GenCon SoCal
Dec. 14th, 2003 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournMade it home from GenCon SoCal just fine. Had a good time, ran two games, played five, skipped one slot for a meal that took more than ten minutes to consume. By 'con' standards, it was pretty big with a full convention center hall with an expo, media guests, lots of gaming space. By GenCon Midwest standards, it was small potatoes. I believe the midwest version gets 10,000 attendees, SoCal had probably 2000 or so. RPGA sits 300+ tables per 5-hour slot at GenCon Midwest, they had maybe 60 a slot at SoCal--although a fair number of newbies were present. Still, it was the first year. The Anaheim Convention Center was nice, although to save money they had everything primarily in one big hall, so every damn announcement on the expo floor brought the gaming to a halt--it was painfully loud, and about as comprehensible as the Charlie Brown parent-speak.
Spent the entire con at the RPGA events, didn't even bother to go into the expo--I could see the floor from where I was half the time. They had some B5 folks, a Farscape cast member, Star Trek and Star Wars media people, Battlestar Galactica, Shatner, and Val Kilmer, but since it wasn't Claudia Black I didn't bother. Frankly I'm not a huge "media guest" fan, but being so close to LA I think SoCal was able to load up on them.
The trip went pretty well, although flying into Anaheim was weird. First of all, the airport seems to have three names: Orange County Airport, Santa Anna Airport, and John Wayne Airport and was referred to as both SNA and JWA. I'm assuming they recently changed the name... Also, since my hotel and the convention center was five blocks from Disneyland, the flight home tonight was chock full of families with young tired and fussy children.
While the trip was shorter for SoCal, it doesn't really compare with GenCon Indy (or at least the Milwaukee one as I haven't been to the new location yet) and being so close to the Winter Break means flying twice in a month. Might not make either next year, who knows...
I did get another RPGA t-shirt, a freebie copy of the D20 Dragonlance book, and a badge refund ($50) for judging... I only missed out on two Living Greyhawk games there, but as three of the local Seattle people either judged or played them they can run them locally later anyhow....
Spent the entire con at the RPGA events, didn't even bother to go into the expo--I could see the floor from where I was half the time. They had some B5 folks, a Farscape cast member, Star Trek and Star Wars media people, Battlestar Galactica, Shatner, and Val Kilmer, but since it wasn't Claudia Black I didn't bother. Frankly I'm not a huge "media guest" fan, but being so close to LA I think SoCal was able to load up on them.
The trip went pretty well, although flying into Anaheim was weird. First of all, the airport seems to have three names: Orange County Airport, Santa Anna Airport, and John Wayne Airport and was referred to as both SNA and JWA. I'm assuming they recently changed the name... Also, since my hotel and the convention center was five blocks from Disneyland, the flight home tonight was chock full of families with young tired and fussy children.
While the trip was shorter for SoCal, it doesn't really compare with GenCon Indy (or at least the Milwaukee one as I haven't been to the new location yet) and being so close to the Winter Break means flying twice in a month. Might not make either next year, who knows...
I did get another RPGA t-shirt, a freebie copy of the D20 Dragonlance book, and a badge refund ($50) for judging... I only missed out on two Living Greyhawk games there, but as three of the local Seattle people either judged or played them they can run them locally later anyhow....
