4 replies to this topic

[Kidoke1]

Hi. I've been wondering where to find a nerf war. I've looked up "NC nerf wars", "Durham Nerf wars", "Raleigh Nerf wars", and even "Nerf wars" near me. No actual results. Anybody know where I can find one? I would plan one, but I don't know how active or if there even is a local nerf community/interested people. 

[Daniel Beaver]

War planning has gotten extremely disrupted by the expansion of social media, it's difficult to find them now. Basically, whoever hosts in the area has to post on whichever newfangled site/service that people use. For the MN wars I host, I end up having to post here on NH, on Facebook, on Reddit, and on Discord servers... and I'm still probably missing a huge chunk of potential nerfers. I don't think there's an easy answer for discovering nerf wars other than just spamming everywhere with questions, or trying to build up a local community on your own.

[Kidoke1]

Great. Any tips for planning and advertising? what should I prepare, what should I buy, how do I set it up, are people hired to act as refs? do people volunteer? what are the different (more common) game modes? LIterally anything necesarry for setting up I need to know.

[Daniel Beaver]

The steps I would take are:

 

1. Post a thread of Nerfhaven. Which you've done already, good work 

2. Post a comment on r/nerf. Also search through the post history for North Carolina and Durham to see if anyone else has posted about it, and message them directly.

3. Search Facebook for any local nerf groups. If one does not exist, create it. You want the group to have a very generic and searchable name, so that people can discover it - such as North Carolina Nerf, or Durham North Carolina Nerf. Once a group is created, people will start stumbling on it and sending you messages, so be sure to respond to those.

4. If you know even one other person, host a war and post the event across multiple social media outlets. You may actually have some randos show up, people who saw your event but never messaged you. The majority of people online lurk, but they are real and present.

 

There is a lot of diffuse interest in nerf wars out there, and so you have to take actions to coalesce it into a community of people who are actively engaged. That's where you have to just "fake it till you make it", host very tiny wars and post invites and information on a lot of online social platforms. Eventually one person will come, and then three, and then six... and at some point you'll actually have a local community of people who are actively participating. The only way to do that is to apply some elbow grease, and to believe in the project even when it seems like you're spinning your wheels.

Edited by Daniel Beaver, 08 February 2020 - 11:35 AM.

[snakerbot]

You could also try meetup.com. We have some people at our Houston wars who found us because we posted on that site.