then you get an event at the current price regardless of when you use it - avoiding any price rises in the meantime. We let people know three years ago that we would need to increase our main ticket prices by £5.00 in 2021. But buying your tickets now gives you a chance to avoid that price rise. You can buy as many open tickets as you want - and the normal discounts for buying multiple tickets together also apply. An open ticket will remain valid no matter when you use it, regardless of all price increases in the meantime. The aim is to ensure that if you buy an open ticket then you’ll save money when you use it as well as doing us a massive favour. After Graeme chatted to friends about the idea, they mentioned they’d like the potential to buy open tickets for other people. So we’ve built that option in as well. Any open ticket can be transferred to another player if you know their PID. The only restriction for open tickets is that we must receive payment before the 15th March 2021 - so that we can benefit from the government incentive. Open tickets will always be valid - but we won’t offer them for sale or take payment for them after that date. You can always still buy regular tickets of course, and they’re just as beneficial to us! The new open tickets are so that people who are in a position to give us extra support can choose to do so. The option to buy “open tickets” is now live on the website. As part of the update we’ve created a new page for the website so you can convert an open ticket to an event booking or transfer it to another player at any time. We’ve made sure that open tickets are as simple and easy to use as possible and we’ve put a page on the wiki explaining how they work, there’s a link in the description below. So now we are very definitely asking for your help! If you can afford it then buying open tickets will save you money and will be a huge boost to us. The more tickets that we can sell before the 15th March 2021, the faster we can get our plans to buy a permanent site back on track. We’ll have more updates over winter as things change. Whatever happens, we’ll be back running events as soon as it’s safe to do so.
Hi Matt, been nagged to attend Empire for quite sometime. Once payday roles round end of the month I will crack on and get myself a ticket. Through my sponser at LARPBook and friends, I've been hearing nothing but great things. I wish you all the best during this pandemic and will get my ticket end of the month. Stay strong and stay safe. x
On groups, have you thought about producing Group IDs and allowing a GID to buy tickets for its members? Allowing a GID to buy open tickets would allow members to spread the financial cost without giving the open ticket to any one player at the off
Hi Debbie - we're not operating a kickstarter style crowd-funding campaign. Part of the reason for that is the sheer level of investment required. Buying a site will cost upwards of a million pounds - and my sense is that there is no way that kind of money can be raised using a crowdfunding campaign. So our plan is to purchase a site the old fashioned way. That means saving money for a deposit, getting some investors, and then getting a mortgage from the bank. We think that's a more realistic way to achieve our goal than a kickstarter. I hope to revisit the idea of a kickstarter once we've got a site secured. It will take a lot of investment to *develop* a site so that it's perfect for live roleplaying - but that can be done piecemeal - as we focus on one project at a time. And that seems like the sort of thing that could be effectively supported with crowdfunding.
To clarify, I'm currently a student and would love to take advantage of the open tickets before my concession expires - if I buy lots of open tickets will the concession be valid for all of them due to booking time? As an extension of this what happens if I transfer one to someone who isn't valid for concessions at a later date?
Mark, No, I'm afraid in those situations, the concession would not be valid, so there'd be an additional charge due for each ticket. In essence, the concession must be valid at the point of use, not the point at which you book (This is true of all tickets, not just open tickets). That said, we wouldn't invalidate the ticket, there'd just be an extra £15 to pay. Regards Graeme PD
Can someone please explain any implications for taking a refund of any money still in our PD accounts and then buying new open-tickets - This is with a view to doing things in the most VAT-efficient manner for both customers and for PD. i.e is there a way to save VAT to the advantage of either the customer or PD, without disadvantaging either?
I have no faith in Profound Decisions any more. Too many mistakes made, too many alarming mistakes in regards to safeguarding. I don't trust Matt with my safety (or the safety of my family), so I certainly won't do so with my money. I'm sure Matt will reply to this with something that sounds very reasonable. Alas actions speak louder than words, and the actions have always been lacking.
