"Fall In, Yogi Bera and the Miniature Wargamer Shortage" Topic

Considering our earlier discussions about just how many miniatures players there are out there, I think Yogi had a point: "you can observe a lot just by looking." Walk the major HMGS-East convention parking lots, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that 90% of attendance at Cold Wars or Fall in comes from no further north than Connecticut, no further west than Ohio and no further south than (perhaps) North Carolina. Historicon picks up South Carolina, Georgia and a bit of Florida, but loses at least Connecticut. (Yes, there are exceptions. I AM an exception. I said 90%.) I'll go further: we have a lot of daytrippers who visit Lancaster or Fredricksburg, but won't go to the one further away. So we're actually drawing up to 4,000 historical wargamers from an area of about 80 million population--one in 20,000. If half the gamers don't attend--too far,too busy, don't like conventions--that takes us to one in 10,000. If there are three fantasy and science fiction miniatures players for every historical one, that takes us to one in 2,500. I don't say that's a firm number,but I bet it's a lot closer to reality than the poll results which make us much more rare.

Can the BOD or the con directors confirm or deny me on attendance?

But some gamers play both…..

Yeah. I do myself. But I think I'm outnumbered about 3:1 (at least) by players with NO interest in historical gaming, and HMGS isn't by its nature and charter, likely to attract many of them.
Use whatever multiplier you're comfortable with, though. Just don't forget there are miniature wargamers who aren't historical miniature wargamers.

I have been attending most HMGS conventions for the past 15 or so years; most of them being one day excursions but I started consistently going for the full weekend about 5 years ago.

My general impression was that the crowd seemed lighter at Fall In. In my opinion, there seemed to be fewer booths in the Vendor Hall but this appeared to be masked by providing the vendors with more booth space to spread out (I think the relatively recent collapse of Alien Dungeon and Eureka USA's absence opened up some space).

There was plenty of gaming, as always, but it felt like there were fewer people milling around. Wally's basement was a madhouse like it always is. I came into the weekend wanting to spend my money but I found it very difficult to find anything that struck my fancy. I don't do a lot in 28mm (mostly 6mm-15mm) and my options were fairly limited. I felt like I was walking by the same inventory I have walked by for the past few years. A lot of the new product were things that just don't interest me. Luckily I was able to find some good items in Wally's on Sunday that allowed me to lighten my wallet.

I live in Virginia and love the Lancaster location. The Host is a run down venue but I prefer the acoustics, lighting and intimate environment of it compared to the Expo center in Fredericksburg. I enjoy being able to get a hotel room and walking from room to a tabletop in a few minutes and being able to take a nap or have a snack in my room in between games or stops at the vendor area. Much more than the Fredericksburg location even though Historicon is a fraction of the drive for me. I don't know what the future holds for the location of our HMGS conventions but it will be interesting to see what happens.

In the original post, shouldn't the numbers be going the other way?

Gamers are 1 in 20,000 of population.
if only half show up makes in 1 in 40,000?
3 Sci-fi/fantasy vs historical 1 in 120,000?

Or am I misunderstanding?

I remember going to cold wars in the late 80s, I went to my first historicon this year….. Absolutely no comparison as far as venders goes from then to now. The people at the registration desk were less than friendly except the Blackman working the lines, he was very nice. Everyone else seemed 'frazzled'. I don't blame them. The Flames of war tourney was real closed and seemed to ignore any outside interest. At the hotel, a troll with a triple XXX batman T shirt was rude to my wife because she got to close to his personal space at the continental breakfast bar, then waved off some poor girl I recognized working in the vender hall trying to get a seat in the lobby, " I'm saving this whole table for our club". Well good for you Jabba". I'm not repeating that experience, I'll go to nashcon, smaller, friendlier, and not 12 hours away.