On The Road: GenCon 2003

I set off for GenCon on a Wednesday morning, along with Joe, Mike, and Chris, who had left Boston at something like 5:00 AM. They picked me up in Jersey a little before noon and we headed west. I was driving the van, since I was the most rested at that point. The drive was long. Longer than we expected, even though we were doing our best to make good time. We were crossing bands of storms the whole way. Nothing too bad, although we got caught in some heavy downpours in a few spots. We saw some pretty heat lightning as we passed Columbus, Ohio.

We arrived in Indianapolis around midnight. I was staying in a Super 8 about 10 miles out of town (located, as it turned out, right next to the local go-go bar. Oh joy.). I checked into my hotel, and proceeded to leave one of my bags in the van with the guys. Oops. That actually turned out to be the only real mishap of the trip.
The next morning, I took a cab out to the airport and picked up a rental car and then downtown. I spent Thursday morning walking around Indy for a while before making my way to the Convention Center and picking up my badge. This was GenCon's first time completely free of the TSR/WOTC management, as well as the first time in Indy. Overall, the reaction to the new venue was good. The local businesses were very welcoming, with bars and restaurants offering GenCon specials and passing out coupons. The convention facilities were a big improvement over the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee. The dealers' room was bigger by about a third, and the boardgames room was huge, with lots of space for open gaming. There were some major problems with the computer system, though, resulting in brutally long lines for on-site registration and event tickets. Luckily I had preregistered for my badge, so I bit the bullet on Thursday afternoon and spent about an hour in line to get tickets for some Magic events.

I started things off event-wise by playing in a Type I Magic tournament. I went 1-2, but had a good time and my deck got a lot of attention (not to mention that the judge had to get called over like six times during the first match). I also went 0-0-1 in a sealed deck tourney (I dropped out after my first match went to a draw) and played a demo of a new World War II card game.

In the dealers' room, I ran into Troy Costisick, who I used to do some online roleplaying with. He was there promoting his company, Twilight Press. I also met up with Andrea Shubert from Blue Sky Red, who used to play Magic back with me back in the MMPG days.

Thursday night, I hit the Party in the Plaza. The band was actually pretty amazing, although mostly from the sheer surrealism factor: AC/D-She. Yup, an all-girl AC/DC tribute act complete with a skinny little guitarist in a schoolgirl outfit who had the whole Angus Young thing down perfect. This act really had to be seen to be believed. They were pretty decent musicians, actually, especially on their versions of "Highway to Hell," and "Whole Lotta Rosie." More fun than I had expected out of this event.

Most of Friday and Saturday were spent working for Fantasy Flight Games in the dealers' room. I did demos of Citadels and Quicksand, and ran the Lord of the Rings boardgame. Everyone I showed the games to seemed to enjoy them, and several people indicated they were going to buy the game. Especially rewarding were a couple of families that I got to demo for. The kids all really liked Quicksand. Between shifts with Fantasy Flight, I managed to pass along Dandelion Studios promotional materials to quite a few people and to distribute about 50 free copies of Kinships and about 100 Minions for Hire postcards.

Sunday was spent mostly shopping and autograph hunting, and we stayed over Sunday night so we could get some rest before heading home. It looks like I may have some opportunities to do some work for Twilight Press, and hopefully Dandelion Studios will get a little boost in publicity as a result of the trip. Until next time, see you on the road!

 

 

 

All contents on this website are ©2000-2006 Dandelion Studios (except where otherwise noted). All rights reserved. Do not use without permission. To ask permission, please email us at info@dandelionstudios.com.