In mid-July, HMGS presented its HISTORICON convention at the Penn-Harris Inn in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. About a year ago, when Harrisburg was first proposed as a site, the intelligentsia present at the HMGS meeting came out with comments to the effect that "Harrisburg is inaccessible!", "Harrisburg lies at the Edge of the World in the Forest of Darkness near the Mountains of Doom!", and "There are cannibals in the streets!"
I did not see a single cannibal. I did see wonderful weather and a lot of contented gamers. The statistics speak for themselves: 730 paid registrants plus dealers plus staff plus a contingent from the Smithsonian, totaling over 900 attendees.
The physical plant at the Penn-Harris is excellent... a 257 room motel adjacent to a separate Convention Center providing a covered half-acre of activity space, well air-conditioned and well lighted. But, most precious of all, the staff at the Penn-Harris Inn was outstanding in providing assistance, in servicing our requests, and in responding instantly to our needs.
Dick Sossi coordinated the dealer tables and Bob Coggins handled just about all the other nitty-gritty: programmed events, schedules, table assignments. We also had a series of volunteers, most of them from the Washington, DC, based Potomac Wargamers, to man the HMGS desk. I am always impressed to see the volunteer effort expended for the HMGS conventions, producing no money in the pockets of the organizers, when contrasted with the efforts of profit-making groups, such as those that sponsor ORIGINS, which come away with a good percentage of the take.
The final program listed over 100 events scattered throughout the four day affair. About ten were cancelled, but another ten sprang up to take their place.
The gamers had nothing but good to say of the affair, while an informal poll on Friday night of the dealers produced two key comments: first, so many dealers were in attendance (50 of them) that sales were not as high as anticipated, since the gamers had to divide their purchasing power among more outlets than usual. My impression is that sales picked up immensely on Saturday and that in the end, the dealers, for the most part, were quite pleased with the results.
The second negative comment focused on the runny-eggs served at the breakfast buffet. Now, this -- to my mind -- was, indeed, critical, for runny-eggs can undo the best laid plans, and the complaint was quickly relayed to the Inn's staff. No more was heard of the runny-egg problem.
HMGS had contracted with the Inn using a "sliding payment" scale for the Convention Center... if we booked less than 50 rooms, the charge would be $3000; if we booked more, the charge would decrease proportionately. In the end, we. booked so many rooms at the motel, that the charge went down to zero... we paid nothing for use of the Center.
Just prior to the convention, we had arranged to insure HMGS as a "small business". Instead of obtaining a separate insurance policy for each separate convention, each affair is now tagged on to our main coverage as a rider. The result is to reduce our premium cost to about one-third of what it has formerly been.
HISTORICON was the first major effort outside of the Washington, DC area. All of our previous affairs there, run by Pat Condray, have come off in good fashion, and we were unsure of the response if the site was moved to Harrisburg. With this in mind, the pricing structure ($5 registration for the entire four days, $40 for a dealer's table, $5 for a flea market table) was kept to a low-low to entice our audience to come to the Forest of Darkness in the Mountains of Doom. In other words ' we did not set up HISTORICON to make a profit. Instead, we focused on attracting attendees, and were willing to take a small bath in red ink just to ensure adequate attendance.
Evidentally, our strategy worked... not only was attendance up, but, helped by our lowered insurance costs and zero fee for the Center, we actually made money!
We held one of our twice-yearly HMGS meetings, attended by 20 or so HMGS members. Also present were several members of the Chicago-based HMGS Midwest group. During the discussion, someone proposed a motion - which was passed - to the effect that "as a curtesy to our guests", these Chicago representatives be granted full voting rights during the meeting.
I thought this was rather silly, because "our guests" could then have called to their friends in the gaming area, outnumbered us, and proposed and passed a resolution to take our $8000 treasury and transfer it to Chicago. I exaggerate, of course, to prove a point, but it serves to show how easily our members are swayed.
At our February 1987 meeting, the Executive Council of Simon, Coggins, and Condray was asked to investigate and recommend whether or not HMGS should join GAMA. The recommendation was "No!", and this was followed by someone's motion to the effect that we give GAMA $50 to obtain a "Communicating Membership" which entitles us to attend GAMA meetings (which are open to the public), to participate in the debates (which are open to the public) and to make our thoughts known in the discussions (which are open to the public). Once again, the hearts of the HMGS members present overcame the logic of the moment, and the motion was passed.
In point of fact, GAMA has made several conciliatory gestures towards us, and the $50 represents our own gesture of togetherness. Both organizations would benefit by working together in closer fashion than has been done in the past.
A brief discussion was held on the topic of some sort of "scholarship grant", which HMGS might offer to certain selected individuals. The giving of a grant is always good publicity, plus, in this case, it would, in part, fulfill our goal of disseminating information on the use of wargaming and informing the public on the educational aspects of the hobby.
The last key item on the agenda was the formation of a Nominating Committee for the next elections. Leo Cronin is the Chairman; we are looking for a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer, and a Recording Secretary.
Other items concerned with HISTORICON: Jay Hadley was kind enough to donate 42 painted 25mm Landsknechts which served as first prize in our raffle. Ben Pecson donated the second prize figures.
Dr. Martin Gordin, the Smithsonian representative, seemed quite pleased with the results of his program. He had arranged, as part of his Smithsonian lecture series, for a bus ride for his group from Washington, coupled with a luncheon at the Inn. The group was then treated to several lectures, a hands-on demonstration of wargaming, and a guided tour of the gaming area, during which our HMGS hosts explained what was going on.
At this point in time, it appears that we'll again head back to the Penn-Harris Inn for the mid-July 1988 HISTORICON. The Inn has presented us with a contract in which they have waived the sliding scale attached to the Convention Center; they are fairly confident that we can again fill the motel to overflowing, and so they've offered us the use of the Center, gratis, no preconditions attached.
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© Copyright 1987 Wally Simon
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