The theme of the convention was the Zulu wars. Mr. Ian Knight, an expert in all things Zulu, gave an extremely interesting talk about the period.
The concept of a Theme at the convention was rather interesting. Several vendors actually tuned their stock towards the theme and there were many themed games. Bob Giglio's massive game on the subject in 25mm was up to his usual spectacular standards.
The attendance of the convention was something like 1000-1200 bodies (Not including dealers), not a bad number for a new convention in a new time slot. That HMGS name really pulls them in. The location (the Eisenhower Conference Center) was very nice. The staff at the ECC was extremely accomodating The battlefield was an obvious distraction, however, that some of us took advantage of.
The dealers were intermixed with demo tables and that seemed to be a great draw! Bob Jones of Piquet did demos 3 times a day and seemed to move a lot of rule sets. A large gaming area was set up in a different building some distance from the hotel. This was no problem until the rains came. The shuttle buses were small and I believe stopped running well before gaming was over. This remote area presented problems for game masters putting on games with a lot of terrain and troops to lug around.
All in all the convention was a great success, however and these teething problems are bound to be cleared up for the '98 show.
ED NOTE: This report was made up in part from a report to Battle Group Boston by convention attendee Pete Mancini. Added comments by your editor.
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