So as I write this my eyelids are drooping with the latter stages of
jet-lag recovery. A minor inconvenience really given what a great
time I had last week attending Gencon for the first time, albeit in a
work capacity.
The whole trip was very short notice, about three weeks worth after a
colleague pulled out of attending which allowed me to stand in. I was
kinda excited and terrified as I had a fear of flying, having only
done it once to Amsterdam back in 2001 and even though it was a 40
minute journey I was rigid with fear the whole time, particularly
when taking off or landing. This trip would comprise of four separate
flights roughly totalling 16 hours in the air with the accompanying
ups and downs not to mention the prospect of turbulence. Despite this
a free trip abroad was not something I was going to turn up so I
gritted my teeth and got down to the business of getting on with it.
The first flight out was the worst, from London to Iceland, but it
was only 2 hours and allowed me to acclimate to the whole experience.
Unlike my Amsterdam trip I wasn’t alone and didn’t want to appear
a wuss in front of everyone so sucked my anxiety up and distracted
myself with videos on my tablet, plenty of anime. Iceland is quite
bland from the air. It’s not very big and only has a population of
about 60,000. Was a nice place to visit though and I would like to
get a better look round at some point. All in all it was a solid 26
hours of travel to get to our hotel in Indianapolis which we arrived
at around 2am.
Tuesday and Wednesday we had some time to ourselves after setting up
the Warcradle stand (it’s awesome, check it out if you can, it’s
at most big events). We got to experience how big America is.
Everything is bigger, their streets, their buildings, their food! I
was very careful with the food. Everything seems to be fried and made
of meat. Steak was on the menu of every restaurant we visited, even
the breakfast and Chinese buffet places! I had steak and lobster at
Red Lobster one evening! Most of us got sick during the stay and I
was being careful with my intake in both quality and quantity. Its
easy to understand why America has such a prevalent obesity problem
given how hard it is to eat well there. On the two occasions I asked
for a salad they didn’t have any leading me to believe it was only
included on the menu for the sake of appearing to have a healthy
option. Between frugal eating and a stomach bug I’ve lost over a
stone and a half, so silver linings.
Thursday the show started proper. The convention centre Gencon is
held at is huge. There are dozens of adjacent rooms all hosting an
event of some sort and even a few attractions. I regret not being
able to try the immersive star ship bridge simulator or take time out
for a massage. It is so big it took longer to walk to the toilet and
back than actually use it! It took me a good 15 minutes to walk from
one end of the main exhibitor hall to the other and the main
tournament hall was just as big.
It was so big that finding anything specific was a nigh on impossible
task if the booth you wanted did not have a banner suspended from the
ceiling. There was so much there that unless you knew the booth
number and had a map you would have no chance. I was asked to pick up
several things for people while I was there and did not manage to
grab anything. It took me all weekend to find the thing that I wanted,
the Transformers collectible card game! I had to do a Reddit search
after the first day which led me to Hall B which was not accessible
from outside. Speaking to one of the guys who was providing demos, Hall B was correct. Eventually I managed to gain access via the main
gaming hall. It was being sold by a retailer stand as Wizards of the
Coast were not attending themselves. I managed to grab a starter set
on Friday afternoon but was told the day’s allocation of the Gencon
exclusive set were all gone and to try again the following day from
10am. The following day the queue ran up the width of the hall and
back so I had to leave it as I had work to do. Sunday I was there
first thing and only had to wait 15 minutes after opening to get a set
though the allocation had dropped from two per person to one meaning
I couldn’t pick up a spare for a friend. Not very well managed.
Stands that caught my eye whilst on walkabout were the Wyrd stand,
they had their new plastic scenery form Malifaux and The Other Side
which looked impressive. The Fantasy Flight Games stand had a queue
to buy things, staff only letting a handful of people in at a time
but they were selling X-Wing second edition amongst other things so
easy to understand why. I snapped some pics of their new Star Wars
products when I got a chance.
#
#
The Paizo stand was done up like an inn or feasting hall and looked
to be hosting demo games of Pathfinder. The Munchkin stand had
nothing to buy from what I could see but had a lot of games going on.
Warhammer 40K Munchkin is due out in March for those who are
interested.
Games Workshop were there and demoing a number of their games, Age of
Sigmar being very prominent. Preview on display were the new Hobbit
game and Adeptus Titanicus which is finally coming out! The models
look great.
There was also the Warcradle stand (plug) which had a display board I
helped design of a dock with a 34mm scale Dystopian Wars Union
frigate as well as upcoming minis for Wild West Exodus and the work
in progress Prussian Imperium fleet.
There were plenty of cosplayers about. They would take turns posing
for photos in the main hall and there was a parade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcEiEUWJm0A
so if you missed someone during the event there was a chance to view
them all in one place. There were also a number of musical acts
ranging from comedy bands, folk, steampunk and groups playing covers
of requested geek tunes.
So, I enjoyed my time at Gencon, even the constantly looping and
unattended video of Dragon Ball Super the card game running non-stop
for four days could not dampen my enthusiasm. I think that if you are
going to attend the full four days you need to book yourself into
some of the tournaments as there maybe isn’t enough in the
exhibitor hall to keep you going that long. There are seminars but
they’re spread out and if there is only one game you are interested
in then you’ll get limited use out of it.
The whole show had a really good atmosphere. Everyone I met was
really friendly and enthusiastic. We were all geeks together and
Indianapolis felt really welcoming to the attendees. There were
banners welcoming gamers, local businesses were doing offers for
ticket holders and even people that I spoke to at the bar we visited,
Walmart, Meijer and the various restaurants we went to knew about
Gencon. It is a big boost to the local economy and the locals seem to
realise and appreciate it. I was especially impressed with how
inclusive the event was. LGBT people were able to walk around freely
without harassment and there were plenty of rainbow t-shirts,
hairdos, tails and lanyards on show. I will definitely need a lanyard
for PAX Unleashed this November in Philadelphia which is my next US
show.
No comments:
Post a Comment