Thanks for remembering us coolyork and Rudy Nelson. Gold Con held its first program at Central Campus, Broward Community College, Davie, FL. The other three were at the Omni Auditorium, on the college's north campus, Coconut Creek, FL. We had a little over 300 paid weekend tickets for our best show. Dealer tables also helped cover costs, so thanks Rudy Nelson. Once we had Ral Partha attend.
It was a fun show, and made possible by a combination of good fortune and hard work. The former from our connection with Broward Community College, which provided space free of charge. This is not as hard as it sounds.
College's look for ways to promote themselves to young people. If a local community college or university has space, and you don't compete with critical times, it is possible to convince them that your non-profit convention is a recruitment tool. We used the same argument with the National Guard, and got them to bring an M113 static display (also made sure they had all the free soda and hot dogs they desired). We more than broke even, and made sure that most of our "profits" were donated to the B.C.C. student activity board – which certainly did not harm our connection with the college, and made it less likely to have dicey questions about what to do with thousands of dollars in the bank account.
Gold Con was also successful due to hard working local gamers. The most memorable to me were Steve, Jeff and Brian – "the amazing Schutt Brothers." I also remember the college librarian, Larry Ellis, Rob Maxwell, Mark and Jim Coolidge, Howard Zimmerman, Brian Cohen, plus Skip Pave.
Lot of fun, and we even agitated local elites, like Ray Rechi (sp?) who mentioned us in an editorial about inappropriate people applying for tourist development dollars. Yes, we tried to get some advertising money from the county, figuring we attracted visitors, and the Tourist Development Board funded for that very reason. I guess we weren't artsy enough for Ray and the "Ft. Lauderdale News," but that's OK, there's no such thing as bad publicity when you're starting! {but thanks for tossing those deep yellow posters Rudy, they were a bit much, and possibly what agitated Ray].
