"Fall In 2016 - So How's the Vending Hall?" Topic

Full room with merchants bristling with products?

Less full than Historicon used to be. No mezzanine, wider aisles, some empty booths. Plenty of lead to be had tho. I picked up some rule books, and a commission from Evil Bob (15mm Vikings and Saxons).

To be fair, Fall In's Dealer Room has ALWAYS been far smaller than H'con.

Scenic Express was there. Not sure I ever saw them there before.

Cracker Line is another new vendor to Fall In and I think Small Scale Painting is as well. I don't know whether Cigar Box Battle Mats is here or if it is a vendor carrying them but I think those products are new to Fall In.

I didn't see Architects of War. Though time in the hall is limited when running 4 games.

Xin

Architects of War was there but just a small area right next to the Old Glory Shipyard. Only one man manning the booth. Everyone else is back home filling shipments according to the guy I spoke with.

Yeah there are new vendors. As much plastic as lead I'd say. Loads of places with hard plastic and others with soft.

I'm making a final sweep tomorrow mostly looking for terrain….

Bought some stuff from the Scenic Express guy Friday afternoon. He said someone talked him into going to the event, he usually just hits the model railroad and scale model shows. I told him I hope he does well enough to make it worth coming back. He said it was going very well.

Wally's Basement was less interesting than usual. There was some decent stuff as always, but not nearly as much as I have seen in the past. It was packed after opening but thinned out quicker than usual.

Agree with Airborne. Wally's seemed to be more about board games than minis this year. Also seemed to be a little more commercial in nature, i.e. retail stores cleaning out old inventory than actual individual's yard sale. My kid got some stuff, but I didn't find anything I couldn't live without this time around.

I would like to give a shout-out for Hobby Bunker in the Vending Hall. They gave me a pretty good deal on some 15mm buildings and were very helpful with some rules questions I had. Thank you for the great service.

I dropped by Brigade Games, chatted with JLundberg, picked up a few more packs of Pulp Figures, and went on a wild-goose chase for a copy of Mein Panzer for my lady wife. Only after getting shooed out at closing did we find out from the guys running the games (ODGW) that the far back right vendor had it. Oh, well, getting it in the mail is almost as good as buying direct, I guess.
In line with some of the above comments, one of the plastic figure vendors said this was his first time there, and that the Toy Soldier Show Circuit was his previous stomping grounds. I got his card and will look him up online.

I missed both the Friday and Saturday morning Wally's sessions (muttergrumblekvetch….) and Saturday pm's session felt like the running of the bulls. The far back row by the back door was only about half-occupied. And I missed my connections with Denny about some White Dwarf issues. sigh.

Just got home. The Scenic Express guy was a nice pickup, but there was plenty of empty space and I went through the dealer hall in 15 minutes and never looked back. At the flea market I picked up some 15mm WW2 stuff very very cheap (Box with 5 Italian M41 tanks and 3 Churchills for 8 ! bucks, 1 dollar a tank, and a friend bought a mass amount of really nice river terrain for $10. USD Would've cost 50 or more at the terrain vendors.

It was nice to see some of the stuff Scenic Express carries in person.

The owner was very friendly, and from chatting with him, I suspect the show was much more of a success for him than he expected; I think he's going to be coming back.

Kudos to Hobby Bunker who gave me a nice deal on some ancients figures.

Collins Epic Wargames upcoming project "Polyversal" looks very good. He's publishing the game, and the minis are coming from several different manufacturers (in a cooperative arrangement). He'll be Kickstarting the project in the near future.

I was wondering why no-one was buying any of the Gale Force-9 Dungeons and Dragons figures??? I took a look at a few of the boxes… $50 USD for six 28-mm plastic figures? I thought only GW overcharged like that.

There was some empty space in the back of the hall, not as full of dealers as when Historicon was there, but it was still worth the trip for me. I also got some goodies in Wally's for very fair prices, so shopping-wise, I was happy with the show.

[q]There was some empty space in the back of the hall, not as full of dealers as when Historicon was there…[/q]
Comparing the Historicon dealer hall to the Fall In dealer hall is apple to oranges. Fall In has always been a smaller convention that either Cold Wars or Historicon. I thought the dealer hall at Fall In was at least as big as it has been past years with a handful of new vendors. I was quite pleased.

Buck Surdu

Agree with everyone above about the scenic express. I spoke with him Saturday and he was very happy with the turn out. Said he was having a much better time then he does at the train shows. Belle and blade, On military matters, hobby bunker and others all got my money. Really enjoyed tAlking with the Nerd Herd Wargaming booth. I think I'll start using them for my bases. Another friend is trying their painting service for some of his 10mm stuff.

Picked up a large lot of 1/3000 modern naval for a steal at wallys basement. That was my big score. One friend made $500 USD at wallys Saturday.

Regarding the flea market, there were more people interested in my 40K stuff than in the historical stuff. I thought that very interesting…

TheKing--were you set up on Saturday afternoon? If so, which part of the room?

Nope – I was set up on Friday. Was your daughter the one selling cookies??

Nope, no kids (that I know of). Didn't really arrive till about 5pm Friday (long sad frustrating tale). Me and Mrs Carp brought her service-dog-in-training, so if you saw a white Jack Russel/Westie terrier mix, one of us was on the other end of the leash.

Vending hall looked good to me, especially for FI.

It was good seeing old friends including capncarp who gave me a fine ginger beer. I ran 4 games and did Frostgrave demos at the Brigade booth. Now reality and a very busy November settle in.

In my 10 years of attending Fall-In, I though this vender hall was one of the better.

-Bryan

Looked very full to me, as was the Host parking lot!

My daughter had a wonderful time at Fall-In. First taking some painting classes, then participating in the Flea Market. She has already made 3 new trees, but has to wait until next weekend to bake again.

Thank you to all who encouraged her in her first endeavor. She was rather shy at first, but due to all your kinds words really had an enjoyable experience.

Nothing like positive reinforcement to bring out a kid's best. Keep bringing her, maybe next time, she'll dust some of us in one if the games!

Jeff,

Please congratulate your daughter on a job well done. I purchased a half dozen -- trees and cookies each. Both were great!

Scott

I can't see into the future. :-)
But this Fall In dealer hall was manned as well as always. HCon to Fall In comparison isn't fair.

Grimm

Ummmm…anybody else just notice that the title of this thread is for NEXT YEAR's Fall-In?
Ok, give the TARDIS back to the nice Doctor, now, Flashman.