Valerie Putman: Prose on Cons—BGG.con, 2007

Last weekend I was in Dallas, Texas with 550 other gamers for four days of Boardgamegeek.con.  When trying to compare it to another US show, the closest I can come up with is Origins, but with just the Board Room (many times bigger) and the boardgame venders and publishers, without all of the other stuff.  No show is perfect, but this show does a really great job of catering to the boardgamers and what we really want to do—play games.

Pros
• The Airport Westin was much closer to the airport than last year’s hotel, so you could take a free shuttle to the convention.
• The Westin was very nice with a reasonable convention rate ($105.00 a night).
• Aldie and Derk and innumerable support staff churned out a seamless convention experience.  From the moment I picked up my registration (and they started piling on the swag) until the moment I left, all I saw was a smooth running convention machine.
• The space was really well planned out.  In the main foyer there were around a dozen small tables always set up with Crokinole, Tumblin Dice, and other large dexterity games.  It was a great place to mingle and kill time.  The library was right off the main area with table after table laden with alphabetically ordered games.  A large room was used for open gaming some of the time, but was more often used for special events.  A puzzlehunt, a game show, a poker tournament, a live geekspeak, and about a dozen other events gave you something to do if you needed to break up the terrible monotony of playing boardgame, after boardgame, after boardgame.  The main open gaming area was humongous.  It was surrounded by smaller rooms open to the main area like stalls. These were filled with dealers and venders (open from about 11am – 6pm daily).  Finally, if you wanted a quiet space to play your games, there were some tables outside of the hotel’s breakfast area that could accommodate another 10 – 20 games.  Even on Saturday, when it was most crowded, there seemed to be room for everyone.
• Let’s go back to the library for a moment since this is one of the defining characteristics of BGG.con.  The primary activity at BGG.con is open gaming, so people need games to play.  At smaller regional and invitational conventions, attendees bring tubs of games available for anyone to play and line the game room with them.  This would be harder for gamers that are flying in and frankly, with a room of 550 gamers that you just met, many gamers wouldn’t feel comfortable offering up their personal collection.  Amazingly, though, the local Dallas gamers (particularly Derk and Aldie) have done just that.  The library is filled with over 1000 rare finds, every day favorites, and brand new releases (some donated by the supporting venders and publishers). 

Cons
• Since I didn’t have a car, my only meal options were the hotel restaurant and the 24-hour Denny’s across the street.  I ate 6 meals at Denny’s before the weekend was over.
• There weren’t enough copies of the new Essen releases in the library and many gamers kept them out longer than the time it took to play them.  As a result, many of the new games were hard to find. 
• Internet access was expensive ($0.33 a minute in the business office!)
• On Sunday, I had to go home.

Rio Grande Games
I have to thank Jay Tummelson for letting me be his “demo monkey” at this year’s convention.  For me it is the perfect way to meet as many people as I possibly can.  This year I enjoyed teaching Amyitis, Cuba, In the Year of the Dragon, Oregon, Ming Dynasty, Race for the Galaxy, and Hamburgum.  I also watched Jay teach Darjeeling.  Of the games that I taught, In the Year of the Dragon was my favorite.  Like Balam and Antiquity, players are pitted against a barrage of devastating events that could wipe out your hard earned progress.  In my first game I racked up the early victory points and then burned out in a flame of unrealized glory (in other words, last place).  Another option is to take advantage of the fact that the timing and order of the events are known from the beginning of the game, so players can choose to prepare for and manage the onslaught of famines and epidemics while slowly and steadily eking out a few victory points per turn.

The Match Game
I was honored to serve on the panel for an event based on an early television game show with cheesy D-list celebrities (hey!).  The host, Peter Sarrett, read us questions with a blank in them and we offered our best answers.  The audience earned points for matching our answers.  For example, we were asked, “During your last game of Times Up you knew there were only athletes left in the deck, so when your partner pointed to his crotch for your clue, you guessed __________.” My answer?  Magic Johnson!

I’d rather be gaming!
Valerie Putman

© 2007 Valerie Putman

---

Comments:

You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free, but if you appreciate the news, previews, reviews and other material posted on Boardgame News, please consider becoming a member to keep the info flowing to your screen!

Yikes!  I don’t think even Denny himself eats that many meals at his restaurant in a weekend.  Glad to hear you survived. I had to laugh at your Magic Johnson answer (although I wonder which of the two meanings of the answer you were thinking of).  I was trying to think how I would have answered this.  If my partner pointed with his little finger, I might have gone with “Barry Bonds”.  Otherwise, I think I’d go with Wilt Chamberlain. Posted by Larry Levy on Nov 25, 2007 at 02:20 AM | #

Comments I heard from my gaming group members (who all went to the con this year, and I did not)… 1.  More teachers! None of them ever ran into you, nor anyone else willing to teach them games. Three of my group ended up teaching games most of Sunday, there was so much demand for it.  I’m talking stuff like Mr. Jack, League of Six, Princes of Florence, etc., and not necessarily the latest Essen releases. 2.  More mingling! My groups’ members said it was hard to find people to mix with unless you happened to be lucky enough to grab someone holding a game over their head already. Many folks found gaming partners on day one and stuck with them throughout the con. As for food, my group lucked into takeout. Apparently that was THE way around the limited selection and provided some very good choices, including nice vegetarian. Posted by Diane Close on Nov 25, 2007 at 11:41 AM | #

I did an extremely poor job of organizing a trip out for dinner with a few people each night.  I’ll work on trying to set that up next year and taking whomever i am playing with late in the afternoon out for a dinner. I thought the hotel was fantastic this year and at least gave us the option of Denny’s and a convenience store across the road. Happy Holidays! Posted by Brett Orr on Nov 25, 2007 at 12:00 PM | #

My biggest problem with gaming events is when there aren’t food choices close.  The idea of only a Denny’s around is not that appealing to me, but I’ve also been to the Gathering where there is NOTHING edible within walking distance. However, I’d suffer through it for a good game convention! Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Nov 25, 2007 at 12:42 PM | #

Thanks for teaching us In the Year of the Dragon Valerie - definitely one of the many highlights of the con for me. I’ll have to remember that line about “unrealized glory” - it will surely come in handy. Posted by Jasen Robillard on Nov 25, 2007 at 05:09 PM | #

Yes, the tradeoffs this year in order to get a larger room for more geeks were: 1. Less meal options 2. Less chances to play the rare Essen games But overall, the event was a complete success in my book.  It just keeps getting better and better every year. I too highly recommend the Game Show that’s usually on on Sat nights.  It does effectively (and time-efficiently) break the monotony of playing game after game. Posted by Robert Ramirez on Nov 25, 2007 at 10:19 PM | #

I agree that there were a lot of people who checked out games and held on to them for a really long time.  For example, I did not see Keyharvest at all until late Saturday night; the other would be Origins, which I saw many people carrying it around, but never of them playing it.  I don’t have a good solution for this, but people should return games at a timely manner, especially if they find themselves playing a different game than the one they’ve taken from the library. Posted by Jason Cheng on Nov 26, 2007 at 07:11 AM | #

Sounds like fun. I can empathize with the Denny’s, but I probably had a better deal.  I spent three weeks in Japan (pretty small town) a few years ago and the only restaurant open on our way home was Denny’s or a 24 hour noodle place.  Fortunately, Denny’s there has a lot of choices not available in the States. Someday, I’ll be at BGG.con.  It looked this year like the age limit wasn’t strictly enforced so maybe next year I’ll sneak my eleven year old in! Posted by Scott Russell on Nov 26, 2007 at 09:56 PM | #

< Back Home