The obvious questions in my mind as I drove with Jerry Webster to the convention were "why did they move from the very nice Century Center; why did they have more than one day; why did they have more than one morning and one afternoon sessions; and why did they have to have a July convention?" The answer to all my questions, when I asked, was "We want to get a reputation as a big convention rather than a small local one." There it was again, ambition. I understand the desire, but what I fail to understand is what motivation gets these ideas going? Why do things in a big way without going all the way! By actually them BIG! What is wrong with being very successfully small? As for the actual convention itself, I had a very tough time with the July heat in the Stephan Center at the University of Notre Dame. The building was NOT air conditioned and we gamers melted all day. Attendance was way down. An example was in the English Civil War game I played in. There were two of us. I think part of the problem may have been the July date. Between both Origins and GenCon, and during prime summer vacation days takes lot of guts. I heard an unofficial figure from on of the judges that only 5-10% of all pre-registration flyers were responded to by gamers. In the final analysis I would give this years Emperor's Birthday convention a one-star rating. Unfortunately the changes were all for the worse. Perhaps they learned their lesson. Perhaps we will again see a four-star convention again as it was in the past. Only time, let it be March, will tell. Back to MWAN #17 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com