"Is the Wargaming Convention Dying? " Topic

"So is the Wargaming Convention dying? as discussed by Gary Mitchell in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy 77.
On first reading of the article, I thought I would be annoyed, remembering the ire that Paddy Griffiths article Against Toy Soldiers caused me. However I think with age you tend to take a step back and attempt to be more mature in your response, that is if you can be actually bothered to make a response.

On re reading the article Gary had some good points in the brief. We all accept that the hobby is graying rapidly, we all accept that younger would be wargamers are quite thin on the ground and we all understand that we need to attract younger wargamers if we would like the hobby to continue after our collective demise.

The wargames convention is one area where there is a need for a rethink as it is probably the best way to reach the younger public, short of going into schools.
The ideas put forward by Gary were all pretty much commonsense, some should be a given, other ideas are merely experimental…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Except that we don't all accept that the hobby is graying rapidly. This old chestnut has been vomited forth for decades, yet I see more children, young adults, women, and people of color attending conventions than ever before.

It's definitely graying! If you exclude those who play Games Workshop games, or Privateer Press games, or X-Wing, or the new FFG Star Wars Imperial Assault game, or Clix games, or …

BTW, did you know that computer programming is graying at an even faster rate? If you exclude those who don't use real languages, and concentrate on COBOL programmers, where is the new generation going to come from?

I don't care what happens to the hobby after I die. I'll be dead, nothing will matter to me, and it'll be somebody else's problem.

My hobby isn't graying, but it is losing it's hair.

As with all things, to survive means to adapt to changing conditions. When I was a kid we were told to "Go outside and play!" So we entertained ourselves with something called imagination, a trait sadly in short demand in todays youth. There are so many electronic distractions for kids today it's no wonder we have a hard time getting their attention.
But that is no reason to strike our colors. When you go fishing and catch nothing, it's time to change the bait. There is a great opportunity coming to lure kids back to gaming. International Tabletop Day (April 11)was established in 2012 to celebrate boardgames and card games of all kinds. Our local gamiing group has partnered with our friendly neighborhood historical site (Fort Meigs) to run a one day free gaming event. We run historical and sci-fi miniatures games next to the board games and card games. This is a great way for kids that are already interested in brain games to see what our hobby is all about.
These kids didn't grow up with the same history we had. Some of our GMs use Star Wars or Zombie games to attract the young players. Check out the website:www.tabletopday.com and then see if you can find a local spot to put on some games.

40 years ago when I really got started in this hobby, this topic was being expounded on just as it is today. So either our hobby is taking a real long time ti die or us old guys just do not see it like we did before.

I make it to very few conventions, but those have been spread over quite a span of years. As far as I can recall, the apparent age distribution hasn't changed all that much.

Doug

To the title question, which isn't about the hobby dying but about conventions, I think they are changing as a result of more and more vendors preferring to save the cost of travel to conventions and instead focus on internet marketing – and new product. Good or bad? Depends on viewpoint.

But here is the question for vendors: When it is no longer expected of a vendor to attend any convention, how do you 'tag' your sales? Seems a lot of vendors are using not going to This-or-That convention to have a "Not Going To This-or-That Sale." Back on the viewpoint point.

The biggest and longest established will be the slowest to change but I see it happening. Out here in the west of the USofA I don't know of a single historical vendor of miniatures attending any shows. But we still have access to the planets figures – as long as we are willing to bear the carrying charges, including postage.

Wargaming conventions like Cold Wars don't have to die if the people that organize them are smart. It seems to me that HMGS is not changing with the times. I have been attending wargame shows since high school (circa 1976). I have been going to Historicon since it was at the Penn Harris in Harrisburg. In my opinion, very little has changed. Wargamers are cheap bastards (I mean that with love). I have seen people sleep in their car and eat/drink very little in order to buy more toys. This makes perfect sense because this is our hobby and we love it. You don't want to spend a lot of money on a hotel if you can avoid it. So, who decided to move the convention to Fredericksburg, VA, less than one hour outside one of the most expensive venues in the world? Not a good move. The Host (or a place like it) is a great venue. Don't want to stay there? OK, plenty of other hotels in the area (or sleep in your car or game all night). Don't like the food at the Host? Ok, plenty of other cheap eats within walking distance. The hobby is definitely graying. Want to attract new, younger gamers? Let them in for free. The group has a pile of money. Why not use some of it to attract new members? Better yet, be more transparent about how the conventions do and where the money is going. It's hard to fix something when you don't know what's wrong with it. If the new gamers want to play the Godzilla game or the Zombie game (non-historical) early on, who cares? You can introduce them to the historical games down the road and get their money later. And it they become committed fantasy gamers, don't ostracize them. Keep them coming back and get their money. This is a business, after all. Reward the dealers who have been there for years by giving them preferential table fees.

I suspect attendance being down is more an issue related to the poor economic climate, than to a downturn of wargaming in general.

When people don't have excess money to spend, they stay home, or close to that, and pursue their hobbies for free, or for much less cost.

Except that we don't all accept that the hobby is graying rapidly. This old chestnut has been vomited forth for decades, yet I see more children, young adults, women, and people of color attending conventions than ever before.

At Origins and Adepticon…….maybe.
At the historical cons like Little Wars, and the HMGS cons………no way.
Just what I observe.

I don't attend Origins or Adepticon, so our observations must be different.

As a convention organizer and a vendor, I think the convention as it is right now is fading. No idea what needs to change or how. The best I can come up with, is the con has to be about the games. Everything else including vendors are a bonus if u can get it.

Too many local options for small cons with less than 500 attendees and cons are not cost effective for vendors.

Duane

Looking around the Distelfink room during Cold Wars, there are plenty of us grey beards. That helps because we are the ones that can buy toys. There were plenty of games with kids, teens and women – even at midnight on Saturday.
We need to make the event enjoyable for as many people as possible.
We should not ignore tournaments.
We should welcome zombie and other non historical games
We should resurrect the kids room of the past
We should keep costs down
We should lean on the Host to improve the rooms

How can wargaming conventions be dying when you can't always find a parking space at the Host during Cold Wars or at the Fredericksburg Convention Center during Historicon?

The issue I believe with convention is that they are often run by committees, which means that innovation to make the convention something great for all attendees is lacking.

Not all conventions are this way. Some are run by private groups or individuals that believe if you want to grow and reach a wider market, you need to so something that benefits the attendees, that includes vendors as well as the gamers, that makes them feel that the money they spent was very much worth it.

What committees do is focus on themselves, what they like and what will benefit them. As long as the convention makes some money, they are proven right. They ignore all input, both positive and negative because they have no real oversight to guide them towards a stated goal.

In terms of vendors and conventions, there are several issues. One, is the cost of attending. Second, there is the issue of competition, both from other vendors and the flea market – I am not against flea markets, but I believe that HMGS-east has made, the way they run their flea markets, must another vendor area in competition with the main vendor hall. And, before anyone says, "hey, I spend what I make in the flea market in the vendor" there are more and more people in the flea market now that are really vendors of secondary products or vendors who make a part time living selling off others collections of which the money will never be spent on any wargaming products.

Besides the above, what I have seen missing from the conventions, especially HMGS-east cons are the really special looking games, the ones that catch the eyes with both figures and terrain. Conventions need showman like what Uncle Duke and Bob Giggilo use to do at shows, maybe something very similar to what you see in the Wargames Illustrated photos of games at Salute. This does relate to the convention providing something for the money spent.

Personally, I think that many conventions in the US would benefit from the convention people paying people to put on games that are well visually stunning. The people who run these games would be required to run them several times during the con and not just once.

Even amusement parks know that to keep people coming back over a long period of time you need to update the rides as well as add new rides and sites. The idea isn't that the old is bad, but we have been there and done that. People want new and exciting, and once there and they have experienced the new, they will fondly enjoy the old.

>Wargamers are cheap bastards (I mean that with love).

It's not possible to be a cheap bastard when you are involved in a hobby that requires the purchases of $5,000 USD in stuff just to put on a game for 2-4 people for a few hours. Sure some gamers are cheap, people in life in general are cheap. In Wisconsin it's called being frugal. But trust me, for as many people that are cheap in this hobby there are others that have spent tens of thousands of dollars on miniatures, books, rules, and terrain. This is not a poor mans hobby. You don't need to be rich to enjoy it, but there are plenty of well off folks who do.

>I have seen people sleep in their car and eat/drink very little in order to buy more toys. This makes perfect sense because this is our hobby and we love it. You don't want to spend a lot of money on a hotel if you can avoid it.

As for not wanting to spend money on hotels… Keep in mind sometimes it has nothing to do with being cheap and everything to do with not wanting to pay to sleep in an outdated depressing awful flea bag excuse for a place to stay. I've had rental cars that were nicer than the Lancaster Host.

>Besides the above, what I have seen missing from the conventions, especially HMGS-east cons are the really special looking games

I must have been attending different HMGS conventions than you. Are all games I see beautiful? No, and of course it depends on what your definition of "really special looking games" are. Which leads us to:

>the ones that catch the eyes with both figures and terrain.

I see these all the time at HMGS shows. All the time.

>Conventions need showman like what Uncle Duke and Bob Giggilo use to do at shows

Sorry but I disagree here. I understand what Duke used to do is fondly remembered and widely hailed as being a pillar in our hobby, but it strikes me today as a lot of gloss and little substance. You don't get people into the hobby just by building giant over the top diorama displays as stand ins for games. At least not this guy anyway. Looking back I find a lot of Duke's displays to be…. over the top? Not sure what the word would be but I just don't find giant productions as the way to gamer nirvana. I want well painted figures used on realistic and well scaled terrain. The real world isn't over the top, I don't want my games to be either. The scenarios I see many of the AWI and ACW and Nappy gamers putting on are great examples of what I like and am interested in. And keep in mind I'm young by many standards. I started gaming in high school. In the 1990s. I'm no kid but I'm not a gray beard yet either. Over the top turns me away. Seeing 20 guys standing around a 40ft long table with 10,000 ancients lined up about to assault another line equally as long across the table with a giant volcano separating them just doesn't interest or excite me.

I just need enough of you all to still be alive and reasonably affluent to buy my stuff from my family after I'm gone.

More and more of the younger generation are into electronic games. I have watched the children of at least 10 friends/relatives start with some interest in painting figures and doing tabletop games with me and their parents be drawn more and more into electronic gaming. The investment in time to produce painted armies does not appeal to many of them. I don't even see 40K as the draw it used to have. At my FLGS I see far more of the younger set playing board games rather than miniatures games. Miniature game cons will retrench and hopefully continue but at the rate that the brick and mortar stores are drying up I don't see the younger set getting a lot of exposure to miniatures.

Jlundberg, 09 Mar 2015 7:51 p.m. PST:

<Looking around the Distelfink room during Cold Wars, there are plenty of us grey beards. That helps because we are the ones that can buy toys. There were plenty of games with kids, teens and women – even at midnight on Saturday.
We need to make the event enjoyable for as many people as possible.
We should not ignore tournaments.
We should welcome zombie and other non historical games
We should resurrect the kids room of the past
We should keep costs down
We should lean on the Host to improve the rooms>

I'm pretty much with Jlundberg on this.
I was pleased to see more boys, girls, women, and _families_ at Cold Wars. I have been bringing my various godsons for several years, this past year was the first time for the youngest one. We all need to actively recruit and bring new folk to the cons. We cannot rely on chance to increase our numbers and/or attendance. Bring your family, your nephew/niece/cousin/brother-or-sister-in-law/uncle/dad/mom/neighbor. Talk it up and regale/bore them with your antics and experiences and photos of the things you saw and did there.

Conventions offer the one thing that even online games like MMORPGs cannot: face-to-face interaction. The human factor is a real draw, at least for me; it allows old friends to see each other, and new acquaintences to form stronger bonds. Conventions also provide another plus: it puts into our range of perception games and things that we might pass off as "not interesting"--not interesting, that is, until we see them up close and personal and in-action, where a little light goes on in our heads, and the "I want" signal starts flashing in our greedy little hearts.

What the hell is Wargames Soldiers and Strategy?

I will be going to Wargame Conventions as long as I draw breath.

Shthar, if you Google it they will come. ☺
WS&S is a magazine. link

Grimm

Wargaming is a hobby of middle class whites of European descent, everywhere. Mostly anglo saxons, statistically.
These are less and less numerous everywhere and seriously hit in their buying power.
So wargaming ( historical) is going a bit down like its main population and will ultimately disappear with it.
Don't worry all of us will be long dead.

We often comment that UK shows are different from US conventions … TMP sees a fair bit of comment on UK shows (and I am one who thinks they aren't what they used to be) …

However, Sunday's WMMS show was splendid, seemed busy and traders seemed to do well. I understand that the first main show of the year at York was also very busy … so the early signs for 2015 are very positive.

Phil

At Origins and Adepticon…….maybe.
At the historical cons like Little Wars, and the HMGS cons

I think Adepticon is the new breed of con and is growing.

With the exeption of FoW and Bolt Action, it seems the HMGS cons are still filled with cranky old guys playing rules of the 80's and 90's

What the hell is Wargames Soldiers and Strategy?

The magazine I edit.

link

While I don't agree 100% with what Gary put, I'm very glad his article has sparked an excellent debate on the subject. I don't think shows as a whole are dying but there's always room for improvement.

Guy

Yah sure… been dying since 1967… another of the old navel gazing middle-age menopausal angst questions that come along from time to time. I don't see it dying. If Cold Wars can do well in the teeth of a snowstorm, and you have people who will bull through it to get there it ain't dying. If NJCON can be stamped out of the ground and now is doing so well it's moved from a VFW hall to the New Jersey Expo centet and still growing, then the day of the convention is far from over.

I saw LOTS of younger gamers at Cold Wars, had two 17 year olds in my game and saw many kids. It isn't dying. It's re-ordering itself, it may be mutating, but it's not dying. Had dozens of people ask me about "The Weeekend" the 80+person or so convention we put on across the street from the host in June.

Is Origins dying? Is GenCon dying?

They have to be "greying too."

The Question of the war game convention dying, or the Greying of the hobby is the 443rd incarnation of the "Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away" speech."

If you go to Salute in the UK, there is a really strong under-40 presence there. I think other shows often have strong numbers of younger people present but it's very often the case they don't attend the same clubs as the over 40s…which is a separate issue for discussion.

However, I feel there's a malaise in the UK scene right now which is partly down to economics but it's also about an ongoing debate about what is a games show for. There's this divide between those who are there to shop and those who are there to play games. Personally, I like to do both but often people have very firm ideas about what they want from a show. It doesn't help that in the UK gamers inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot: The continuing existence of the demonstration game run by uncommunicative gamers and it's mutant cousin, the static diorama often doesn't engage people for more than 2 minutes of ogling time, which drives people to the trader stalls, which leads to gamers exhausting their budgets by lunchtime, which drives them to go home, which causes the atmosphere at the show to die, which leaves games organisers jaded and so on….

Again, this is a personal opinion, going to the shows just to buy stuff is missing the point of a show. With internet shopping and the really extensive reviews you can get from the magazines, blogs and forums you don't really need to see the figures in person in order to know that you're buying something decent. Bad traders and shoddy figures soon get a bad name either via here, other forums and blogs. So the shows are better for socialising and playing games, but whether they're worth it is down to the clubs putting them on. Three things mark a good convention game for me: Is it visually interesting? Is it fun? Can I join in? You provide enough of those kinds of games and people will come.

Cold Wars this last weekend was less well attended than some in the past but there were still LOTS of games and players to play them. My four games that I ran (two scheduled and two pick-ups) were all full and I had to unfortunately turn people away for all of them. I saw plenty of breath taking layouts, lots of kids and families, and most importantly hordes of people having FUN.

If all that can happen regardless of a pretty brutal snow storm (and my buddy and I drove eleven hours right through the heart of it on Thursday to get to the con) then I don't think we have much to worry about.

The UK scene appears to be in rude health, perhaps knocked back a little over the last year or two, but otherwise sound. I'd like to single out the Abingdon Wargames Club and the RAF Wargames Club for praise for continually running inventive and involving games for all ages at various shows.

Why display games still exist is a mystery to me, they just take up valuable space at shows. The solution to the 'greying' problem is simple – run more participation games. It's not rocket science. Compared to when I started in the mid-70s, this is a golden age of miniatures and board games. It really isn't that hard to get people to play tabletop games with figures.

For Little Wars I have put together a post card that was sent to about 20 local High Schools and a half dozen colleges. The post card offers a free day pass to the convention for students and teachers. The registration desk will take back the cards and record what school the students came from. We are also reaching out to home school groups. Parent Child games are always popular. Little Wars also hosts a FOW Juniors tournament on sunday….high school and jr high school age only.
Local clubs can reach out to High Schools and offer to run demo games that can show off the hobby and help them form clubs. The worse any school can say is no, go away.

Having been in this hobby since 1968 I can safely say the same comments, about the hobby and about conventions, have been made almost continuously. In fact given the dire warnings in the past we should be extinct. And while conventions may change and some may disappear only to be replaced by others the hobby is no more gray than it was in 68 and no more on the edge of extinction.

I can say that since the turn around in the economy our two HMGS-South conventions (RECON and HURRICON) are once again growing in attendance. I believe Nashcon is setting new records and Siege of Augusta has roared back to life. And these are just conventions I am personally familiar with.

@jpipes: I think we need a combination of spectacle and ordinary. A game that cost 5K and took ten years to get to its present state is an unreasonable entry level point, but it looks good. Something to aspire to, if you so desire. I think we also need the felt square and masking tape road games, especially skirmish games, were the entry price point is $50 USD-$100 and a couple of weeks worth of time. The spectacle can come later as time and money allows -- if it is desired at all.

>Again, this is a personal opinion, going to the shows just to buy stuff is missing the point of a show.

I disagree. Take Cold Wars or any of the HMGS East shows for that matter, and the dealer hall is the single largest hobby shop in the United States on that given weekend. Shopping certainly isn't the entire point, but it's a HUGE one and an important one at that.

>With internet shopping and the really extensive reviews you can get from the magazines, blogs and forums you don't really need to see the figures in person in order to know that you're buying something decent.

There are things and deals and stuff you can't get or accomplish online. It's not simply a matter of "not needing to see figures in person" as we aren't just talking about buying unpainted lead. This hobby is so much more deep than just "get unpainted figures, paint, game, repeat". Not to mention the flea market at these shows where you can get anything under the sun and metric tons of used, hard to find, out of print, obscure or down right rare items that you could never find anyplace else. And how about all the fully painted and based ready to game armies you can find. Buying painted armies online is not always easy. I sell armies on TMP all the time and people are always happy with them but I prefer to buy the armies I want to game with in person when I can. I don't want 500 painted 28mm figs shipped via post office! Let me take them home myself when I can oversee their travels.

The flea markets alone are reason enough to attend these show even if you did only that and went home. And a lot of people have game groups where they come from and they can game whenever they like. For them the main point of attending shows is to stock up for the next few months or to offload their unwanted stuff.

Either way when you add on the fantastic dealer areas and the games to ogle and play in and the friends to meet up with it becomes a truly wonderful experience. Just don't discount the importance the shopping experience provides for many people that attend.

@79thPA, just for the record I don't think a game has to cost a lot to look beautiful. It's entirely possible to run a game that looks stunning that doesn't cost a lot. Sure it helps to be able to dump buckets of cash on a project, but it's not a requirement by any means to make it look good. I can also tell you for a fact I've seen games that cost heaps of money that didn't look very good… so yeah money helps but it's not the most important factor in running a great looking/interesting game.

Is Origins dying? Is GenCon dying?

They have to be "greying too."

No. The demographic of these conventions is very different from historical miniature Wargaming shows. The demographic is much, much younger and more evenly distributed with respect to gender. There is a steady influx of young people who go there, independent of being brought by their fathers and uncles. You can add Adepticon to that too. All these cons are growing. Go there and see for yourself.

To be fair, HMGS fell victim to the "Move Historicon Now!" and "Take it to the Next Level!" crowd. It has yet to recover from that. HMGS could learn a lot from HMGS-MW on how to grow a convention.

I agree with clanboru and others, young people and kids want fun games not long lines charging into one another. Now don't get me wrong because there will be those who do the Staff do a great job and they get free rooms which add up to $100 USD's of dollars per staff member, but the guy who runs a game and spends $1,000 USD's of dollars on miniatures and terrain gets in for free $25 USD value. I think we need to look at this because people I speak to either come to buy miniatures or play games. Fixing the vendors would take the BODs to do, which I'm sure cutting there price per table would be motivation.

Bowman

…I see more children, young adults, women, and people of color attending conventions than ever before.

At Origins and Adepticon…….maybe.
At the historical cons like Little Wars, and the HMGS cons………no way.
Just what I observe.

I can't speak to the HMGS-East cons, but Little Wars has absolutely seen an upswing in younger and more diverse attendees.

I don't attend Origins or Adepticon, so our observations must be different.

I guess they are.

I used to bring my son to the HMGS cons. My friend used to bring his daughter. We all played in tournaments with other father son pairings. Then when the kids get close to college age they stop going. To see a few kids (brought by grey haired family members) and state that this is an indication that the convention is getting younger, growing and diversifying is erroneous, in my opinion.

Jpipes wrote:

<<The flea markets alone are reason enough to attend these show even if you did only that and went home. And a lot of people have game groups where they come from and they can game whenever they like. For them the main point of attending shows is to stock up for the next few months or to offload their unwanted stuff.>>

I wouldn't bother going to any show if it were just that. Shopping is a sideline, not the main reason for attending a show. Sure, I can game with my group weekly but it can get to be the same sets of games with the same players. Gaming at a show introduces me to new people, new games and new ideas. On a couple of occasions a really good game has inspired me to go to the trader stands to get the rules and figures immediately after playing.

And the flea market or bring and buy stands are overrated, which is why they're not a feature in some shows in the UK anymore. I can find more of what I want from ebay or gaming forums. I know for a lot of people shopping and stocking up is the main focus, but making that the sole reason for going to a show often has the consequence of draining a show of attendees once the spending money has run out (around lunchtime). By all means shop away, but the focus is and should be the games.

I can't speak to the HMGS-East cons, but Little Wars has absolutely seen an upswing in younger and more diverse attendees.

Yes, and I briefly alluded to that in a subsequent comment. Lasalle012 described it very elequently.

>And the flea market or bring and buy stands are overrated, which is why they're not a feature in some shows in the UK anymore.

Sadly I've never been to any shows in the UK but here in the US they are frequently outstanding. It depends on what you are buying, what you are selling, and your budget of course, but the stuff you can buy and sell just boggles the mind!

>I can find more of what I want from ebay or gaming forums.

There are things at the shows here in the US you could never find online. Ever. And the prices are often much better as well.

>By all means shop away, but the focus is and should be the games.

The focus is and should be whatever the person attending wants it to be. I know many many people who attend shows to buy and sell stuff. For the record though the gaming usually occurs for them in the evening. Buy and sell and socialize all day and game well into the evening.

The convention is fine. Despite the snow storm, Cold Wars had a pretty strong showing. I was surprised to see some friends come down from as far north as New Hampshire. I suspect cabin fever had a lot to do with that. Regardless, a strong show would have made an even stronger show had the weather been fine.

Historicon, from the few times I've been, has been kind of a disappointment. Part of it probably has to do with the new venue in Fredricksburg. Some folks just don't like it. I happen to be one of them.

The dealer rooms seem different to me these days. Gone are the fine shops like The Last Square, Wargames and RLBPS. Those were permanent fixtures and I would regularly spend some cash at the Wargames booth.

I guess what i am trying to say is that the shows are not dying. The landscape is changing. As mentioned above, some vendors are focusing on the internet, which is probably the most cost effective way for them to generate sales. Innovate or die I suppose. It's how it's always been and how it always will be.

I can only speak to HMGS conventions.

Even with the huge surge of fantasy/sci fi/alt gaming, the attendance numbers are flat to falling. I don't see significant increase in younger players either. I'm not sure what the organization has gained by allowing this other than an increase of such games. It sure hasn't gained any attendance.

I spent the entire afternoon and evening in the Distlefink. Other than an odd surge from 5 to 7pm the room was half empty at any given time (though still loud). I counted the empty tables a number of times.

Other than free admission, HMGS has completely dropped the ball encouraging GMs putting on games. The awards are few, the entire GM support system is long gone (used to include carts, a place to temporarily store stuff, support to bring things in through the loading dock, more recognition/awards, a help desk to resolve table conflicts, a place to easily register pick up games, etc). Instead, they have simply filled the drop off of military historical games with all the fantasy stuff mentioned above – for no appreciable gain.

The Host is rapidly aging. So what is the back up plan or next place to go when the Host is no longer an (desirable) option? By continuing to go to a large facility the emptiness of the gaming area and dealer area only becomes more apparent. The pressure to fill it with non-core stuff is self evident.

HMGS has rebuilt its war chest, and then some, on the backs of declining attendance and dealers. Last year they posted a profit of $50 USDk, with a bank account approaching $290 USDk. Why? What is the purpose of accumulating such wealth when they only exist to put on conventions. Why not lower the fees for everyone in this tough economic time and lack of attendance? No doubt the money will eventually be spent on some idea that accomplishes little, other than spending the money.

I enjoy going to HMGS cons, but over the years our entire group has almost stopped going. Can't say there is one reason, other than they value doing other things now than attending the cons. The cons do seem like the same old thing, put on in a rapidly aging hotel.

HMGs seems to be running out of people to help man the cons. Few go to sit behind a desk all weekend. Hardly a fair trade for spending your time working for a scuzzy hotel room and bad food. Not suggesting hiring temps, but the trade is not worth the effort – as shown by the lack of volunteers.

All of this "fin de Siecle" "After me the Deluge." "The Barbarians are at the gates!," "The sky is falling!" talk is just that, and a variation of the "Old Soldiers never die…" speech of bug-out-Doug and it's all feeling sorry for ones self.

I heard the greying of the hobby argument in the mid 1980's here we are 30 years later and many wargamers have gone from grey to dead and young ones have gone from blonde and black to grey and we're still going strong. One gamer of great renown, and a personal friend, two months ago had a massive heart attack and was in a coma for 10 hours. He is, I am happy to say, alive and well, still grey,and putting on playing games at the convention this weekend. Later at the bar he was sitting there with a glass of wine, cheese, and some pastries and cookies we brought in.

He's still just as active as he ever was. Too bad many war gamers are pretty much dead though they're still walking around.

It's not the greying of the hobby, it's the couch-potatoing of the hobby by gamers who are just too lazy to work up enthusiasm. The gamer above has more enthusiasm than a 17 year old. Now, gamers want everything done for them and handed to them gift wrapped, and they'll still crabb and complain about it.

At the table next to me were a bunch of greybeards playing some sort of wild west game and jumping up and down, laughing and joking and a hootin' and a hollerin' and having a great time. If you want to make a convention great-- go out and DO something at them besides buy one or two miniatures or sneer at the hotel or the weather or your fellow gamers.

Waddyawant? Mints on your pillow? You're guys! Back in the day we slept on college dorm beds without mattress' and had the roach-coach for food on the college campus, and we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. The Host today is the Taj Mahal compared to the venues we used to have.

I WAS NOT THERE! But I knew that most of the guys back in Wally's Basement who formed HMGS and put their time and sweat and treasure into making it and HMGS and a lot were were graybeards, or at least getting on in years.

79th PA is right. A game doesn't have to be beautiful to be good or enjoyed. I have a lot of the old books on war games from the 60's and 70's. There's a picture in Bob Bard's Making and Collecting Military Miniature of a game at Jack Scruby's house. There it is in all its glory with Jack's figures (which many today now affect to despise, and it's got rough plain unpainted plywood table tops with the screw counter-sink holes still showing the plywood boards aren't even, low hills made of unpainted pinewood planks, and larger hills made of big huge clunky boxes of wood nailed together and stacked up, and of course the piece de resistance is the water heater and Frigidaire plainly showing in the back ground. Another game of Charlie Sweets does not have the Frigidaire, but it's got plain paper roads and streams, paper houses, old HO and O scale churches and cabins, and clunky ugly plaster cast mounds for terrain. We thought it was the best thing ever back then.

Hey, Nazrat:
Mrs. Carp says she was the "gimpy old lady" who had fun in your Fireball: Apocalypse "Dead Abbey" game. She says it was one of the best games she played all weekend.
See? even old ladies can find something to play! (her words, not mine: she's a helluva better tactician than I am. Sneakier, too.)

Although there are always those flash-in-the-pan young fellas with wads of cash and credit cards for devi-may-care spending, I didn't have money to spend on hotel rooms for cons and the hobby in general until well after the gray overtook the rest of my hair.

Okay, here's one idea for HMGS and the future.

HMGS get an acre of land and build a purpose built HMGS wargaming center.
The center would provide facilities for gaming, modern motel style rooms, a bar and catering room, a small vendor area and storage. The concept would be akin to the wargames holiday center, but HMGS would play host, and the place would be open between 40 and 50 weekends a year. It could host thirty to forty GM's and players per weekend, and schedule as many games as might be productive over that weekend. The GM's bring their terrain and toys for the attendees. The weekends could be open, or designed around a particular period or ruleset. HMGS would be responsible for advertising what events would be scheduled, and coordinate the management and operation of the motel and catering side of the building. Assuming the weekend might run from Friday to Saturday, with two nights board per attendee at $100 USD/night. For thirty folks that would be $3,000 USD per weekend. Food and booze could be provided on top of that.
Assuming 40 such weekends, that's $120,000 USD/year plus. Any profits go into advertising and upkeep of the property.
Vendors could bring wares to sell and, as they'd not be required to sit at their booth all day, could actually play if they wanted to. Other vendors could ship or deliver goods to the venue for attendees to collect.
GM's might get a break on the room rate in recompense for their efforts to provide the terrain, toys and oversight of the games.

Essentially, that's forty or so mini-conferences per year, where gamers get to socialize and game with a larger group than they might otherwise do so locally.

I realize that this concept only caters for a portion of the typical attendees at even the smaller HMGS conventions, and accordingly HMGS would still host one, or perhaps two large conventions during the course of the year. This would be at an appropriately sized conference center [carpets on the floors, not concrete], that way the collective community still gets to appear in force, shop, socialize and game, and perhaps make arrangements to meet again at some weekend during the course of the year at the HMGS wargames center.

It's pie in the sky and a big day dream perhaps……