![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
GenCon report..
Aug. 21st, 2005 11:17 pmRach and I just got back from GenCon 2005 -- We had a blast!
First off -- no car troubles. None. Leave it to my old dependable Concorde. The lack of A/C was kind of annoying. (We put 3 cans into it at the beginning of summer.. so it must have a substantial leak.) But otherwise, we had no car trouble at all.
Unfortunately, I had no internet access this weekend -- in the rush to pack, I forgot my External modem, and I'm not set up for dialup anymore -- I could pick up an incredibly faint Wi-Fi signal at the hotel, which I suspect came from the truck stop next door, nothing I could do anything with, but enough to make me go, "Gah!" The convention center had Wi-Fi hotspots, but for $10 for 24 hours of access. And of course, I didn't bring my laptop with me to the Con because I didn't think I'd need it and it's heavy to lug around.
The hotel was nice -- Admittedly, it was in the Airport/Industrial area (Harding St. off 465 for those who know Indy) and right across the street from the "Classy Chassis Go Go," but for $40 a night, it was like an upscale Motel 6 -- remarkably clean, with better decor, a fridge and a microwave. Since we were only 4 miles from downtown and the convention center, it wasn't all that bad. However, Rachel has now seen the advantage to spending the extra money to have a hotel -attached- to the convention center; You can leave the dealer room floor to go upstairs to catnap or grab snacks or change clothes or drop off swag, etc.
We got there at 10am opening Saturday -- The folks at Sovereign (Thanks Jamie, Renae and Margaret!) told us that they'd sold out of the Serenity Hardbacks on Friday. We spent the morning wandering the dealer room and then headed off to BFE to play in "Fae'd Away: Changelings of the Caribbean," a White Wolf Changeling LARP. We had a great time, but as a mental note, when you're only at GenCon for 1 1/2 days (Sunday only counts for half,) losing 4 hours to a single game really cuts your time. But the folks who put the game on, "Sick & Twisted," were really cool and we had a great time. We went back to the dealer room and wandered around for a bit more, when I look over to my right suddenly and recognize someone in the booth;
I got to meet Shepherd Book! There was absolutely no line for him, and I was able to walk right up, get an autographed photo and get my picture taken with him -- SHINY!!! Ron is absolutely wonderful. He shook my hand, talked with me, he is such a great guy. When they talk about how the cast loves the fans, they mean it.
I picked up a new game I'd been seeing promos for at work: Wench! A new card game with great new artwork by Monte Moore -- (Note to Dave: you HAVE to see the Teacher card..)
After that, we met my friend James, who is a Bounty Hunter for AEG, and headed off to the Claddagh Irish Pub for dinner. While I didn't indulge in the Guinness, I did have a great Monte Cristo sandwich in a great atmosphere. After that, while walking back to the parking garage to our car, we took a wrong turn (my fault) and ended up a few blocks off downtown Indianapolis where we witnessed a sidewalk brawl outside of a bar; Rachel was completely freaked, whereas I'm used to seeing stuff like that.
We went back to the hotel, vegged out and watched LotR on TNT until I passed out early. We woke up this morning and went back to the con where we found out that Sovereign Press had ordered a special GenCon Limited Edition softback version of the Serenity RPG (Yes, the link is broken now, but I'm told by the game designer that that's the official link as soon as the page goes live.) So Rachel and I both stood in line from 11:30am 'til about 12:45 to get copies of the new Serenity RPG book before it officially goes on sale. I got mine autographed by everyone, including Margaret Weis, and then, wandered back over to the guest area where I got Ron Glass to sign my copy and I got to talk to him again! He actually shook my hand! So now I have an autographed photo of Ron, an autograph of Summer, and an autographed copy of the RPG! I was also "schmoozing" (well, begging and pleading,) and asked Margaret to come back down to Rock-Con! this year, and she actually asked when it was and would think about it, and I told her I would volunteer to
pimp Serenity and pretty much do anything they want. ;)
Afterwards we wandered off and got sidetracked at the Utilikilt booth. I was remarking to Rachel about a friend of mine who swears up and down for Utilikilts and pimps them every chance he can, when I suddenly look down and lo and behold I see a photo of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
photognome! I'm like, "Oh my god, sweetie, that's my friend!" So then I got into a conversation with some of the utilikilts folks, and I got an up close and personal look at the product, (which I had been wanting to do ever since hearing about them and seeing them online) -- Now it's just a matter of putting money away for one and getting fitted.
As we were leaving, Rach and I stopped by The Great Luke Ski's booth where we picked up his brand new CD, "UnCONventional!" This is definitely his greatest and funniest album yet, with cover art by Dork Tower Artist John Kovalic,muskrat_john.
Luke also mentioned coming to Rock-Con this year, hoping to tie in with John Kovalic having "Dorkstock" there. Luke has a song on the album that is his tribute to Dork Tower and John, as well as a Firefly song called "A Man named Jayne," to the tune of "A Boy Named Sue." I mentioned working for a gaming distributor, and he mentioned looking for a company to distribute his cd's and get wider press, so I will talking to the bosses at work and see if I can't maybe hook Luke up with a distribution deal through my company, which would of course so totally kick ass. (I also bumped into a couple of client stores, which was interesting in and of itself.)
However, there were some down sides -- Indianapolis (and the whole state) is incredibly smelly and stinky. Everywhere we went smelled like sewage. It was coming out of the street vents. It was really hot and muggy and sometimes going outside was simply unavoidable, as the Con encompasses the convention center -and- 4 or 5 different hotels. Parking and concessions were incredibly overpriced, as always. Also, while the Indiana residents were incredibly friendly, the congoers weren't always as considerate. I'm sure Rachel will mention this in her livejournal, but one of the booths we went into was really tight, and some yuppie-geek decided that she needed to bring her oversized stroller into the booth and block what little space there was by adding insult to injury and having the stroller turned cock-eyed in the aisle. (It's bad enough you have to bring a stroller into a packed con-booth, but you won't even -attempt- to make any sort of room or let people go by?) I got smacked with backpacks quite a few times, too, but that's par for the course.
The huge t-shirt booth was there again, and this year I actually fought the crowds enough to see that they have all the videogame t-shirts I'd been wanting from Hot Topic -- and that they have a website so I need not fight the crowds. Dave, they have 2 really kickass Atari logo t-shirts.. Their address is http://www.stylinonline.com -- Also, the folks from Video Game Collector magazine were there giving away stacks of a promo issue of their magazine; I picked up a rather large stack to give away at SWRAP. (Yes, I was thinking ahead like a good geek schmoozer/promoter.)
As for swag? Well, I didn't really buy a whole lot -- I was mostly there for the Serenity RPG. Everything else I can pretty much get at my job for the employee discount, so unless it's something I -have- to have, like getting the Serenity RPG early, I don't need to really buy anything at the Con.
However, we had a wonderful time, and now Rachel has seen the light of spending the extra money on the really close hotel, so next year should be even better. Plus, hopefully by next year, I'll actually be able to get Friday or Monday off so I can at least do 3 days. However, unlike Rachel, I have to be at work bright and early tomorrow morning, so I will call it quits now and leave it at that.
First off -- no car troubles. None. Leave it to my old dependable Concorde. The lack of A/C was kind of annoying. (We put 3 cans into it at the beginning of summer.. so it must have a substantial leak.) But otherwise, we had no car trouble at all.
Unfortunately, I had no internet access this weekend -- in the rush to pack, I forgot my External modem, and I'm not set up for dialup anymore -- I could pick up an incredibly faint Wi-Fi signal at the hotel, which I suspect came from the truck stop next door, nothing I could do anything with, but enough to make me go, "Gah!" The convention center had Wi-Fi hotspots, but for $10 for 24 hours of access. And of course, I didn't bring my laptop with me to the Con because I didn't think I'd need it and it's heavy to lug around.
The hotel was nice -- Admittedly, it was in the Airport/Industrial area (Harding St. off 465 for those who know Indy) and right across the street from the "Classy Chassis Go Go," but for $40 a night, it was like an upscale Motel 6 -- remarkably clean, with better decor, a fridge and a microwave. Since we were only 4 miles from downtown and the convention center, it wasn't all that bad. However, Rachel has now seen the advantage to spending the extra money to have a hotel -attached- to the convention center; You can leave the dealer room floor to go upstairs to catnap or grab snacks or change clothes or drop off swag, etc.
We got there at 10am opening Saturday -- The folks at Sovereign (Thanks Jamie, Renae and Margaret!) told us that they'd sold out of the Serenity Hardbacks on Friday. We spent the morning wandering the dealer room and then headed off to BFE to play in "Fae'd Away: Changelings of the Caribbean," a White Wolf Changeling LARP. We had a great time, but as a mental note, when you're only at GenCon for 1 1/2 days (Sunday only counts for half,) losing 4 hours to a single game really cuts your time. But the folks who put the game on, "Sick & Twisted," were really cool and we had a great time. We went back to the dealer room and wandered around for a bit more, when I look over to my right suddenly and recognize someone in the booth;
I got to meet Shepherd Book! There was absolutely no line for him, and I was able to walk right up, get an autographed photo and get my picture taken with him -- SHINY!!! Ron is absolutely wonderful. He shook my hand, talked with me, he is such a great guy. When they talk about how the cast loves the fans, they mean it.
I picked up a new game I'd been seeing promos for at work: Wench! A new card game with great new artwork by Monte Moore -- (Note to Dave: you HAVE to see the Teacher card..)
After that, we met my friend James, who is a Bounty Hunter for AEG, and headed off to the Claddagh Irish Pub for dinner. While I didn't indulge in the Guinness, I did have a great Monte Cristo sandwich in a great atmosphere. After that, while walking back to the parking garage to our car, we took a wrong turn (my fault) and ended up a few blocks off downtown Indianapolis where we witnessed a sidewalk brawl outside of a bar; Rachel was completely freaked, whereas I'm used to seeing stuff like that.
We went back to the hotel, vegged out and watched LotR on TNT until I passed out early. We woke up this morning and went back to the con where we found out that Sovereign Press had ordered a special GenCon Limited Edition softback version of the Serenity RPG (Yes, the link is broken now, but I'm told by the game designer that that's the official link as soon as the page goes live.) So Rachel and I both stood in line from 11:30am 'til about 12:45 to get copies of the new Serenity RPG book before it officially goes on sale. I got mine autographed by everyone, including Margaret Weis, and then, wandered back over to the guest area where I got Ron Glass to sign my copy and I got to talk to him again! He actually shook my hand! So now I have an autographed photo of Ron, an autograph of Summer, and an autographed copy of the RPG! I was also "schmoozing" (well, begging and pleading,) and asked Margaret to come back down to Rock-Con! this year, and she actually asked when it was and would think about it, and I told her I would volunteer to
pimp Serenity and pretty much do anything they want. ;)
Afterwards we wandered off and got sidetracked at the Utilikilt booth. I was remarking to Rachel about a friend of mine who swears up and down for Utilikilts and pimps them every chance he can, when I suddenly look down and lo and behold I see a photo of
photognome! I'm like, "Oh my god, sweetie, that's my friend!" So then I got into a conversation with some of the utilikilts folks, and I got an up close and personal look at the product, (which I had been wanting to do ever since hearing about them and seeing them online) -- Now it's just a matter of putting money away for one and getting fitted. As we were leaving, Rach and I stopped by The Great Luke Ski's booth where we picked up his brand new CD, "UnCONventional!" This is definitely his greatest and funniest album yet, with cover art by Dork Tower Artist John Kovalic,
muskrat_john.Luke also mentioned coming to Rock-Con this year, hoping to tie in with John Kovalic having "Dorkstock" there. Luke has a song on the album that is his tribute to Dork Tower and John, as well as a Firefly song called "A Man named Jayne," to the tune of "A Boy Named Sue." I mentioned working for a gaming distributor, and he mentioned looking for a company to distribute his cd's and get wider press, so I will talking to the bosses at work and see if I can't maybe hook Luke up with a distribution deal through my company, which would of course so totally kick ass. (I also bumped into a couple of client stores, which was interesting in and of itself.)
However, there were some down sides -- Indianapolis (and the whole state) is incredibly smelly and stinky. Everywhere we went smelled like sewage. It was coming out of the street vents. It was really hot and muggy and sometimes going outside was simply unavoidable, as the Con encompasses the convention center -and- 4 or 5 different hotels. Parking and concessions were incredibly overpriced, as always. Also, while the Indiana residents were incredibly friendly, the congoers weren't always as considerate. I'm sure Rachel will mention this in her livejournal, but one of the booths we went into was really tight, and some yuppie-geek decided that she needed to bring her oversized stroller into the booth and block what little space there was by adding insult to injury and having the stroller turned cock-eyed in the aisle. (It's bad enough you have to bring a stroller into a packed con-booth, but you won't even -attempt- to make any sort of room or let people go by?) I got smacked with backpacks quite a few times, too, but that's par for the course.
The huge t-shirt booth was there again, and this year I actually fought the crowds enough to see that they have all the videogame t-shirts I'd been wanting from Hot Topic -- and that they have a website so I need not fight the crowds. Dave, they have 2 really kickass Atari logo t-shirts.. Their address is http://www.stylinonline.com -- Also, the folks from Video Game Collector magazine were there giving away stacks of a promo issue of their magazine; I picked up a rather large stack to give away at SWRAP. (Yes, I was thinking ahead like a good geek schmoozer/promoter.)
As for swag? Well, I didn't really buy a whole lot -- I was mostly there for the Serenity RPG. Everything else I can pretty much get at my job for the employee discount, so unless it's something I -have- to have, like getting the Serenity RPG early, I don't need to really buy anything at the Con.
However, we had a wonderful time, and now Rachel has seen the light of spending the extra money on the really close hotel, so next year should be even better. Plus, hopefully by next year, I'll actually be able to get Friday or Monday off so I can at least do 3 days. However, unlike Rachel, I have to be at work bright and early tomorrow morning, so I will call it quits now and leave it at that.
