scott_sanford

One of the nice things about Sunday is free street parking. Side note: when orgainizing a convention, find out what the venue charges for parking; attendees will ask about this.

The dealers room sold me a Sam Browne belt for what I admit is a reasonable price for handmade leather gear designed to last many years. Since I've felt the lack of a baldric or similar item for years I couldn't really resist when I had both opportunity and money; this also lets me dress up in a more appropriate style - the local aesthetic is suited to a poofy hemp shirt and gratuitous leather strap.

Incidentally, being hit on by a seventy year old woman in a corset and bustle is...unexpected? Flattering, certainly. Yet I feel awkward.

Having well grounded panelists is a fine thing. Generally. When doing a tesla coil demonstration...better safe than sorry.

Costuming continues to be awesome. I did a double take when I saw Storm, Ororo Munroe, in the hotel bar.

The Westercon panel was a thing I'd been waiting for and it went very nicely with good turnout. (The room had been used for combat demos so the table was across a large open space from the audience. We rearranged before starting.) Ruth Sachter and Patty Wells were our visiting experts on Westercon, and Ruth had more old Westercon swag where it could be found than I did. People liked the idea that Gearcon 2016 would still have an art show, a dealers room, and the usual things they're used to. The person asking about role playing games had no idea what GameStorm brings to a convention and is in for a wonderful surprise.

Afterward the combat demo fellows lingered and talked; we may get some really cool physical activities at Westercon 69.

A final protip for convention runners: Onions & Orchids, or whatever you call your event's feedback event, should actually occur when and where it's listed in the program. Overachievers might create that program more than three days before the convention.

Quotes without context:
"Furries against fur?"
"I'll just awkward away now."
"Steampunks are very serious." "Really?"
"Steampunk does not have to be brown."
"We just make it up." "You can do that?"
"One of the kittens from the box!"
"All hail our overlord square."
"Who are you?" "We don't need to get into that."
"Teeth are unnecessary. I have a Leatherman."
"Someone should carry something in their pouches." "Yeah, we're not Rob Liefeld here."
"Hello. I'll be right back." [From the con chair!]

Arrived at the hotel to find that plenty of people were there ahead of me. Indeed i didnt even get inside before spotting the first gear - encumbered top hat.

The line at registration was pretty long but I discovered when the call went out for anyone with cash that I, at the far end of the line, was the only one who actually shown up with folding money . .. So I got a quick promotion to the Get Helped Right Now person who got me my membership very quickly. (She also had the most fascinating bolt and cotter pin tattoos on her shoulders; she said they made her very popular at hardware stores and I believed her. No surprise , here, that she knew about Benjamin Franklin fireplace - but I was not expecting the suggestion that I cosplay him! I'll have to think about that one.) The badges are straightforward and seem to be involved with some ARG that I'm not yet informed about. The program is lovely but too large to go into a pocket without folding.

Penguin arrived ahead of me and set up shop in the con suite. I've also seem both Letourneaus. I expect to see more soon.

Most of the dealer's room is irrelevant to me but I've spotted a few tempting items which I should resist. The pool is also very tempting in this weather and I have no intention of resisting all weekend.

A discussion of post-apocalyptic steampunk technology didn't turn nearly as nerdy as it could have.

It did lead me to think of a technology I hadn't seen at any dealer's table so when it was done I went off to investigate. A survey of the options revealed that nobody carried even a single sliderule! Frankly this mystifies me; there's a wide selection of nonfunctional props and random things with pointless gears glued to them. People seeking functional merchandise can find pouches, lenses, compasses, knives, holsters, belts, more pouches... (There are people here wearing enough pouches to satisfy Rob Leifeld.) Yet fans playing engineers or mad scientists cannot find one of the most common tools of actual engineers and scientists of the period. It seems odd - and it can't reasonably be chalked up to unavailability, a quick check of ebay shows plenty available at reasonable prices. Many even come with nifty belt sheaths. The best guess we've come up with so far is that steampunk artists don't draw sliderules, leading to a lack of interest. It's also speculated that younger fans don't know what they are; I think that may be pessemistic given the retro-tech focus found here but so far I haven't asked enough people young enough to never know sliderules as contemporary objects.

The hotel pool is a novelty to those of us used to this hotel for Orycon in November, but it's open in the summer and I took the opportunity to use it. Had i planned ahead a bit better my clothes bag (up in hospitality) would have been left in the main room rather than in a side room that got closed off when someone decided to take a shower.

The Westercon table turns out to be a counter right next to registration. It is conveniently located, is excellently easy to see in a high traffic area, and gives two people places to sit. It's also about four feet high, meaning that anyone who sits down is essentially invisible to the outer world. We'll see how this works out over the weekend...

Friday night seems to be fairly quiet after 9pm or so outside the central event all. We'll see if Saturday brings more small late events.

PS: Some parts of this were written on a tablet with rampaging autocorrect; please forgive any typos.

Quotations out of context:
"Eat five meatballs."
"Are you a shark?"
"I'm pronouncing my verbs."
"Remember, remember...something in November..."
"I think I have too much shoulder for this."
"It's a doorknob!"

When I showed up for the first day of GameStorm I discovered that the prereg desk didn't have a badge waiting for me. This wasn't what I was hoping or expecting to hear; granted it's been a year since the last one but I was still about 90% sure I'd invested in a membership on Sunday afternoon. I didn't have enough cash for an at-the-door membership in my wallet right that instant but it left me considering my options with my wallet in hand, which led to me picking through the scrap paper accumulated there, and my faint hope was realized. I still had my receipt! Not only had I gotten a membership last year but I still had the proof on me! (Along with several other small and worn receipts.) I called this to the attention of the registration staff and correcting the problem went amazingly quickly and smoothly after that.

The moral appears to be to not clean out your wallet...

As much as I've been looking forward to Renovation, it's becoming more and more clear that the job + money + time equation does not have a 'Go to Reno' answer this year, no matter how I juggle the variables. (Insert various words here.) So I've got one Renovation attending membership for sale, $150; drop me a message.

"No WorldCon for you!"

Obviously, there are games just everywhere. Not much to say about that, GameStorm delivers its core competency very well. This year we've passed 1000 members for the first time, which sounds about right - I recall that the con's growth rate has been around 20% per year for a while now, and we got 800 last year.

WiFi is not our core competence; the system continues to be tempermental, and often stops working for no obvious reason.

That ERB Mars game I mentioned earlier? That was today; Locust Men of Mars ran longer than we expected and we had to end rather quickly as the next group arrived, but it was a lot of fun and we managed to achieve our mission goals.

I keep missing the Og LARP, and passing by to see people having fun being inarticulate cavemen. Maybe next year.

The marble rolling machine continues to trap unwary engineers.

Saw a guy in a Gunnerkrieg Court t-shirt. I know what he reads.

It's getting late; I'm getting tired. Good con.

I'm headed off now to do set-up for GameStorm. Obviously, there's nothing much to say about the con yet; I'll keep my readers posted.

My plan was to show up at MEWcon Sunday afternoon, but in real life this did not happen. Eventually I got to the hotel and found that not everyone had departed, although certainly most sane folks had gone home.

As I said earlier, cosplay (hall costuming) is very popular there. Video gaming was apparently hopping all weekend; even into Sunday evening there were over a dozen machines still set up and some were in use. I'm not sure how busy card/board gaming was; by the time I arrived it was getting packed up. One thing I missed on Friday was the artists' track. Many of the attendees read manga and there's an active interest in drawing (probably both manga-style artwork and actual sequential art storytelling, but I didn't get the chance to chat up any artists in depth). When there are fans holding an art seminar at 8PM Sunday, you've got an interested fan base.

I also overheard the only memorable problem that I heard about, which I'm sorry to say didn't surprise me a bit: an epidemic of badge swapping. I'm sure you know how this works: a group buys one membership, whoever wants to go into a members-only space such as the dealers' room uses the badge, and then passes it along to the next friend. Since quite a lot of this con took place loitering in the halls, that's a semi-practical strategy for cash strapped teens. I'm sorry to say it doesn't surprise me, either, and while an operational counter to this is best, the badges themselves could hardly have been made more suitable for this scam. They were plain white paper, laminated, on a neck lanyard (anyone with a scanner, printer, and laminater could make copies easily, although counterfeiting is a different and more sophisticated cheat than badge swapping). The one side that was printed had color art on it, but the bearer's name wasn't particularly visible...actually, I'm taking on faith that a name was printed on the badge at all; I never read anyone's name off of one. And since they were single-sided, many people were walking around with bare white rectangles on a string. In portrait orientation, by the way, so flipping over is maximized. Fixing this is not impossible, as shown by Kevin Standlee's article on badges (or just google Standlee badges); it's not clear to me if this was a brain fart or a failure to care, but I'd prefer the former. We've all done stupid things! The trick is to realize it and try something else.

The badges failed spectacularly in the Identify to Fellow Members category, and also on the Ticket to Admit function. Oops. Most problem badges do only one or the other... (In MEWcon's defense, this is only their third year, and experienced fans are thin on the ground there.) If they ask around, they'll be able to do much better next year.