OTB Variant Play in Michigan

A pet project of mine is to eventually hold a tournament that features a variant section alongside of a "regular" Chess tournament.  I would love to have a Chess960 section of a regular tournament. Finding the critical mass of players to do such a thing has, unfortunately, proven difficult.  Nevertheless, I keep trying.

My current approach is to have variants available in the skittles room of a regular Chess tournament, in the hopes that people will see the games, and a few take some interest, and eventually get that handful of people together that would be necessary for over the board play.  For me, personally, I'm also interested in other abstract strategy games besides Chess and Chess variants. Although I am particularly drawn to ancient  (I would rather play Tamerlane Chess or Hnefatafl than Chess960) I'll play just about anything.  Plus, I know there are people who really ought to play Chess, but are a bit intimidated by how "serious" it is.  I've always thought if we could ease them in by offering a Chess-like transitional game, we could grow the ranks of Chess players as well.

To those ends, I am holding a Chess tournament with a skittles room that will be amenable to Chess variants and to games other than Chess.  There will be an informal competition held, the prize for which will be free entry to a future event that I run.  I wish I could say that there will be hordes of people playing a variety of games.  Alas, I can't.  I can't honestly guarantee that there will be anyone except me who likes these games and comes to play them, although I can honestly say that several people have expressed interest and say they would like to come.

So, read all about it here:  http://gamesinmichigan.com/abstracts/skittles.htm

And drop me a line if you have similar interests and would like to make suggestions on how we might be able to get something like that going.  I mean, I like Chess, but a little bit of variety couldn't really hurt.