Well, Origins 93 has come and gone. Besides the amazing collection of lovely women in Texas (not even counting the beauty pageant contestants), there isn't much to report.

I was worried that all the bad mouthing about the show that began after last year's fiasco would have the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It did. The turn out was quite low (someone told me 3,000). Those that did come seemed an apprehensive bunch. A few, who had been predicting doom and gloom even showed up to ask me if their predictions had come true. Was the con as bad as they said it was going to be?!

If everyone had shown up to play or (at least) not been frightened away by the voices of gloom, the show might have turned out to be good. There was plenty of gaining space available. Although, I heard that they closed the hall too early at night for the more energetic players. While it was blisteringly hot outside, the hall itself was fairly comfortable.

John Reed ran demo games for us of Austerlitz and Afrika. He showed quite a few folks how to play them and had at least some fun and laughs himself. If anyone in the San Jose area can help us by setting up games next year and running things, let me know. We all need to work together to make the con a fun success for an. John did his part this year. We need to hear from others for next year.

Mike Haggett ran a GB tournament all day Saturday and all eight players had a good time. We hope to run quite a few of these events next year and establish" a con within the con "for you guys but, again, we need help to do so. Manpower is a critical asset for these things. I need to know who can be of help for next year's show soon so we can plan it out.

We learned a valuable lesson about company seminars -- only do one. Our seminars drew an ever dwindling crowd. Everyone showed up to the first one, had their questions answered, and then didn't need to go to any others. Only the true hard-core were at the last one. Lesson learned: Do but one seminar, my son.

The dealer area was pretty active. In terms of raw bucks, it was our best show ever. We shared our booth with Scott Hamilton and his brother Doug from HPS (the makers of ADC). They took us out one night to pay off their portion of the booth--a good meal and a good time. Both are really nice fellows and I hope the industry will be seeing much of them.

I picked up a copy of Armee du Nord (which we have since played) and of a couple of new 3W games. (Yes, I'll own up to it--I bought AGC and Blitz In the South). I also bought a copy of High Seas, a dreadfully complex pirate game from a new company from Madison, WI (DRSG, Inc. PO Box 359 Madison WI 53701). The game is remarkable in that--- aside from being the Blackbeard version of Airwar--it put down its design roots while the designers served in Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield-Storm. They also had a small quarterly magazine, the name of which escapes me.

I was disappointed that GMT was unable to have comleted copies of Victory In the West and Lion of the North. There were no counters for these. The rest of the parts were there and you could buy the game at a sizable discount (with the counters coming in the mail later). I wanted both, but couldn't see myself getting half the game now and the rest later. (I'm more impulsive than that) Oh well.

Strangely (or maybe not so), 3W and FGA-Rampart were not present to display their own wares. The Weekend Warrior represented 3W and Lou Zocchi had the market cornered on FGA products.

In the gaming areas (about30% filled), Task Force Johnson did their usual tour-de-force of Europa. I saw Jim Dunnam's playtest maps for his Salerno game-a company-battalion level game that looks really good. There were many smaller games going on as well as a good number of miniature games (of all types and sizes). There were some excellent terrain layouts by GHQ and (I assume) the other miniature companies in the miniatures area.

Lastly, Sticky Combs and I played one mean game of Intruder in the van on the way home. (Stick, I should have won that last game. I had you dead to rights. Those aliens--even at their highest levels-were too easy to kill. But, I'm not bitter ... )

In summing up, I feel this year's show would have been a reasonably decent one had fewer people been dissuaded from coming because others said it was going to be horrible. I assume the "gloom guys" ("proof' in hand) will go home convinced of their ability to predict the future. They will start spreading words of doom about the show next year or perhaps the show itself. When someone tells youpersonally, or in print--that Origins is a disaster and how it's going to die, etc., just ask him what he is doing about it.

As I said last time, the show will fail unless we all take an active interest in making it live and be worth the trip to those who must plan vacation time, etc. If anyone is interested in running our tournaments or demo games, or signing up to set up and play one of our games in our "con within a con", please contact me about it. It's not too late to turn the show around, if we take our best shot at trying to make it happen.

I don't know what will happen to the show. Right now it is in a self-defeating (and destroying) loop. The only people capable of breaking that loop are the players themselves see you on the other side.