"Five Days to Barrage" Topic

There are only FIVE days until Barrage. This two-day gaming convention is sponsored by the Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers. See more information on events and logistics at hawks-barrage.org

Five female space pirates are preparing to infiltrate Barrage. I hope they find you there having a great time playing war-games with the HAWKs.

Five Confederate soldiers rest up for Barrage.

How many TMPers are planning to attend?

I will be there. I'm running a game using my 6mm Roman ships on Friday and my Operation Battleaxe game using Field of Battle: WW2 and 3mm Picoarmor stuff on Saturday.

We will end up with between 150 and 200 people if pre-registrations are any guide.

I will be putting on a lecture/discussion on Unit Cohesion concepts and rules on Friday evening with a demo.

I'm there with my son whom just turned 9yrs old. Have a Flea table but you will prob find me a few feet away at one of the many awesome games being run this weekend.

I just updated the Web page for Barrage to list vendors who plan to attend:

Age of Glory
Pictor's Studio
B&V Traders
Hyland brothers (used books)
Ken Story

This is room for one or two more vendors and flea market tables if someone is interested.

Buck

So from 44,639 members of TMP, THREE will be at this event.

What is your point? We shouldn't advertise our convention in TMP?

We have steadily grown about 20 people a year, have moved from one to two days, and have grown from one to several vendors.

Much of that growth is because it is a nice, no-politics, no jerks kind of event that focuses on GAMING. Some of it is because we advertise aggressively.

There are lots of people who come to Barrage who also read the occasional post on TMP, but I don't think you can make the statement that only three TMPers are coming because only three bothered to respond. The responses to your question imply neither correlation nor causality.

I hope to see you at Barrage in FOUR days.

The daily countdown may be a bit much, but it's become sort of traditional. Also, this con has hit a rough patch and it's trying to build back its' mojo.

I went to the first "Barrage" about 20 years ago at the Aberdeen Proving Ground rec center. There were maybe 30 people there. Over the years it has moved several times and grown progressively larger. Its' peak was in 2016, when it had 200+ attendees and managed, I think, 8 vendors. Their 2017 venue hit a snag. I think the venue double booked and the Hawks yielded their claim in favor of, I think I heard something about, some wedding related event. That's why they're having it now, and working extra hard to entice their usual attendees.

The con is usually in late September or early October and normally benefits from glorious weather. It's laid back. My crew usually all goes, but the shifted dates has left us a bit scattered, and I don't know yet if any of them plan to attend. If Surdu is predicting 200 this year, I would be inclined to believe him. He and the Hawks have always been straight shooters.

It won't be much longer.

KPinder:

You are correct that we had to change to date due to a venue conflict with a wedding. But, we will be back to late September next year. The dates are 28-29 September 2018. We are still calling THIS convention Barrage 2017, because that's when we intended to hold it, and we don't want to confuse it with Barrage 2018 in September.

Since we changed dates from when people PLAN on attending Barrage, I have been worried that the temporary date change will have a detrimental effect. Based on number of GMs who have volunteered to run games and the number of pre-registrants, I think we won't be off much from 2016 and may even exceed the 2016 numbers.

We also had some trouble with the FoW tournament, due to illness, date change, etc. We still have enough players to make the two tournaments "real." This year's date also impacted the ADLG tournament, as it put us in competition with a tournament last weekend.

As you said, the plan is to go back to back to our habitual date on the calendar for 2018. Hope to see you at both.

Buck

Realizing this is going to push the discussion on the board again (not a bad thing), my only thought is that I might have been more inclined to go if there were a day rate instead of $20 USD for the weekend and/or just one day.

Some of my friends and I kicked the idea around, but in the end, since we were only planning on attending one day, the $20 USD entrance fee seemed a bit steep. We may have been the only ones to feel this way. I have no idea what the costs are for this con to cover. Either way I wish the con well. (past regular attendee when it was held at Bishop Curley HS)

I plan on being there. Even if the fee is 20 Bucks (no pun intended), the hobby needs support and HAWKS always puts on a good show…

oh yeah, looking for Perry Miniatures Mahdist Plastics and Metal…and ZULU war stuff from Age of Glory…

We are trying to get people to come both days. Sorry you don't feel we offer $20 USD of value. Hope to see you next year.

I understand, but not everyone can make it for two days. I hope your group will consider having a one day pass in the future. Best wishes for a successful con. :-)

What is your point? We shouldn't advertise our convention in TMP?

The daily countdiwn is just over the top. The South London WEarlords get over 5,000 at their annual event but they don't see any need for a daily countdown. By all means advertise your event, just not every day…

If you see "Barrage" too many times for your liking why not just pass it by? That doesn't stop you or anyone else from posting. We are fast becoming a niche hobby if not already. People who are willing to put on a local convention, I think are pretty valuable right now. A lot of local cons have fallen to the wayside over the years. So Barrage IMHO has been worth attending. I won't be there this time, but I wish them well. These guys put a lot of effort into this hobby.

I don't see that these advertisements are hurting anyone. Scan the subject lines and only read the ones that interest you. How hard is that?

We'll one of the downsides to posting a count down, instead of a generic thread with the con name in the title is getting them out of order like this one now is. :-)

Buck-

"Answer a fool in the terms of his folly for fear he imagine himself wise."

Proverbs 26:5
Catholic Online Bible
link

Wow, a complaint about a countdown, yikes, is it blinding MajorB? Some people just feel a need to complain.

My congrats to the HAWKS, and especially Buck, for a nice event. Any hobby or pursuit that wants to grow needs to get the word out and that's what the countdown helped to do.
$20 USD bucks is reasonable btw, even for one day.

Barrage was great! Fun day (I was able to make Saturday). The games were fun. Diverse selection and the dealers had ample stock and had Barrage specials.

Thanks for a great day