Tuesday, November 21, 2017

PAX Unplugged 2017 Report

It's the Monday after the inaugural PAX Unplugged and I've been home for several hours.  Having had a nap after the trip home and a decent dinner I'm finally sitting down to try and get my impressions recorded.

I arrived late at my hotel in New Jersey Thursday night as I got a little bit lost after coming off the New Jersey Turnpike.  But thanks to Google Maps that was fixed pretty quickly.

I got up at my regular time on Friday then met other people from the booth that were staying at the hotel.  We drove in to Philadelphia, and after some minor issues finding parking, headed for the con.  After saying "Hi" to everyone at the Indie Bazaar, I, Joshua, and Cmdr Rook went to find table space for demos.  We -- Cmdr Rook and I -- set up on two tables then proceeded to run multiple demos for several hours.  We cleaned up, knocked off, and I grabbed some food in Chinatown.  After going back to my hotel room and eating I went out for a walk.  Luckily enough, there was a Toys'R'Us, Dollar Tree, and Walmart across the street.  I got a phone charger, something to drink, and a new for 2018 Creator set.  Then I went back to my room and crashed for the night.

Saturday started a little differently as there was a half marathon being held in Philadelphia and some of the streets were blocked off.  This led to us taking the train in then walking to the convention hall.  We waited in the Queuing Area with everyone else then headed in to set up.  After setting up I ran two demos -- I swear I blinked it was two hours later -- then Cmdr Rook relieved me.  I went back to the booth, chatted a bit, and got in the majority of a demo of Tiny & Chrome.  Tiny & Chrome is Lego based, tabletop wargame that is built on elements of MFZ.  It's also created by Eliot Baker, that's right, another member of the Baker clan.  After that I grabbed some coffee and a snack before heading over to the demo table for the big game.  I met sBritcher, Hydromancer, and Cmdr Rook for a full scale game.  We started at 3:30 and finished at 6:00.  We were moving pretty fast and I don't have many pictures but I may have a battle report for the game at some point.  We also had a gentleman named Chris hang out for the entire game basically cheerleading.  It was awesome!  After breaking down the table we headed out with a bunch of people for dinner.

Sunday I drove in by myself.  I got in pretty early and had to wait for someone with an Exhibitor badge to walk me in.  After setting up, I ran three more demos.  One was for Chris, the gentleman from the night before.  Vlad, whom I've mentioned before in my PAX East posts, also made it to the table and played in a few demos.  Cmdr Rook ran a demo then we knocked off, cleaned up, and went to actually see the convention -- instead of just the booth, the demo table, and the stretch of floor between the two.  After the con closed at 6:00 I helped break down the booth and load stuff into people's cars.  Then I headed back to my car and home.

So I totaled up at nine full demos run and one full scale game played for the three days of the con.  I had a great time, met a bunch of cool people, and I'm looking forward to next year.

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