Historicon 2002

Registration and Tournaments

by Russ Lockwood


The Lancaster Host Resort divides neatly into two areas: the main hotel/ballroom/conference area holding all the wargames, lectures, and other events, and the auxilliary "Tennis Barn" (about 50 or so yards away in a separate building) holding the dealer area.

Terry Gore (seated), editor of Saga, author of Medieval Warfare, Ancients Warfare, and Renaissance Warfare rules, and now a publisher of a series of historical booklets, runs his tournament with an iron fist (inside a velvet glove)... Here, he's making a point about deployment as he sets up for a friendly game with an adoring fan. In the far background, you can see the monitors from DBA On-line peeking out.

The main area further divides into four main zones: Lampeter/Theater, Distelfink Ballroom, rooms at the end of the short hall, and rooms on the way to the Tennis Barn. OK, the "rooms" really have individual names, but since I never learned the names, and always walk through every room, I never worried about the names. There's also a fifth zone, a set of rooms behind the hotel's store, which is up a short flight of stairs behind the hotel registration desk. If you don't know they're there, you'll never find them because they're outside the usual traffic patterns. I don't deal with the children's room, but that's up and around the staircase by the pool.

As the years have rolled by and attendance increased, HMGS has steadily increased its use of square footage. I'm not quite sure how much is left--Historicon has gotten so popular, it's basically taken over all the space available, although there may be a room or two tucked away that still hasn't been filled.

Over the years, Lancaster the city and outlying areas where the LHR sits has grown considerably, with new restaurants, hotels, strip malls, shopping plazas, theaters, and other commercial buildings that create heavy traffic similar to that of suburban areas near a major city where I usually drive. Route 30 is a four lane highway with center turning lane that has turned into a traffic light-filled parking lot at prime times...like dinner hour. If I couldn't book a room at the LHR, I'd book at the Macintosh across the street and joke that I was playing "Frogger" when I went back and forth. It used to be easy, even at a dinner hour. Now, I drive, even at midnight. But don't let that scare you. Several hotels and motels are next door on the same side of the highway. Parking, which used to be tight, is now plentiful thanks to the addition of a few new lots over the years, and the expediency of parking on designated grassy areas.

Anyway, entering the LHR from the front entrance leads you up the stairs and past a couple of tables to the main hotel registration desk, and more importantly, the bar. It used to be that Historicon registration was just beyond, near the entrance of the restaurant, however, this year, registration was in a small room just to the right of the entrance stairs--this used to be a nightclub disco, changed to country bar, and then went out of business. One previous show, and I'm not sure which, it was the flea market--not a good idea because many people who want to sell and many more who want to buy couldn't cram into that relatively small area. The previous registration area was turned into a showcase wargame area. It's still a cramped space, but folks were let in a few at a time and could wait on line comfortably in the main entrance of the hotel.

Tournaments

Anyway, after exiting registration, the Lampeter/Theater zone is directly across the main entrance hall.

The UK's Society of Ancients made the pilgrimage across the pond and set up a display.

The SOA display.

The Lampeter room, to the left and down the stairs, used to be the dealer area years ago, but the number of dealers outgrew the space, and thankfully was changed to the tennis barn. Lampeter holds the various ancients tournaments: WRG, DBA, Armati, Medieval Warfare, etc. It's also the open gaming area at night and flea market during the day. The tournament tables in row upon row stretch into the rear of the room into the flea market area.

I met Terry Gore later on in the show for a drink at the bar. We talked a little bit about his publishing efforts. He's quietly building a small publishing company. MagWeb.com will help him make it a little louder.

More Historicon 2002

Back to List of Conventions
Back to Travel Master List
Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines
© Copyright 2002 by Coalition Web, Inc.

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