Tengaicon 2013 – I’m Calling it a Sucess!

It’s just after midnight, so I guess technically I missed my daily blog deadline, but I’m still awake, so it counts. We just got home a little bit ago, and I was tempted to put off yet another post so I could crash. But I wanted to get something out about today, so here goes, with apologies if anything sounds off or wonky…I’m really tired.

I don’t think I’ve talked much about Tengaicon, so here’s some back story. It’s a local, one day gaming convention in MHK that’s been going on for close to a decade. It’s had its ups and downs, and last year it had a streak of bad luck.  In an effort to help get it back on track, I headed the committee for this year’s event. At the time I volunteered, I was in what I like to call “crazy planning mode.”  I figured I’d eventually burn out, but the goal was to make sure everything was ready before that burn out happened.  I wanted the end goal to be a plan of action that could be followed and built upon the following years.

For the last year, our committee has been organizing and getting things in place. There were several meetings at the beginning of the planning period, but eventually, as things came together, they tapered off. By the time we were a week away from the con, I felt that everything was on track. Sure, I let the ball drop a little bit. We could have done more marketing and PR, and there were a few details regarding food that missed the mark. But that was really all in hindsight, and I was cautiously optimistic that we’d have a good convention (and by cautiously optimistic, I was worried and stressed that no one would show up).

For our crew, the con stuff started last night when we met at the hall to set up.  Set up was quick, as we had a good volunteer crew. This morning we were back at 8 to put the finishing touches on the hall and to pick up some last minute things at the grocery store.  From the time the doors opened at 9:30 to sometime in the afternoon, we seemed to have a steady stream of people.

The day was fun! We had several local gaming groups attend, and they each brought in a good number of players. We also had casual gamers show up who found something that interested them. We had Tab Creations, a local game maker/company, come and demo a new game that’s going to be a Kickstarter project. We had our dice table, our silent auction to raise money for Child’s Play, paint and take, local artists, and concessions.  Everyone I talked to seemed to be having a good time. We got a lot of positive feedback and everyone was really nice.

Besides the demo, I didn’t do any gaming since I was trying to make sure everything was going well. I wanted to make sure all my volunteers had breaks, that all of our vendors and GMs  were thanked, and that the gamers were having a positive experience. I’m not sure if I was able to really talk to everyone, and I think I accidentally let a few people go a little long without a break, but I think things were okay and nobody seemed burned out by the end of the day (I did have a few flashbacks of my days as lead cashier at Glens, though).

Jon and I made it out by 11, sticking around to make sure the last few groups made it out okay and doing last minute hall cleaning. I’m grateful to everyone who helped and played. In the final counts, we ended up making a profit and I believe we had over 100 attendees. For a small convention, this was pretty awesome.

We still have a few things to do, like contact the silent auction winners who weren’t there to pick up their stuff when it ended, and set up a post-con meeting to recap and make a plan for moving forward. I also want to email everyone with thanks and put some notes and schedules down on paper to pass on to whoever my successor is going to be.  Because seriously, I’m so happy with how this turned out, and I want any future convention to continue to improve on what we accomplished today.

But those things can wait for tomorrow. I’m falling asleep typing this, so I think it’s time for much needed rest. I don’t think our double day of working out is going to happen tomorrow, as my back is killing me tonight. But we’ll see. And while I realize I’ve failed on pictures for this post, I think I’ve persuaded Terry to give me some of the pictures he got today in hopes of putting together a special Tengaicon picture post.

A.

 

Vacation Recovery Day

I’m always glad of the extra day of vacation I take after Gen Con. It’s a day to relax and recharge, but it’s also time to get stuff done and get my head in the right space to get back to the regular grind.  I slept in a few hours and felt like I had a road trip hangover when I finally got up. A shower cured most of the fuzziness, but I’ve been kind of dragging all day. I suppose that’s to be expected.

I received a confirmation letter today saying I was awarded one of the scholarships to the Being an Outdoors Woman program, which means I’ll be able to attend for less than I’d anticipated. I figured I wouldn’t get it, so I was pleasantly surprised. I’m really excited for that weekend, though I am a little nervous. I suppose that’s normal. I never went to summer camp as a kid, at least not until I was in junior high, and then those camps were more academic.

We started the day off with laundry. I wasn’t in the mood to try and multi-task, so I sat with Jon at the laundromat and played through the Learn to Play pack we got at Gen Con for Legend of the Five Rings. It definitely feels more involved than MtG. I think I liked it, but I’m going to have to practice more to figure out what’s going in, and I’ll probably have to enlist the help of one of the local players to help with further understanding the cards.

After discussing Chipotle in the car yesterday, we went there for lunch. I love their burritos, but they’re huge, and I tend to realize only after I’m done that I probably shouldn’t have eaten all that. We were going to go to the gym, but then Chipotle and tiredness happened, so we called today a rest day. We stopped at Dillon’s to pick up dinner and lunch for tomorrow. Since Chipotle had felt indulgent, we decided to juice for dinner, something I want to get back into to make sure I’m getting my fruits and veggies.

On the way home, we decided to hit up a geocache. It was one we couldn’t find before, and I figured that with some experience under our belt, we might be more apt to find it this time. We were successful, but we were a little irritated that we didn’t realize what it was the first time around. Even this time, we looked at it a few times before finally “finding” it.  The irritation was at ourselves, not at the person who placed it. If anything, I thought it was pretty clever.

I scheduled a couple more Gen Con posts to post tomorrow and Wednesday. If by some chance you’re reading this but didn’t read about Day 0, you can find it here.  I should have used the evening to put away laundry, but decided that playing Trains with Jon was infinitely more important.  I won both games, but I suppose I had the edge since I’d played it a lot this past weekend.

Some other cool stuff:

Jon got an email to set up a job interview with a firm in Missouri.

We’re going to try to do the Orc Stomp 5K at Gen Con next year, which means we’re going to start training right away. We’ll most likely walk it, but we’re going to do the Couch to 5K program to try to up our walking speed.

In other gym news, we’ve set a goal for ourselves. Since we’re going to be 5K training three days a week, we’re going to aim to make it to the gym three days a week. This is to both increase our exercise level and to decide if we’re going to keep our memberships after the end of September. If we make our three times a week goal, then we’ll keep them. If we slough off and find excuses not to go, then it’s really just a waste of money and we’ll cancel our memberships in favor of more walking.

There is a chance we’ll get to volunteer for AEG at a gaming con in KC in November. It’s the week before our trip to St. Louis, which means we have to work out a few more logistics of the trip. Nothing is set in stone yet, but it’s definitely something that might happen.

Gen Con sparked some gaming mojo in us, and it looks like we’re going to try to do a DnD 4th Edition game. I believe we’re also going to do some Pathfinder in a couple months. I’m easing back into it. Still not sure if I’m ready to run any games and I’m going to hold off on doing anything online (partially because my computer is having some major issues), but I’m kind of looking forward to gaming in a small group again.

I’m sleepy already, so I might punk out on putting away laundry and just pull some clothes for tomorrow.  An early night’s sleep should be helpful in getting my mind back to the work day mindset that starts bright and early tomorrow morning.

A.