My Welcome Home
I guess I didn't do a very good job of reporting in regularly from GenCon. I recovered from staying out too late after the Diana Jones Awards and was a good girl every other night, going back to my room to run credit card receipts instead of hitting the industry parties and getting enough sleep so that I could work my shifts at the booth every day without feeling like misery. The result was that I had one lunch with a friend, one dinner with another, and the rest of the con I was bouncing from person to person like a pinball... never having satisfactory time with anyone. Before I knew it, GenCon was over and I hadn't even seen the whole exhibit hall.
I found out after the fact that the hall opened to Very Important Gamers on Thursday, though that is a minor detail that the entire Green Ronin staff was not aware of at the time. Not that we could have gotten set up any earlier, with four of our seven staffers unable to arrive before Wednesday evening. Still, it explains why people like this commenter at Nikchick.com felt pissed off at my inability to provide service with a smile before the booth was set up and while the cash register wasn't functional. GenCon could have made it more clear that they were going to let gamers pay for early access to the exhibit hall... had I paid $500 for early access and not been able to buy things, I would have been more than miffed. As an exhibitor, I was not thrilled to learn that we would not have late night access to the exhibit hall to set up on Wednesday and was really struggling to get set up Thursday morning. I am even more unhappy now to hear from previously happy and loyal customers that I've lost their business because of the fiasco that was "VIP HOUR" at GenCon. Super terrific.
Thankfully, that episode and the blessedly brief bout of food poisoning from Champions' really gross salad (which I was really glad I didn't eat all of or I'm sure things would have been a lot worse) were the only low-lights of the con. Overall GenCon was a smashing success, the mood upbeat, the energy level high and positive. The ENnies were fun as always and I was personally very pleased with how the awards were spread out among big and small. I really wanted to see Hobby Games: the 100 Best take the Gold this year but I'm still mighty pleased about getting the silver. Everything went by distressingly fast and before I knew it, the convention was over and far to many of my industry friends had passed through and gone without my ever seeing more than a glimpse of them.
I returned home to live and happy bunnies (THANKS to Marc and Michelle for taking care of them!) and had some bunny cuddle therapy to help me come down from the unpleasantness of screaming children and the unbelievably foul gas attack of Stinky Fart Man (who had people groaning for aisles). This summer has been unusually intense as far as unpleasant plane trips but at least once we've arrived at our destinations it's been worth it.
Of course, all is not always sunshine and roses, even when we're not traveling. I arrived home to find that not only did the state incorrectly take Green Ronin's quarterly tax payment out of my personal checking account (something no doubt my own fault, as I was trying desperately to get everything sorted out before leaving the country and being on the road for two weeks but an unpleasant problem for me no matter the fault) but then yesterday I got to talk with some neighborhood police officers about the youths with guns running around in our neighborhood. There was a home invasion and at least two other incidents involving these thugs before they were caught, but they dumped their guns somewhere around the neighborhood and the police did not find those. I hope someone responsible finds the guns and not any of the youths or small children in the neighborhood! After the excitement with the police and the K9 unit, a couple different groups of kids showed up in the park for their favorite activity of pot smoking and bragging about the violent activities they were involved in. Could be just kids bragging about things they had nothing to do with to make themselves seem big and cool, or it could be that these kids really ar no longer satisfied with stashing pot and booze in our park and leaving behind broken bottles and graffiti but are moving up into bigger crimes. Not sure, but either way, it has put a bit of a damper on our homecoming.
Kate is home on Thursday, which means summer "vacation" is just about over. We're taking her to PAX over Labor Day weekend and then she'll start school while we head to Vegas for the Alliance Open House. Then, I think, convention season will officially be over.
I found out after the fact that the hall opened to Very Important Gamers on Thursday, though that is a minor detail that the entire Green Ronin staff was not aware of at the time. Not that we could have gotten set up any earlier, with four of our seven staffers unable to arrive before Wednesday evening. Still, it explains why people like this commenter at Nikchick.com felt pissed off at my inability to provide service with a smile before the booth was set up and while the cash register wasn't functional. GenCon could have made it more clear that they were going to let gamers pay for early access to the exhibit hall... had I paid $500 for early access and not been able to buy things, I would have been more than miffed. As an exhibitor, I was not thrilled to learn that we would not have late night access to the exhibit hall to set up on Wednesday and was really struggling to get set up Thursday morning. I am even more unhappy now to hear from previously happy and loyal customers that I've lost their business because of the fiasco that was "VIP HOUR" at GenCon. Super terrific.
Thankfully, that episode and the blessedly brief bout of food poisoning from Champions' really gross salad (which I was really glad I didn't eat all of or I'm sure things would have been a lot worse) were the only low-lights of the con. Overall GenCon was a smashing success, the mood upbeat, the energy level high and positive. The ENnies were fun as always and I was personally very pleased with how the awards were spread out among big and small. I really wanted to see Hobby Games: the 100 Best take the Gold this year but I'm still mighty pleased about getting the silver. Everything went by distressingly fast and before I knew it, the convention was over and far to many of my industry friends had passed through and gone without my ever seeing more than a glimpse of them.
I returned home to live and happy bunnies (THANKS to Marc and Michelle for taking care of them!) and had some bunny cuddle therapy to help me come down from the unpleasantness of screaming children and the unbelievably foul gas attack of Stinky Fart Man (who had people groaning for aisles). This summer has been unusually intense as far as unpleasant plane trips but at least once we've arrived at our destinations it's been worth it.
Of course, all is not always sunshine and roses, even when we're not traveling. I arrived home to find that not only did the state incorrectly take Green Ronin's quarterly tax payment out of my personal checking account (something no doubt my own fault, as I was trying desperately to get everything sorted out before leaving the country and being on the road for two weeks but an unpleasant problem for me no matter the fault) but then yesterday I got to talk with some neighborhood police officers about the youths with guns running around in our neighborhood. There was a home invasion and at least two other incidents involving these thugs before they were caught, but they dumped their guns somewhere around the neighborhood and the police did not find those. I hope someone responsible finds the guns and not any of the youths or small children in the neighborhood! After the excitement with the police and the K9 unit, a couple different groups of kids showed up in the park for their favorite activity of pot smoking and bragging about the violent activities they were involved in. Could be just kids bragging about things they had nothing to do with to make themselves seem big and cool, or it could be that these kids really ar no longer satisfied with stashing pot and booze in our park and leaving behind broken bottles and graffiti but are moving up into bigger crimes. Not sure, but either way, it has put a bit of a damper on our homecoming.
Kate is home on Thursday, which means summer "vacation" is just about over. We're taking her to PAX over Labor Day weekend and then she'll start school while we head to Vegas for the Alliance Open House. Then, I think, convention season will officially be over.