Short account of my Genghiscon visit
2009 February 16
Friday afternoon, I went to Genghiscon XXX. Â It was a good experience, and I plan to go back next year.
My con experience has, admittedly, been very limited… to Gencon. Â But from our previous house back in Illinois, Gencon was at least a 4 hour drive; from Colorado, we’ll be flying. Â Genghiscon was a 30 minute drive (45 going home because of rush-hour traffic on the Interstate). Â There’s a lot of charm to a convention that doesn’t require advance travel preparation.
I arrived at the hotel (which was just off the Interstate — really easy to find) around 2:00 on Friday afternoon. Â The biggest problem I had was that there wasn’t much signage to direct me to registration. Â I eventually found a very nice guy in a con security shirt, and he told me where to go. Â I waited in line at registration for about a half an hour. Â I only wanted a Visitor’s badge so I could visit the Dealer’s Room/sales floor, but all the registration windows handled both badge and event registration, so they were very busy, especially has they had just re-opened registration at 2:00.
This was the only down-side to my trip… the waiting in line at registration.  I realize that a) they had just opened the windows, so there was a backlog of people waiting to register for events, and b) the volunteers were getting used to a new registration system.  The general morale of those in line was positive, and all-in-all, it wasn’t too bad.  I got to hear a great story about Leonard Nimoy and his clam-shell cell phone being mistaken for Spock and a communicator.
After getting my little badge, I had to wait just a little bit for the sales floor opened at 3:00.  The friendly security guy, David, showed me around.   There were dedicated rooms for Warhammer, Catan, Puffing Billy, board games, minis painting, as well as RPG and RPGA events.
After my brief tour, I entered the sales floor. Â It was a lot of fun; there’s nothing quite like roaming around a sales floor, even if you don’t buy anything. Â Not that I left empty-handed, because I, of course, have no will power. Â I did only make two purchases… none of them from Chessex, and I count my ability to resist that urge to buy dice among my greatest achievements. Â I’m sure that’s used up my “not buying dice” ability for this year, though, so I hold no expectations of similar achievements in August.
My first purchase was from Gifts & Blessings, who had many great dragon- & fairy-related items for sale. Â They were all very friendly gamers. Â One of the girls there, Mindy, recognized my A is for Atlas woot shirt, and we chatted for several minutes. Â My second purchase was from a small jewelry booth that had some really lovely hand-made items.
All in all, it was a good time. Â Next year, Dante & I plan to preregister so we can get in some of the game sessions.
Well count yourself lucky that there is even an Con near you. From what I’ve been able to determine, what passes for Cons around Phoenix, AZ are pretty much not running this year. One claims they will be back next year in 2010 and the other one is hiatus until further notice. So not many options here this year. At least, I do plan on going to Gen Con this year.
Hi! I just found your blog via the magic of google Reader.
I’m John Fiala, and I was the RPG coordinator at GenghisCon. I’m glad you had fun at our convention, even if you didn’t stick around for too long.
You don’t have to wait a full year for another local gaming convention, though! Tacticon is run by the same group and happens every September, although it’s a bit smaller.
There’s a lot of Denver fan conventions – look around and see what you like.
@ Bonemaster: I’m so used to traveling across state lines to Gencon… I do consider myself lucky to be so close to a convention. Hopefully your gaming conventions will return soon.
@ John: Welcome to our little site! I did hear about Tacticon while I was at Genghiscon, so I will watch for that coming up.