Nine PLAAY-Dot-CON Convention Quick Hits
Well--another convention is in the books! It was an amazing weekend, and I'll compose a more in-depth recap later this week. For now, here are nine convention quick hits (I wanted to call them “Hot Takes,” which sounds cooler, but I guess a “hot take” is supposed to be controversial), in no particular order…
• Our new venue was awesome! Big props to the Hilton Garden Inn and event manager Dylan Budd for really hitting it out of the park for us (pun intended). We had a huge meeting space, great location for food, shopping, etc., and amazing on-site amenities.
• A professional sound system works way better than a bull horn. Our first convention, we had no sound system and within a couple of hours everyone was either hoarse or had lost our voice completely! After that, we got a bull horn for making announcements which worked OK. This year we had a real sound system, and it really added to the event, especially the panel discussion!
• There were a lot of “early birds!” We had seven PLAAY gamers arrive in time for a Wednesday evening pre-pre-con get together. I'm already thinking that maybe we do the picnic next year on Wednesday evening and have Thursday be a "bonus" day of convention activities in the hotel lobby, with the full meeting room itinerary kicking in Friday and Saturday. People could arrive Thursday evening and still get the big stuff, or they could come a couple days early and enjoy even more sports gaming.
• Our “relaxed schedule” approach was well-received. We intentionally left a good amount of breathing space between activities this year, and allowed extra time for meals and open gaming. Honestly, I was afraid that maybe we didn't have enough planned, but the feedback we got was that this was an optimal mix of organized activities and down time.
• RWBR "Turbo" is quite different from the PLAAY Classic simulation game. We had a spirited tournament and the game was very well-received, with a common comment being that turbo doesn't have much in common with the main Red White & Blue Racin' game. This is true, and I probably should have communicated this better. I also didn't get around to explaining ideas for solitaire play and incorporating real driver cards (from the main game) into the "turbo" game.
• Thank goodness it didn’t rain during the picnic! Man, I was getting concerned when the forecast on my phone was showing better than 50% chance of thunderstorms all afternoon and evening and an 80% chance during the picnic! But it didn't rain at ALL the entire evening, and temperatures in the 60s made it really comfortable. Win!
• History Maker Express Baseball was a hit! The express game tournament was very exciting, and the feedback we got was super encouraging. We held a 45-minute tutorial session prior to the tournament, which I think really helped the game hit the ground running. We easily completed the entire tournament in a couple of hours--previous tournaments were stretched over two sessions. Pete Adams was the 2022 Time Machine Tournament Champion with the 1949 Brooklyn Dodgers, thanks to title gamer heroics from Jackie Robinson
• Many new tournament winners this year! Pete was one of several first-time tournament winners this year. The father-son team of Dan and Colin Garlick picked up two titles: Colin won the Turbo Tourney and Dan won the College Hoops PLAAY-Down. Paul Salzgeber was the winner of the golf tournament, and Joseph Dowell won the dodgeball event. Silas Williams was champion of the Fury Football mini-season. So it was a nice mix of older/younger winners (unlike last year where the youngsters dominated!). We'll have more details on these events later this week.
• Widespread and impressive Dodgeball bling! I was astonished at both the number of dodgeball teams that were "blinged out" AND the overall quality of the production! It was extremely difficult to pick a winner in the "best blinged" category, we ended up naming three winners and EVERYONE who made a custom team got bonus raffle tickets. We'll created a downloadable file of ALL the personalized teams so you can see them in action yourself.
More soon!…