"More Wargaming Conventions - a Radical Idea" Topic

I have become inspired by the great work done down in New Orleans at the National WWII Museum. In particular I am referring to the wargaming show Heat of Battle
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Here is the radical thought – what if more wargaming clubs were to get local museums and libraries to sponsor wargaming days? The educational component inherent in historical gaming should be enough of a draw, and it means (horrors) more wargaming possibilities for us. And, unlike some other outreach efforts, this is directly targetted (at least in the case of museums) at an audience that is already interested in history, and possibly even military history!!

For a large national (or even regional) advocacy group (like HMGS) it seems like working with museums to offer a wargaming day (once a month, or once a week) or a convention would be a good thing. And the New Orleans case is a perfect example.

Chuck

Absolutely.

HMGS-Great Lakes has held their largest show, Advance the Colors, at a historical museum in Ohio for several years. The 2009 show was last weekend. In Toledo, Ohio there is a convention and a game day at Fort Meigs. Both are great locations to show wargaming to museum visitors.

NHMGS (Northwest Historical Gaming Society) has held shows at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Two shows in the UK already at museums:

One at Bovingdon Tank Museum
One at Firepower (Artillery museum) in Woolwich

Society of Ancients Games Days (and a FIASCO, as well, if I recall correctly) have been held at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Bovingdon is in Hertfordshire; Bovington is in Dorset.

Why not have a game show at the Texas Military Forces Museum in Austin? You could have the director come by each game and smash all the figures.

Allen

Fiasco is still held at the Royal Armouries – this year's show is 1st Novemeber.

As the SoA has found out in the past, many historical venues charge the earth to rent space and even historically oriented groups don't get a discount. We did 2 AGMs at the Armouries but the price went up beyond the society's reach.

It's a fine idea as long as you don't live in a state where all thelibrarians and museum curators seem to be card carrying members of the Peace and Freedom party.

One limitation for having conventions at museums is that many of the major ones will restrict what vendors can sell or even attend.

The rules are not the same at all of the museums.

I had difficulties with the first Heat of battle over what was allowed to be sold (only WW2 related items) and what could not be sold. Then after that issue was resolved, I would have had to pay them a percentage for selling in their museum. So I decided not to go.

Walt is a great guy and has put a lot of enegy into the HoB show. Most museums do not have someone that dedicated to do the 'boots on the ground' work. I wish him continued success with the show.

However, the concept would not work as well at other museum locations. IMHO.

I'm not so sure, Rudy. Walt's aggressive approach to
fund-raising (for his very ambitious plans for the Museum,
let me hasten to add) has turned some folks off (including
me – while I renew my Charter membership every year,
dating back to before there was a <then called> National
D-Day Museum, I no longer respond with alacrity to the
other solicitations which arrive from NO).

OTOH, we do an event every year with the American Armored
Foundation's Museum (Danville, Va) and Bill (owner)
welcomes dealers in militaria, related publications,
models, miniatures, etc. ODGW attends that with TSS
and together we run games, almost all WWII oriented, but
there was a Knuckleduster game last year and a Victorian
SF game of Dino hunting, Africa, 1890's !

We also participate with the State of NC's Dept. of
Cultural Resources to do two events/year at the State
Capitol (scheduled) and others at the History Museum
(on-call).

If anyone is interested (Chuck, hint, hint), the 2010
show at the AAF will be the last week-end in April, 2010.

Ed – how far off from Spring Fever is the AAF show? I might have to start bargaining now with the Mrs. in order to attend both of those and cold wars….

Chuck

AEC. They have and he didn't. An armed state is a polite state.

I thought that the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Smithsonian Museum at Dulles, Va. would be an excellent site for a small convention. What about it North Va, Maryland, D.C. and Penn. wargamers? Is it a crazy bad or crazy-good idea?
Think of playing Check your six under the nose of a Mustang. Or a Vietnam pilot rescue scenario under a Phantom. COOL.

Too bad the Arizona kids weren't carrying, then.

I'm even more surprised some Texan didn't show him exactly what a Big Man he is.

Hey
why not start a Wargaming museum? Then we could host any convention any time…
OH WAIT, MY HOUSE would qualify, then….
#

We had a nice little games day at the Canadian Army Musuem but now as GildasFacit says it is about the money (they charge a bomb). There was a golden age about 10 years ago when historican Jack Granatstein was in charge but he was the last one who cared about the community outreach. I for one would love to play around all of the tanks on the lower level but unless there is a big shakeup that will never happen.

Normally museums are a closed shop that grassroots supporters can't do much with and you need to go elsewhere. We have lots of museum space in the city that is usually empty while events end up in sports halls and community centres.

Incidentally the staff at these places are usually excellent and very accomodating – it is the people who trun them who aren't.

I wonder how air shows would factor in? Oceana Naval Air Show and the Langley show come to mind. I see tables from some vendors at these shows- that'd be great to see some games of CY6 played as a Corsair flies by… I know it can be a little loud, but, the jet noise could drown out all the cursing of bad die rolls…

[It's a fine idea as long as you don't live in a state where all thelibrarians and museum curators seem to be card carrying members of the Peace and Freedom party.]

I know this comes as something of a shock and outrage to many wargamers, but museums and libraries do occasionally feature things other than war….

And of course any library or museum director is probably weighing in his mind the possible benefit of a few more visitors* in the short term, versus the possible negative publicity from parents complaining that there were grown men "playing Nazis" in the lobby….

* You were planning on paying him for this, weren't you?

…as long as you don't live in a state where all the librarians and museum curators seem to be card carrying members of the Peace and Freedom party.

Is there some study or survey somewhere as to which states have librarians and museum curators that belong to such a party?

As the son of both a librarian and a rare book collector… well… they bring me awfully nice war prints after every vacation, and have always kept me pretty well supplied with soldiers.

But their vacations ARE to Paris, so who knows, maybe they ARE just cheese-eating surrender monkeys with no appreciable military history?

Central IL. DDay Society

I ran the Easy Green board down in N.O. this past year. I had a great time and the General Public was really taking in all the games and such. I also set the Easy Green Board up at the Peoria Museum for Display and got alot of good feed back from the public. In fact I can't think of any negative of the Museum experience they kept it up for 5-6 weeks. Their where no peace nuts runing around. I think the only problem I can see is the vendors making money, but Walt at the National WWII Museum had a great vendor there and they seemed happy.

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