by Armchair Dragoons PAO, 21 October 2026
As we do with every one of our events, we ask our attendees what they thought, and we share those results with the public. This is an accountability function for ourselves, but also gives the audience some insight into our events to help them decide how many you’re going to plan to attend next year1.
The 4th Fall Assembly was held from 9-11 October in Cary NC again. Cary is a suburb of Raleigh and easily reachable on a variety of interstates, as well as the RDU International Airport. This was the second year that we scheduled the event at Cary VFW, who have a great facility for events of our size. We’re going to have our galleries of specific event photos coming up soon, along with commentary from players and GMs. But today is about the feedback from our attendees.
most images can click to enlarge
The Stats
We’ve got a couple of ‘standard’ questions for all of our event surveys:
Most importantly – did you have a good time?
Comparison over time – % of “Hell yes!” responses
So we’re well over 60% in 3 out of 4 years. Not too bad, but always room to improve. |
$65 to attend…
Comparison over time2 – % of “About right” responses
Of note, the first 3 years all included responses that said “Too little” as well. |
Attendance
Last year there were 31 registered, and 30 attended; in 2026, we had 34 registered and 33 attendees. Turnover was approximately 25% from last year.
We’re still split roughly into thirds for our population between locals, Dragoons-connected folks (staff, forum members, Origins players, etc), and random folks who found us.
There’s 11 folks who have attended all 4 years, but that includes both Brant & Mike from the Dragoons admin team.
Over the entire life of the Fall Assembly, we’ve had over 60 different attendees join us for at least 1 of the conventions
This is the latest article in our series of articles covering 2026 Fall Assembly and you can find a carousel linking all of them across the bottom
Attendee Feedback
If there’s one thing we need to improve for next time, what is it?
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If there’s one thing we need to make sure we sustain for next time, what is it?
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Next Year? 2027 Planning starts NOW
For our 5th anniversary Fall Assembly in 2027, we’re looking to double the size of the convention. We’re looking to bring in over 60 attendees, and (ideally) a couple of folks operating sales tables, as well—either publishers that are nearby or retailers that are interested in a captive audience.
Now, this requires a few things, not least is a larger space. Fortunately, our hosts have just such a larger space that’ll allow us to stretch out with more elbow room, and go from 8-9 game tables up to about 25, plus other dedicated tables for munching/socializing, admin tasks (swap table, raffle table, badges, etc), and those aforementioned sales tables.
Larger location for 2027, set up for someone else’s event. We’ve done the math on the tables we can fit in there, and it’s a bunch.
We asked this year’s attendees
“Next year, we’re looking to move to a much larger space, but will need to significantly increase our attendance to do so also. Aside from ‘start promoting earlier’ what suggestions do you have to help us bring in more attendees?”
- Advertise it more
- Ask people to contribute their local contacts
- Consider day passes or discounted family pass for ”the next “generation“
- Headline designers, content creators, and/or events?
- I would post a map showing where Cary is located and label the driving distances to major cites to show that its drivable in a few hours.
- ID events as early as possible. Do we need a War College event?
- Posts on as many wargame websites and Facebook pages as possible.
- secure events that will have a big draw
- Use all forms of social media x tactic etc
- Would it help if possible attendees were asked if there were any games/systems they don’t know how to play but would like to see on the schedule, and then try to find someone who knows that game/system GM it?
We’ve got some plans to address several of these already, so stay tuned for an update later in the Spring about where we are in the process.
2027 event info is already getting prepped. Registration is going to open in June, before Origins. Event submission will start shortly after that. We hope we’ll have a couple of the vendors/publishers/special guests locked in by then. Plan now to be here in October and join the convention that we’re growing into the best wargaming weekend in the Southeast.
See you there?
All of the 2026 Fall Assembly Articles
Warning Order ~ Registration Open ~ Event Preview ~ Final Approach ~ Open ~ Game Reports ~ AAR
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