"Back from ORIGINS, Photos & Comments" Topic

We just unpacked after attending Origins last weekend, here are a few pics and observations:

Main registration area (pic taken Fri afternoon). The lines got pretty long Saturday mid-morning, but they had a dozen registration desks open so it moved steadily.

I noticed an improvement in the quality and number of historical mini games. I think Origins is making a genuine effort to attract minis games. They were very accommodating.

We had preregistered, so our badges, GM packet, game tables & chairs were set up and waiting for us. The miniatures coordinator directed us to our spot and even helped rearrange our tables to suit us.
We happened to be riding up the Hyatt elevator with John Ward, director of GAMA. He noticed our badges and asked if our registration went smoothly and asked if we needed anything. (Justin told me later who he was).

We ran four games of our Alamo scenario. For our efforts we received three Badges and $60 USD in food vouchers.

And some other games that caught my eye…
a Wild West 25mm game, with laser cut buildings:

WWI Aerial game:

Pete Panzeri was running a big Waterloo scenario. I noticed he also had Historicon 2015 discount coupons on his table (full color postcards for $15 USD one-day pass). I picked one up.

The Miniatures Hall also had several Paint&Take sessions, they said over 400 had participated in the activity:

Don't get me wrong, the vendor hall is still 95% board games, card games, LARP rubber swords, steampunk hats, fantasy figures, and similar:

More photos available in our Gettysburg Soldiers gallery: link

Thanks for looking, Larry GettysburgSoldiers.com

Thanks for the pics Larry.

I've heard some good and bad things about Origins this year.

I stopped going when miniatures games started disappearing. HMGS Great Lakes put great effort into keeping the area going. Hope minis can make a comeback.

In past years the miniatures hall took up most of the big hall next to the dealer hall. This year they put board games and vendor demos in that hall and moved the miniatures games to a hall farther back to the rear, with about 1/3 the space. A lot of that space was taken up by vendors as well. I did not see any open gaming areas for miniatures.

Nice pics.

Thanks for pics and AAR
Clif

I had the Gettysburg guys right next to me (I ran the Wild West games in their pictures.) and both set ups received a lot of positive comments. All of our games were full, and I believe much fun was had by all.