Copyright 2026 Pastimes, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Pastimes Events is committed to providing the best experiences for attendees and our staff at our events. We also have a deep commitment to transparency and showing action taken from feedback. We hope this article will help explain some of the changes we have made to upcoming MagicCons and show we have heard your feedback and utilized it to create a better experience. We will continue to solicit feedback and make changes when possible.
Shifts & Breaks
Early / Mid / Late dynamic
Most Folks: 9.5 hours long with 1.5 hours of breaks
Team Lead, Area Manager, Head Judge: 12 hours long with 2.5 hours of breaks
Most Compensation
The compensation rates for all Pro Tour roles, Area Manager, Back of House, Community Team, Customer Experience, Floor Judge, Prize Wall, Scorekeeper, Setup, Teardown, and TO Team positions remain the same.
Hotel Stipend
Remains $175 / day worked with a bonus $175 for working 3+ shifts.
Staff Appreciation
Everyone on staff will still be getting a package of goodies from Pastimes and Wizards of the Coast.
Everyone at their first event with us will receive a personalized water bottle and nametag. Each event will have a “passport stamp” sticker to add to your water bottle to show the events you have been to.
Travel Assistance
Can request travel assistance up to $1000 per show
More people will be able to get travel assistance than previous years
Some Compensation
Team Lead rate increased to match the Pro Tour Floor Judge rate.
Monday after MagicCon: Chicago 2025, there will be a Event Staff Educational Summit. This is an event for Event Staff.
This event will focus on multiple aspects of tabletop tournament craft, such as judging, scorekeeping, customer service, and back of house logistics.
Presenters, workshop leads, and other Summit staff will be considered working another shift at the MagicCon.
This section is short and to the point. These are things that are working well or that we have altered other portions of the event to fit around instead of changing these things.
We have seen a lot of success moving to the three-shift 9.5-hour model instead of the longer AM/PM model. Some adjustments are being made to the start times of shifts and to the distribution of staff members between those shifts, but we are maintaining the same models as 2024.
The compensation rates for all Pro Tour roles, Area Manager, Back of House, Community Team, Customer Experience, Floor Judge, Prize Wall, Scorekeeper, Setup, Teardown, and TO Team positions remain the same. The size of MagicCons may be increasing, but the tasks will remain similar. Each of these teams will be expanding to accommodate the growth in the event. We acknowledge that inflation and other factors can impact the value of the compensation received at an event. MagicCons have a unique staff; they are quite global in a way other large events are not. We cannot appropriately accommodate or consider factors like inflation on a global scale; we can accommodate in other ways. See the Travel Assistance section further in the article for more information.
Remains $175 per day worked with a bonus $175 for working 3+ shifts.
Pastimes and Wizards of the Coast will always appreciate our staff and everything they do for us. Everyone on staff will still be getting a package of goodies from Pastimes and Wizards of the Coast. Everyone at their first event with us will receive a personalized water bottle and nametag. Each event will have a “passport stamp” sticker to add to your water bottle to show the events you have been to. Along with the appreciation packages, we will continue to have nights of fun and merriment on Sundays to celebrate the staff of the event.
As said above, we are committed to constant change and improvement in the experiences of our players and staff. These are changes we have made in hopes that we can continue to create enjoyable staffing experiences for our people and are doing our best to provide support to the community.
One of the significant changes to our compensation schemes for 2025 is in Travel Assistance. We are aware that the locations of the MagicCons in 2025 are more concentrated than in the past few years, affecting some of the travel needs of our staff members. We are still committed to the entire Magic community, regardless of the event’s location. Everyone deserves the chance to seize opportunities they have earned. As stated above, things like inflation and increasing costs differ based on a myriad of factors. Those also tend to impact things like travel most deeply. Between all of these things, Travel Assistance is the most flexible way to accomplish addressing that.
Staff will be able to apply for travel assistance in increments of $100 from “no travel assistance needed” to $1000. There is a separate space for a cover letter for this travel assistance, as always, and a space for “requested assistance” (this would be nice) vs “required assistance” (I need this to attend). If you are accepted to be on staff, you will never be offered less travel assistance than you listed as required and may receive more travel assistance than requested based on the event’s needs. Additionally, we are committed to providing more folks with travel assistance than in past years.
While no compensation went down in any role at MagicCons, we have increased the Team Lead rate for the Ticketed Play side of the event to match the Pro Tour Floor Judge rate. The talent pool of judges who are appropriately trained for the PT floor and who can be the Team Leads and Mid-sized event Head Judges on the Ticketed play side have quite a bit of overlap. The two roles have similar levels of responsibility and required skill and should be compensated accordingly. This does not include the PT travel scheme nor any other PT-specific things; this only refers to the daily rate for the shift at the event.
Monday after the event, there will be an Event Staff Educational Summit. This event will be a professional development day where event staff can learn new skills and sharpen old ones. This will be a full day of workshops, panels, lectures, and activities. There will be multiple breakout rooms focused on various aspects of tabletop tournament craft, such as judging, scorekeeping, customer service, and back of house logistics. This event will run from 9 am to 6 pm and will include a catered lunch. (hours subject to change)
Similar to how events are run for players, this is an event run for staff. This event will require registration and would typically have an entry fee. The entry fee for the Educational Summit hosted at MagicCon: Chicago 2025 will be covered by Pastimes, Wizards, and other sponsorship providers to kick off the new year. The staff of this Summit will be compensated as part of the Community Team at MC Chicago 25. Summit staff is not a role that is open for application; their compensation information is included for transparency. Those positions will be offered to qualified community members at the discretion of Pastimes and Wizards of the Coast.
More details about the Summit are coming soon. Keep an eye on the Pastimes Discord for updates.
Thank you for reading! We hope to see you in 2025 and are looking forward to another great year of MagicCons.
Copyright 2026 Pastimes, Inc. All Rights Reserved.