RockCon 2018 Review
The Tebala Shriner's Hall near Rockford Illinois continues to be an excellent location just off i-90 and I am impressed with many aspects of this 3-day event.
Minions - Everyone is very professional and courteous
Events - Events other than the main gaming hall are appropriate for the facility size.
Games - Because this convention is not just historical in nature, many types of games were available.
Vendors - The quantity of vendors at the con seems appropriate for the size of the facility.
Swag bag - pointless once again, waste of resources, not well-thought out, no value (even when there is a free miniature the miniature has no value to me), no wow-factor, not enough vendor-supplied stuff that would make the bag worth it. FAIL (once again).
Food - Having learned from last year, I skipped any of the food offerings other than the coffee and even that was horrible. The food crew needs to be entirely changed and a professional needs to be put in place at this facility. In my view, food should simply be catered by Jimmy Johns sub sandwiches and the coffee machine should simply be replaced with a Keurig machine with cartridges. Bottled water should be free. This is the one single element that is killing this convention and I would stop using their kitchen immediately until such a time as the food quality and the staff improves dramatically.
Bathrooms - While I didn't stay for the entire Saturday (in my view, Fridays and Sundays are wishful thinking and a waste of resources of the organization as not enough people can attend), when I did use this modern restroom it was clean and tidy and no toilets had issues.
Vendor on the stage - in my view, this is a liability because the possibility exists of someone falling off the stage. No one should be permitted on the stage of the main hall. If space for more vendors cannot be found RockCon should find a different venue. It is my guess that vendor is there because there is no where else for them to be placed and be visible.
Board game area - TONS of board games are available. If ANYONE is thinking about trying a board game or owning one, they should visit this con and see if the game is there. The Con organizers should publish a list of all the board games they have in stock well in advance of the con (like now for instance). Whomever is in charge of this area should be commended for managing it and this area should not be impacted in the future; if anything it should grow.
Silent Auction - The silent auction continues to be well managed and well organized; the leadership here does a great job and the room devoted to it might be a little small because a LOT of the auctions are on top of each other and hard to see. There were many boardgames for auction but all the prices seem WAY too high.
Parking and loading/unloading - No issues with this element. Signs should be posted declaring when loading/unloading is to occur, on all doors. Doors to the main gaming hall should remain locked at all times and this was not the case on Saturday morning though I am told this will be corrected in the future.
Main Gaming Hall - The quantity and quality of games is sufficient for the available space. All the judges ran games of, as usual, unbelievable quality in appearance and intent. The atmosphere and temperature was appropriate.
Final word/Opinion
If anyone lives within an hour of this convention location and are interested in history, gaming of any era, or board gaming, they should attend this convention at least once.
This time, I did catch up with old friends and had good discussions about the future of gaming with miniatures, and the situation with running game conventions and the issues that exist.
I did learn that a new game day is being presented by HMGS in Deerfield Illinois called AutumnCon - it's a single game day with no vendors. I also heard that GaryCon in Lake Geneva WI is something I should look into attending as well and these will be on my radar.
Once again however, I had no players signed up for my game and I was aware there may have been more than a few judges that had no players as well for the 9am-1pm time slot on Saturday.
But for me, its not about having any players for games I run it is more about showing gamers what they can do or what can be done they may not know about. For instance, everyone thinks you cant have a naval game unless the ships are tiny. While there are some naval gamers with larger models out there, my game showed we need to SEE things that are big - we want to see and touch larger things. Why?
BECAUSE WE ARE ALL GETTING ANCIENT. I have continued to say if we dont get younger gamers into these conventions, and giving them a reason for coming to these cons that is overwhelmingly attractive, we are in big trouble. We are just going to keep seeing each other getting older and older and older and eventually this is going to look like a geriatric game con, like many other cons. Check that: not eventually: it is looking that way now.
THERE ARE SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH YOUNG PEOPLE. Actually, in my view, if I dont start seeing more people under 30 I am going to stop going to these conventions because I cant stand seeing any more walkers, canes, wheelchairs, broken bones, crutches, etc. Every time I go to these conventions (not just this con) I feel like I am 20 years older than I should.
However, there WERE some people that stood around my table at about noon asking if I was going to run it now, until the 1pm time when the period was going to expire, but explaining even a basic game would take 10 minutes to explain and play for less than 50. So when my wife called to say her schedule was changing for the day and if I was going to exit sooner than I wanted, I agreed because my time slot expired anyway.
