Convention Report: FallCon 20

By Brent Lloyd
December 12, 2007

FallCon 20, an annual boardgame and miniatures convention, was held September 21-23, 2007 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and attendance this year was the largest to date, passing the 260 mark. That fact doesn’t come as a surprise thanks to the growing interest in our quaint hobby. We have seen an increase in families and couples attending, and more balanced (but not yet balanced) gender parity. This is our fourth straight year of increases, and we expect the trend to continue, as more folks become familiar with FallCon.

Last year, we also started running more events during the year, notably a booth at the Calgary Entertainment Expo (CEE) and the game room at Con-Version. Our attendance at the CEE was particularly exciting; we talked to literally hundreds of folks. We had so much interest that we ran out of brochures long before the end of the Expo. Next year, more brochures! We did pick up some new attendees from the Expo, so look for us to attend next year as well. We hope to continue promoting and advertising FallCon throughout the rest of 2007 and 2008.

We also had a number of successes behind the scenes thanks to Tim Van den Broeck, who overhauled the FallCon website. Our newly revamped website looks good and works even better. We have linked our registration database to our website so that registration works very smoothly and is much easier for us. We had very few hiccups or issues regarding the convention as a whole.

“In This Corner...”
We had a bunch of special guests and game personalities attend this year: Wilf K. Backhaus, co-author of the 1970s RPG Chivalry & Sorcery; Rob Bartel and Mike Roy set out lots of their new games, notably SuperNova, a Roy co-design with Oliver Harrison that I managed to play a few rounds of and liked a lot—look for Valley Games to bring this one to you in the first half of 2008; and Doug Hamm of Larry Leadhead comic fame, who did very well in the DBA tournaments. We even managed to wrangle Rick Thornquist, former editor of Boardgame News, into showing up, and we sincerely hope he enjoyed it enough to consider returning next year.

Rik Falch and Torben Sherwood from Valley Games also made a strong appearance, even flying in Kevin Nesbitt for all the fun and games. They are still the new guys on the publishing block and seem to have a stellar line-up coming soon to game stores.

FallCon also welcomes assistance from the clubs and game organizations in the Calgary area in moderating events. Our thanks go out to TAC (Tabletop Armies of Calgary), Strategem, and the Edmonton Wargame Group; we certainly appreciate their help. Additionally, members of the Calgary Boardgame Meetup, the Edmonton POGOB Society, and the Calgary Gamers Guild from the University of Calgary were in attendance and played lots of games. We just love it when a plan comes together! Gamers from all kinds of backgrounds spending a weekend playing games and socializing…

The Annual Settlers of Catan tournament was a huge success again this year. Wow, folks sure bring their “A” game for this event. This year, we wish to congratulate Ed Schmutz for his great win and the title of Calgary’s Best Settlers of Catan Player for 2007.

In addition to holding over 50 different events, we also ran a game auction on Saturday evening. The auction is both a good way for folks to clear out games that no longer interest them and a great opportunity to pick up games that were on your radar but never purchased for whatever reason. This year was unbelievable: 487 games sold in just under two hours. That’s about one game every 15 seconds! As one of the auctioneers, I can attest to the quality of this bountiful harvest. I am seriously considering just participating next year. I saw a number of gems go this year that I seriously wanted to bid on. Many games went for under $10.00. Heck, there were a number of games still in their shrink-wrap.

“And Now a Word From...”
Our sponsors were very generous this year, once again donating a record number of games. Please visit our website and support our sponsors. As we mentioned at the convention, we would hope that you are able to spend at least $10,000 to support these wonderful companies. Food is a poor substitute for good quality gaming pieces, and you can build a suitable shelter with many of the better gameboards.

On a more serious note: We had many great sponsors, all of whom you can see in the accompanying picture. We sincerely hope that all of our attendees will continue to support them. Conventions like FallCon really do make a connection between folks in the game business and a targeted audience. We are firm believers in the value of that connection, and the success of FallCon is a testament to that connection.

Overall, I can say without reservation that FallCon 20 was a huge success. From an organizer’s point of view, we had fewer issues than in any previous year; registration was smooth, lines were almost non-existent, all games ran on time, and we had plenty of extra boards to host many games. Thanks to our moderators, events ran without any hitches that I am aware of. What is especially pleasing is seeing lots of folks, playing games, socializing, and having a lot of fun. Enough said, since we’ll see you next year…

Peace
Brent Lloyd
FallCon

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