Summer Hours In Effect!!

Holy cow! Yes, we made it one WHOLE year in downtown Ludington!
Which might not seem like much to the casual observer, most folks are supposed to have business plans stretching years out, and the funding to back it no less. In our case, however, we're in an industry that's seeing brick & mortar closings in dramatic rates in a community that doesn't really help small businesses in the first place; we're mostly seasonal. So, one year in the industry and community, its a milestone!
And, all of this wonderfulness is due to our wonderful customer base! Thanks to your support for the shop, we were able to keep the doors open throughout the winter, move into a MUCH nicer location, and maintain and expand the offerings!
So, here's to you folks!
Come on out and celebrate with us next week, July 7th (Yes, I know its a Monday; its a special occasion!) We've got cake (Cake makes everything wonderful!!), some awesome Fudge materials thanks to Ann at Grey Ghost Press, some fun materials from the shop, and some fun games! We're looking at a FREE VS System Draft, Mario Kart 64 competition, and some other fun oddities! Drop by and hang out and help us celebrate!!

Alright Magic Fans! We're going to need some help with a new undertaking: getting Friday Night Magic in store!
For those not in the know, Friday Night Magic is a special program Wizards runs for game stores, like Backstage, to offer a competitive but mostly casual environment for players. Prizes supported by Wizards include special, alternate art reprints of some fun, classic cards, as foils! Very cool stuff that!
To that end, I'll be taking the Tournament Organizer tests in the upcoming week, and from there we need to sanction so many games in a window of time for me to move on to Level 2, which then allows us to do the Friday Night Magic!
To that end, we're going to be hosting Constructed Magic: The Gathering events every Saturday, with the occasional draft thrown in for the upcoming release of Eventide on July 25th.
Join us every Saturday from now till God Knows When for some fun games, casual play, and some fun little prizes until we're legit, and then the really cool Wizards promo stuff starts rolling in! Events will start around 2 pm every Saturday. Check out the calendar for specific details on a given weekend to see what the format is.

We just got through 4th Edition Game Day for D&D down at the shop and it was a fantastic success! Of the books ordered, I'm left with pretty much a single Player's Handbook- not bad for our little burg! And, to the new players at the shop, thanks for giving us a shot and we hope to see you again for some of our other fantastic events!
Many thanks to Caleb and Ryan for running the fantastic adventure, couldn't have done it without you, and many thanks for all of the players for making the game day successful! Pictures were taken ala hardcopy, not digital this weekend, so look for the pics up in the coming weeks as we get those run off!

Coming up, we've got other fun things; Next weekend we're running another Avengers VS System draft for the Incredible Hulk this time, again we're offering up a pair of tickets to this blockbuster "HULK SMASH!" spectacle! And, up on the 21st, we have Free RPG Day rocking out, so all of you 4th Edition purchasers can pick up some sweet gear from Wizards, Paizo, and Goodman Games, not to mention all of the other sweet publishers such as Flying Buffalo with their Tunnels and Trolls quickstart, and Ed Greenwood's Castlemourn quickstart!

Pardon the caps, just can't contain the excitement!
It is confirmed, we are moving the shop! Business will continue as normal this weekend, but next weekend we'll be at the new location, up the street by a block, next to Reusch's Jewelers!
Also, next weekend, we have the D&D Game Day event, wherein you get to play 4th Edition, rock out to some fun events, and pick up your own copies of the 4e books! If anyone is interested in ordering a set, drop by this weekend and let me know; I'll need 50% down to confirm the order. As it stands, I have 3 sets of the books ordered, another 3 Player Hand Books, and a pair of the adventure "Keep on the Shadowfell". If you can get your order into me this weekend, I can guarantee its presence the weekend of release!
In addition to the new store, we'll have a slew of fun perks as well, including:
- Dedicated Console and RPG rooms; couches, big screen TVs, and more!
- Highspeed internet access! We won't have hardware onsite for use for a bit, but you'll be able to bring laptops, PSPs, DS, and other units in and play!
- MORE TABLE SPACE! Yes, table space HAS been at a premium. With the current layout, I'm looking to accommodate around 18-20 people at the game tables alone, not to mention the spill-over space with the respective rooms.
- SNACKS! I'll start carrying snacks on hand over the course of the next couple weeks, as with the space I have I can now offer cool stuff like that ^_^ Let me know of any preferences you have.
- EXPANDING PRODUCT LINES! More stuff, that's right! I'm in touch with some new distributors for everything from games to knick-knacks! Look for some neat game related stuff, anime related merch, and more!

*whew* Too much excitement, seriously. I can't tell you how cool this will be! BUT, you'll be able to see for yourself! And, for our one year anniverary, we'll be hosting another "Grand Re-Opening" party at the shop, showing off the new rooms, which should all be finished by then, and some cool events and promotions. Yet to see what that will all entail, but it will be fun!

Oh what fun! A Reject Rare draft is scheduled for Satuday!
What the frak is that?! Ah, some folks might not know that one. A Reject Rare draft is a wacky-fun little event where everyone brings a stack of really bad rares, we're talking the stinkers of the bunch, and we run a draft with the whole lot of them to see who can do what.
The event is technically free to enter, all you need to do is bring 45 cards, either 45 really bad rares or at least a fair booster pack distribution of cards (3 rares, 9 Uncommons, 33 Commons). Worst case scenario, I'll throw some packs together and you can pick those up off me for $3.00 (A buck a pack!).

Oh yea! Every geek's dreams come true when they get to see their heroes ripped from the pages and thrust onto the silver screen. Now, we know there have been a few bowsers over the years (Captain America with the rubber ears anyone? No? Trust me, it was scary...I have it on VHS somewhere, I should share the scars...), but in the last decade or so Hollywood's been giving us some excellent movie fare.
This summer is no exception! We have some huge movies to look forward too, many with their roots in our favorite places: comic books, fantasy novels, and games! In May we have Iron Man, Speed Racer, Narnia, and the fourth Indiana Jones! In June we have scant offerings in the brand new Hulk flick, starring Edward Norton of Fight Club fame, followed by another amazing month in July with Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Batman - The Dark Knight, and *gasp* the second X-Files movie!
Aside from the obvious geekery, what does this mean for Backstage fans? Plenty! We're partnering with Harbor cinemas for some fun promotional events all throughout the summer! Mind, not everything is in place, but look forward to some free product at each of the releases, competitions for tickets to the shows, and more!!
Keep your eyes peeled on the site here for more information about this exciting summer!

I'm accepting preregistration for the Magic: The Gathering Ravnica block sealed event "Guild Wars", to be held at Backstage Hobbies & Games in Ludington, MI on April 26th!
Registrations are being accepted online at the soon-to-be regular forum at Game Face Live- Click Here to access the thread and register!
We'll also be accepting registration in-store beginning this Thursday when we open again!
Preference for enrollment in a particular guild will be given to those who preregister and pay in advance of the event; Accommodations for those who register on the day of the event will be made based on the number of registrants in guilds to that point.

Its not pretty, but it is, for the most part, functional. I'm talking about the new Backstage Hobbies & Games Magic: The Gathering Database!
The Search Text function doesn't work, so right now it just retrieves sets from the database, but it is browsable and you can see what I have if you know what you're looking for. Additional functionality, and sets, are slowly being added. Right now, I have Revised, a bit of 4th edition, Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, and Tempest in the system. Still working on getting the Rares listed in there, I have to decide how I'm bindering a number of them, but the basis is there!

Check it out Here!

This thread is to announce that a Revised Edition of "The Imp Game presents Mischief & Mayhem" is now underway!

Its been a couple years since the original game was produced and its gotten a lot of play under its belt by a lot of people. Some of those folks have been kind enough to send additional feedback and discussion my way, along with some ideas and such.

I'm wanting to focus more energy on my writing as it is, so with the amount of material I have for Imp, this seems like a great place to start for the year!

Everyone is encouraged to drop a line here and let me know what everyone thinks, what they'd like to see. I'm shooting for the PDF to release in May, with the print book following in June or July.

In addition to this, I'll probably be refreshing Big Dumb Heroes and issuing a second printing, as its sold out! And, to boot, I'm also working heavily on Traps & Mishaps, which is part of the reason for the work on the other two, to make sure all of the material jives.

Discussion on this can be found here

Alright everyone! New site going up slowly but surely here. Doing more work for Freedom Martial Arts has led me back to PostNuke, a kick ass site manager with a lot of awesome add-ons. For what we're doing at Backstage, I thought this would be a great way to manage everything!
The old forums are still up & active, though if all goes well I'll be porting the whole database over to this here, likely set it up so that Neo and Backstage operate off one PN Install so everything carries over. But, time will tell!

In other news, the new hours are effective this week. I'll be open on Thursday, be sure to spread the news and let everyone know. Also, need to see about boosting traffic to the store, so I may be rolling out some incentive things like what I did back with Guerrilla Gaming. Also want to do t-shirts. They rock.