Loading...My Report from Dallas and BGG Con
Hi Honey! I’m home from the war…games
Well it was my first time there at the Westin in Dallas/Fort Worth and I have to say it was a nice hotel, the restaurants were great, the staff were great, and the rooms were clean and a little on the higher end of the scale. Other than having no hot water on Saturday morning, it went off without a hitch.
Anyways, I arrived on Wednesday afternoon a little after 12:00 noon and my buddy Kevin picked me up at the airport. I asked him about the little piece of plastic that he stuck up on his dashboard as we were leaving and he told me that it was for all the toll booths that automatically withdrew money from his bank account as we drove. It was remarkable how many of those things there were as he advised everytime we passed under one “there goes 65 cents, oh this one is a buck”. I think we drained about $8 bucks after we got done driving for the day. The funnier part was when I was driving a U-haul truck behind him back to the hotel and I asked when we got there what would happen then, he said that they take pictures of the license plate. I’m thinking I’m going to get a bill in the mail, maybe not though, I bet they write some stuff off as “way too much work for $8 bucks to find a dude driving a U-haul”.
Wednesday afternoon was spent helping the BGG guys haul in pallets of games, Z-Man, Thoughthammer and a bunch of other guys might owe me a beer still for doing that. I recall Derk advising every pallet that I was lugging across the carpet that had competitor games on them. Each time I did the Canadian thing and said “Thanks Eh!”
I had 2 meals on Wednesday, both buffets, I then left those things to the experts and just enjoyed single entrees from that point on. I’m surprised I could still move when it came time to walking around. There is definitely no shortage of great places to eat in Dallas, so if you are going to the Con next year you have something to look forward to when it comes to food.
Wednesday night I tried not to do it, but once I started I couldn’t get away, I stayed in the prize room til about 2:30 am playing Beatles Rock Bank with a great group. I was mostly lead vocals with Nikki on backup and Bass, she would take lead on songs I had no idea on and we were a great team. We had the Guitar God Kevin who would usually try and play the songs on Expert only to be a little humbled and moved back to Hard, you still rocked it man. Craig was on the drums and he was better than Ringo by a mile, so to you my friend I call you (insert accent here) “the best drummer what eva lived”
Thursday we received word that only part of our shipment made it on the plane so we were only able to pick up a couple pallets of games. Gotta love customs, we managed to beg a plead with them that we were bringing in board games and not missile systems and it seemed to help as we got them to the show about an hour after it started at 1:00 pm.
Friday, we got the rest of our stock and everyone was happy then. Stronghold was back in stock after Thoughthammer sold out. Much to Phils chigrin as he did most of the demos for it, the rulebook has a couple issues but once people got playing it was a short trip up to the table to buy a copy. They would then walk away grumbling about luggage space, still with a grin on their face mind you.
The rest of the weekend went smoothly with us playing a few games, enjoying some great company, meeting some wonderful people and having a ton of laughs. As some of you who know me, that’s really not hard for me to do.
Special thanks to Lee and Phil who helped me run the booth, Phil did most of the demonstrations of Stronghold and that is no small task. Lee made sure the booth ran like a clock, his store is in Ohio (Underhills Games, check it out). HUGE thanks to Kevin for running me around picking up the truck and going back and forth to the airport to get inventory. That and running my luggage around to all the rooms that we had to monkey around with changes to situations when his family was under the weather and we couldn’t stay at his place. You are the man, brother.
Finally, I want to thank Scott, Derk, Jeff, Jon, Dale and all the other folks that were part of the BGG crew, you guys made it a fantastic experience for me and Valley Games. The hospitality you showed to me and my guys there was amazing, and we will never forget it. The convention was a well oiled machine that went off without any problems, if there were any, you guys rolled with it and no one would have known. If there is a need for a shameless plug it would be this, walk, run, fly, or drive to Dallas next year, do whatever you have to, this is a great event and it is worth the trip. I know we will be there every year from now on without hesitation. Well done and thank you once again.
That’s all I have on that, good time was had by all, check out the store and get some of the Essen games while we still have some. Last I looked we were running low on a couple of them so hurry. I’m out.
Torben
