Genghis Con XXXVII - Its a Wrap

Genghis Con has come and gone for another year. Overall I think it was a good show and the new management group did okay. MBST who came in and ran the website and handled registration did a pretty good job. I'm still irritated that the painting classes were not entered properly and I think that contributed greatly to them not being full but we did have at least a few students in all the classes.

Next year I'm hoping that the CMPA will be invited back sooner and can do a full slate of classes. I may start planning for that now. Several things would have to happen though. We would definitely need two rooms; one for classes and one for the painting HQ, open paint and competition area. We just seem to generate a lot of noise for such a small group. I wouldn't think two rooms would be a problem either, the room next to us was basically empty the entire weekend. We were located just about as far away from everything as it was possible to get. I would like to get the painting competition back up and running and I would need time to get sponsors lined up. I would also like be able to bring a guest painter or sculptor again.

We did manage to pull off the auction as well. I was squeezed into a space 1/4 of the size I'm used to having for it. Fortunately because advertising for the auction was so late I didn't have nearly as much stuff to sell off and there was some highly collectible material in the mix this year so it was fun. I think we were all wrapped up by 10pm so about 3 and a half hours. We had to deal with a new system and attendees had to go upstairs to pay and even though I gave the desk a 45 minute warning about the auction ending they still weren't prepared for the flood of people that needed to pay. They also allowed an unlimited number of items to be registered online. I only had one person really abuse it so it didn't hurt to much but if it had been three or four it could be a huge problem. A couple lessons learned that can be carried forward to next year.

I spoke to a couple of the other coordinators and things seemed to run pretty smoothly for them. The biggest issue being that they really didn't have control of the tables in their own areas and really couldn't make efficient use of the space. I still don't understand cosplay or why the new owners seem to think it was a good idea. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of interest from my standpoint, it certainly didn't seem to generate additional attendees. They did, however, do the computer room right and that room seemed to be packed the whole weekend.

So a good show, not a great one for me. I can't speak to how others may feel about it. The CMPA will definitely be back next year and hopefully they will let us do an auction again as well.

Some pictures from the event:

Nathan Doyle working with some new painters

Gene Van Horne getting ready to so some z-brush sculpting

Michael Proctor (Clever Crew) trying to remember how to paint

Really? You call this an auction room?

Two tables, I can't begin to fit what we sell on two tables.

Virgillo, going over the rules for one his custom games. Looks like some kind of car race game. I'm sure its not quite that mundane!

Here he is with something involving lava and cars again. He always has a crowd. I missed his pod-racing game this year.

Open boardgaming

The vaunted boardgame library. Looks impressive except that I have friends with more boardgames than this.

Some Bolt Action Games

Not sure what it is but it certainly has that young man's attention.

More Bolt Action

Some very cool Malifaux games

A nice ACW game in progress.

A siege game set up and ready for play

My favorite dealer, 30 linear feet of nothing but dice.

Mark Hughes handles the booth in Denver for Chessex