IndyCon 2011

So IndyCon 2011 is now done and over with. A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about leading up to IndyCon and what that involved. This one will be more of the short term blog about the week preceding the convention and during the convention what went on. I already did a quick list of games I played while there, which you can see here: IndyCon Geeklist. So this blog will focus less on what I personally played and more on the experience itself.

All our sponsors were finalized as late as Tuesday leading up to the convention. Fred Distibution called me Tuesday afternoon out of the blue and said they were sending games right away over night and we’d get them on Thursday! I was disappointed though with one company, who will remain nameless, that had promised games 2.5 months ago and got free advertising at the convention and on our website, but never delivered their games or gave an explanation why not. Not good business on their side and I will personally be less likely to buy their products.
Thursday I left work early so Krista could go to her doctor appointment, which confirmed that she could have Elanor any day. Making me nervous that all the planning and work for IndyCon wouldn’t be enjoyed by my family this year, thankfully though Elanor decided to not come during the convention (even though we are and were still really excited for her to come during convention or not). As soon as Krista got home, I went over and borrowed a speaker and microphone for use during the convention. I lugged this and about 75 games over to the hotel and began helping set up.

The next 4 hours were spent shelving games, hanging posters, moving tables, going to Dave’s to move his collection, organizing the raffle giveaway, and packing bags. We finally got most everything done about 7:30PM when I went back home to eat some supper and get some sleep. That sleep didn’t quite happen as much as I’d like though when Kaylee woke up about midnight and wouldn’t go back to sleep. After a night of fitful sleep Kaylee and I got up about 6am and watched some Netflix downstairs so Krista could sleep a bit more. We all then headed down to Mom and Dad’s where Kaylee would be staying the weekend. My parents are awesome to watch her for 3 full days and I can’t say how much I appreciate it! I know Kaylee likes being with them too.

Finally we arrived at the convention at 9am and immediately got into a game after receiving our very sturdy Saltire Games/Mayfair Games tote bags. The day went smoothly with no baby and me even getting in the schedule game of Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game that’d I’d wanted to play. There were several people who I didn’t know that I tried to introduce myself to throughout the day which led to me meeting some cool people. Including Chris from Michigan, a couple podcasters I listen to, and several others. By Saturday though I gave up introducing myself to people I didn’t know, because there were just too many!

Friday night, after making a Rally’s run with Andrew, Jeremy, and Brendan, I organized the Tichu Tourney. Here I felt bad, because I had accidently left one of our pre-registers off of the list, but in the end it worked out that he was able to play. The Tichu Tourney is probably the highlight of my IndyCon. I have a great time playing with Logan and it helps we have done well each year. It was popular enough this year that I had to turn away 3 teams, so next year we may expand it out or do two tournaments or something to include more people. I ended up leaving the hotel with Ryan and Katherine, who were staying at our place on Friday night, around midnight. It was pouring down rain, but we stopped for some Wendy’s and grabbed some cinnamon rolls at Marsh for the morning.

Saturday was just a crazy day. Arrived around 9:00AM and started off with another game of 7 Wonders. Stayed until almost 2AM on Sunday morning and played a lot of games in-between. Some highlights of Saturday was Andrew winning the Crokinole tournament about midnight. We had 24 players and the tournament took about 28 hours to complete, but overall I felt that it went well. Got to play quite a few games with Jeremy & Annie who are just recently getting into gaming, but I think that had a good time and even won a game in the raffle! Then Saturday about 6pm went out for dinner with the Montzs & Sheltons at Golden Corral. Had two big steaks and a ton of stuffing and macaroni with cheese.

The plan was Sunday morning to play a game of Twilight Struggle with Brendan, but we deferred instead to play Dominant Species at noon. We’ve tentatively agreed to play on a future Wednesday night at my place since we both really want to give it a try. So turns out got a few more games played than expected on Sunday, with a few more people than expected. Krista left about 5 to go get Kaylee from Mom & Dad’s while I stayed and helped tear down and load games back into cars.
When I got home I unloaded all my games (including 3 new ones from trades and purchases at the convention) and put them back on the shelves. For some reason organizing my games is fun for me, Krista thinks I’m weird when I say this, but I had a good time doing this. Then about that time Krista and Kaylee got home. I really missed my kid over the weekend and she seemed excited to see me, which makes for a good time! She was immediately into everything including throwing away things like her sun glasses and ring and such (what can I say, she likes throwing stuff away).

So overall, I had a great weekend gaming with my wife, old and new friends, and even sponsors of the convention. I’m already thinking about next year and how we can improve IndyCon 2012.