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Travel
I flew a very weird route because I was able to use some airmiles. Even worse I had to use two separate bookings, as I couldn’t get a complete end to end schedule with just one airline. This meant my travel was cheap, but it did make for very long travel days with 3 to 4-hour layovers.
Next year I’ll book the PDX-FRA direct flight. 10 hours on a plane is a long time, but those who used it this year had good things to say about it, and it certainly gets you to Essen the quickest. I’ll probably also take a flight to/from Duesseldorf rather than take the train. Yes, the train journey is quite scenic, but I’d rather be safe in the knowledge that my connections are secure. Having the train arrive late on the return journey would work out really expensive.
Accommodation
We stayed at the Hotel Arosa, and while it was expensive (130E/night) it was a in a good location, only a 10 minute walk from the Messe, and close to several restaurants and supermarkets. It also served a great breakfast, with hot eggs, bacon and sausages (if you get there by 8am-ish) as well as the more usual varied selection of meats, cheeses and bread. Stoke up with plenty of breakfast and you can game all through the day until dinner time.
They also had a conference room, which we used on two nights for gaming. It had been booked on Saturday by a games company, but they were gracious enough to let us use the spare tables at the back of the room.
I’d certainly plan on staying there again, and would reserve the conference room as part of the booking.
I ate at 4 different restaurants while there. The Istra was on Wednesday and had a large gathering of gamers. The food was OK, and we went bowling downstairs afterwards. My favorite place was a quick food restaurant just opposite the Istra. Schnitzel, salad and a beer was just 10E and certainly kept me satisfied. The plus point was that it was quick, which allowed us to spend more time gaming.
Spiel
The actual event itself was everything I hoped it would be. Loads and loads of games and gamers, lots of things to look at, and plenty of cheap prices. I was like a kid in a candy store. A kid with access to cash, a bad combination. I managed to buy 73 games, but when calculating equivalent prices I reckon that those same games would have been at least $500 more expensive here.
Most booths were busy, and trying to get a table to try a game was a bit hit or miss. Buddying up with some friends is a good idea. It’s easier to get a game going if you have a few of you, and at least you can chat while you’re playing and waiting for others to take their move. I was lucky in that I spent a lot of time with Tom (BGG: BoardsAndBits), Michelle (caesarmom), and Morgan (sisteray), a great bunch to go gaming with.
Shopping for great deals was a lot of fun, so many games and such low prices! Comparing different retailers was fun, but probably not worth the extra time spent to save a buck or two.
Working at the Sunriver Games booth demoing Havoc was a blast. I really enjoy teaching games to people, and was especially pleased when they bought a copy of the game afterwards. I managed to throw in some German when teaching, and also a little French when needed. I even had to teach one lady almost entirely in German, and I managed to get through without too much trouble. I had spent a fair amount of time reading the German rules, so I was familiar with most of the game specific terms.
Technology
The iBook worked flawlessly, everything I hoped it would be. Wireless at Dulles was very hard to find, and non-existant at Amsterdam. Wireless access was available at the hotel through T-Mobile, but was quite expensive - 18E for a 24 hour access period. I had hoped to get a few people together to pay for it, but in the end most people didn’t bother using, or very little, it so I ended up paying for it myself. I really wanted to be able to blog each day’s events, so I was willing to take that one on the chin as the cost of blogging.
Unfortunately the wireless access in the Messe was a bit flakey. (Well, at least in hall 4 at the Sunriver Games booth.) So my plans of running a web cam of the booth didn’t happen. It would have been limited anyway, as you had to pay extra to get power supplied to your booth, not something the Sunriver guys needed, and the battery would only have run for a few hours. Sunriver Chris had suggested just going for a walkabout with the laptop and camera and capturing some video, but I never bothered with it. Maybe next year.
I did get the web cam working in the hotel while we were gaming in the evening, which I was pleased with. However, a picture of a room of some people playing is not too exciting, so I didn’t bother with it the next evening.
The blogging worked out well, even though it made for some very late nights. (We’re talking 3-4am here!) Looking back over the web statistics, my page requests went through the roof over that weekend. I normally get 50 or so requests per day, but on the Saturday it was almost 4,500 page requests.
I had also hoped to do some video blogging. I did finally manage to create a quick item at PDX airport, and although it worked fine from my laptop I just couldn’t get it to work when it was posted to the web site. I need to play with it a bit more.
Lessons
So, what would I do differently next time?
As mentioned, I’d do the direct flight to FRA, and I’d be happy to stay at the Arosa again, although I’d arrange to use the conference room ahead of time.
I’d do the blogging again, despite the late hours. It was fun to see the hits go through the roof. I’d try to get the video side working better, with some video/audio of the actual games being played. In fact I'd generally take more pictures.
Even though I did some research on which games I was interested in, I pretty much ignored it when I got there as I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the whole event. Trying to pick up on the pre-event buzz is important for ensuring you get the ‘hot’ games that are in short supply. Fortunately I’d pre-ordered Shear Panic, and got lucky in scoring a copy of Jenseits von Theben. I'd also try to keep my ear more to the ground for all the freebies going on. I forgot to go to the various booths each day to pick up the e offereings, and those I did get were donated by others. Sheesh. I'd spend more time playing the new games, and doing reports on them. That's what y'all want to read, isn't it?!?
I wouldn’t buy so many games in the first few days, although a lot of them were from the used game sellers and were games that are hard to find over here. La Citta and Big City were top of my list, and I managed to get both. I also should have been a bit more diligent in comparing prices of those I did buy that are available at home, some really weren’t bargains. And as for those games where I bought the wrong version of the same title……. (Imagine a red-faced smiley here.)
I would spend more time gaming in the evenings. The night at the Istra was interesting and fun, but overall I’d rather spend the time gaming than bowling.
Memorable things
For me, the stand-out memories of the trip were:
I want to go back every year – hang the expense!
Finally, here it is, the games haul. Well, part of it, I'm still waiting for the boxes I shipped to arrive with another 25 or so games...
