"Fall-In 2019" Topic

I'd like to know everyone's thoughts on Fall-In? I had a great time. Nice facility but you had to be ready to walk. Spread out between the two buildings with games on several floors I easily clocked in at 12000+ steps per day.
Casino was fun but outside of a sports bet or two, didn't really play. Vendor hall was good. The only two vendors I asked said they hit their break even point on Friday. As usual, Old Glory & The Wargaming Company took large chucks of cash but I figured I purchased from about 7-8 different vendors.
I would say it was well attended but it was hard to tell with all the civilians around for the casino.
In general the games seemed to be well attended. I will say the terrain quality has improved a lot over the last 3+ years.
Wally's basement was sort of a cluster. Since it was in the open, people seemed to come and go. I know I went there about a half hour early on Sat. Morning and it looked like it had already started. Then staff was tying to get people to leave and line up for the start time.
I had a great time and now have a lot to paint over the winter.

It was a lot of walking for me who was up before super early to fix a plumbing leak. But as it turned out without pre sign up to get in the game I wanted a Carnage and Glory Nepoleonic war.
Very disappointed in the vendors in no Napoleonic 15mm stuff only came away with 1 small pack horse set. So it's back to on line to get what I need.

Overall I thought it was a great event. Only minus as already mentioned was the "great" distance from one end of the event to the other. I believe I prefer the vertical layout of the last Historicon to the horizontal layout at KOP.

Big plus though was LOTS of gamming rooms. Never felt cramped or overcrowded or too noisy. Also never felt too warm or too cold. Always comfortable.

The HMGS staff did an excellent job as usual. Always somebody happy to assit with any questions or needs.
Thanks for another FUN convention!

Can't say enough about the help, they got me in as I sighed up on line and didn't relize had the wrong day ( Friday instead of Saturday) sorted that out and got me to the game room.

I'll second everyone's good comments. Convention staff were great, the site was dispersed (so hard to run into friends). Nice having Wally's Basement next to the vendors.

I also heard from a couple of vendors that Friday was their better day – maybe day trippers?

Hotel was very good viz. service and amenities. I suspect once we get past the disorientation, the distances won't seem so bad.

Had a great time – was a volunteer in registration. Lots of great games, and deals. Self registration worked out really really well. Makes sense that Friday was best day for sales – most who had registered online for the three day event – and there were a lot – were totally stoked and ready to buy Friday morning.

Played some great games including a 15mm Khartoum game which included over 2,000 15mm figures and a great 28mm FFL fort siege. Both games were terrific and GMS were great guys – lots of fun.

No complaints – Wallys was by the Exhibit Hall – and large Gaming area was as well – and there was a bar and fast food stand set up for this area – so no one had to even go up stairs to the casino level to eat. Casino level 1 short elevator ride up had a large food court. Ample gaming rooms all over the place.

It was a bit of a walk from the registration area in the main hotel lobby to the Exhibit Hall – but it was all in doors and anyone who wanted could drive their car over to the casino area – if they did not care to walk. My feeling is a little exercise is a good thing.

I think the organizers did a great job, I had a lot of fun as a volunteer and participant and as usually met a lot of great people! Thanks Fall In!

It was a really nice meeting. Huge walking but a nice facility

I do hope everyone has a safe trip home. Surprised the travel many have to get here.

Once you understood the layout, there was plenty to like about the new (old) venue at Valley Forge.

Thanks to Dan and everyone at HMGS for a great weekend.

OK, I'll stir the pot just a bit, in part because I have to do my weekly column for wargamer.com and my impression in one area is so different than in the past, I'd like to see if others noticed, or if I am just more braindead than normal. I am eagerly waiting Walt O'Hara's AAR blog in this regard.

First, I do agree that the show was very well run by both the venue and the HMGS staff, and though Dan tends to use a more "fly by the seat of your pants" management style, I'd say it was one of the best run HMGS cons ever. Liked the venue as well. Sure, no place is perfect (distance between towers, VERY complicated, dispersed layout, etc), but I really enjoyed the spacious rooms, excellent lighting, dependable heat, low noise and restrooms where all facilities worked for the entire weekend. This was likely due to being overkill on space, but no complaints by me.

AND YET . . .

I thought the convention had very, almost abnormally low attendance, and if so, I'm not sure I understand why. The trigger for this perspective was the Carnage & Glory Room where I normally run my games. Friday night was fine, but the next morning I had no one show up for my 0900 game and I am normally oversubscribed. I figured, sux to be me, but as it turned out not less than five (5) additional games in that room had 0 attendance, and of the few that did, games requiring 6 to 8 people, got one. It got so bad that three of the GMs shut down their events so that a forth could run at least one of the three games he scheduled. One of the GMs checked the GM Board found only two of the 8 tags taken, of which one of the two showed up, where normally they are all gone during prereg.

Now, these games are museum quality, award-winning events (and there were two PELAs awarded this time around as well to the C&G GMs) that have a solid core of players that always show up, plus others, to the point where there is standing room only and some folks are turned away. This has been the norm for literal decades, and when I checked with other friends running games, they also indicated similar experiences. The GM of the mega-game noted above was one of these, noting one full game, but the rest woefully underattended. A minimum of 9 needed, 12+ normal, but only 3 people showed up. He;'s been doing this quite a while, and this has not happened before.

Dealer Hall, same thing. I was able to canvass 19 dealers for their comments, and two had OK sales, enough to cover expenses. The rest, all large, heavy hitters who have come to every convention for years, reported very poor sales. One of them described Saturday morning as (quote) "comatose."

Now I realize the large, dispersed nature of the site can make an estimate difficult, and HMGS has not yet spoken "ex-cathedra" on actual numbers, but the situation in the C&G room and elsewhere came out of left field without even a hint of explanation, and was so dramatic a change that there has to be something going on.

Or not.

Am I wrong? And if I am not wrong, why? Honestly, I can't think of any reason why attendance should have dropped so dramatically. Again, and despite reservations, I really liked this convention and the venue which hosted it. Well run, super facility and I'd like to go back.

Obviously I'll wait a day or so before writing my article, because I am REAL interested in what others have to say on this.

Colonel Bill
wargamer.com

I wonder if the 9-midnight Fleamarket Friday night, plus casino/bar onsite burned out a lot of early risers who would otherwise have made 9am games Saturday

Personally I decided to sit this convention out. One of the reason was the location. I wasn't crazy about Valley Forge when HCon was there. I just didn't feel like making the trip when I felt the location wasn't as good as The Host.

Curious – did anyone else feel that way or was it just me?

I too sat this one out along with several of my friends not crazy about Valley Forge either.

Registration desk to Exhibitor Hall about 1 mile. OK an exaggeration but the point is that it was a long distance through narrow, winding corridors worse than the awful Host. I guess the venue was OK overall for the small convention. I usually go the the smaller conventions to see if there's anything new and exciting in the vendors hall. As usual, nothing caught my eye. But being closer than Lancaster for me, it was worth a day trip.

As my first, and a walk in as far as a game is concerned wonder if the spread out weakened those wondering around for a game. Was my first Carnage and Glory game and liked it, will look for another next time. Though live very close could only spend the main part of the day ( as well as a very early riser and was tired by 5pm) Maybe next time if at VF will get a full weekend pass.

Bought 1 small pack though had decent pocket money to spend, saw no 15mm Napoleonic stuff at all.

Due to medical reasons, I had to bail on Fall In. And for a multitude of reasons a good chunk of my gaming friends couldn't make it either. I'm not averse to Valley Forge, but I will admit I prefer the Host. I know we are signed in for 2020 to VF and I will go to Fall-In then.

As for people not signing up for games, that is a shame. Only thing worse would be people who signed up and then didn't show. I don't know what the answer is.

As far as the poor sales to the Vendors, that is also distressing. But the distribution of sales is not surprising. I am not an impulse buyer. I have a list of what I want and have usually pre-ordered and pre-paid for my stuff. I do all my shopping with in the first two hours of the Dealer Hall opening on the Friday, with almost no purchases on Saturday or Sunday. I'm also a poor Wally's Basement shopper and rarely find anything of interest. So the fact that Friday was the best day of sales doesn't seem odd to me. Again, what is bad for the Vendors is ultimately bad for all of us.

Colonel Bill, I also sat this one out. I have a lot of respect for Dan, but no happy memories from previous conventions at this site--mostly things beyond HMGS control once the site is chosen. The trips seem to be getting more expensive, and first years at a new site are commonly troublesome. Better to let someone else take point and do two conventions--Cold Wars and probably Fall In--next year.

I did not know that Fall In was following Cold Wars precedent of no Friday flea market until 9:00 PM, but that would have been another good reason not to show up. (It also hurts the dealers. Rather than stay up until 12:30 or 1:00 AM, I wind up with a Saturday session--which gives me a very short buying window after I know how much money I have. My vendor purchases have been down every convention since the Midnight Only Flea Market has been implemented. I may not be alone in this.)

I'm also not sure the dealers really want us. I can go years now without a new historical line or product, and there's no such thing as a convention discount. The cost of a 1,200 mile round trip covers a lot of postage and handling.

Gaming was very convenient if you were in the rooms behind registration and the awards desk. Almost pull your car right up to Distlefink and unload levels of convenient. The rooms were comfortable, had water coolers, good chairs, and nice carpet. They were well lit and the noise levels was excellent. Less convenient if you had to try and drag your stuff away from the main rooms and down the hall. Better than the LCC for sure.

My Friday morning Frostgrave game had 7 of 8 players and was enjoyed by all. My group ran 3 other games and plenty of people showed for each one so we had no issues there.

Plenty of parking. I don't think I will hear anyone complain parking is an issue.

Plenty of eats, both in the casino and locally.

Attendance did seem down but its hard to judge because there are so many non convention goers at this location who are there for business, weddings, casino, or other things.

The bad. Flea market and dealer hall not nearly as convenient as the Host or LCC. Saturday afternoon flea market was shockingly dead, by far the worst I have ever seen it. There was no line, and I'm not even sure if there was 15 sellers. Even the guys who are normally there every convention for all sessions selling the same stuff were nowhere to be found.

Sunday flea market had quite a few sellers, including myself. I got rid of a bunch of board games and books at give away prices so that was nice.

Without con staples such as BTC and Harmony House in the dealer hall I spent less than 30 mins and $25 USD in there.

Here's my take:

I arrived Thursday evening and did a recon as I had never been to the site. At first I was dismayed at the distance and tortuous path between the hotel and the Event Center (where the Dealers and Wally's were). However, when the time came it took me exactly five minutes to get a fully loaded handcart from my hotel room to my table for Midnight Madness. Back to my room for a hand carried load and I had all my stuff there in 15 minutes total. Piece of cake.
That being said, visiting the Event Center was not a casual decision, it being out of the way of almost everything else. Pretty much akin to the Tennis Barn, without the hazards of weather and traversing an open pit mine/construction site.

This leads me to echo the observations that things in general were very…dispersed. I didn't have a negative view of this, more mild disappointment. For example, at the Host I like to pop in and out of Hobby University when I have a few spare minutes, but that wasn't really possible at this site. And while it was relatively easy to casually roam around and admire games on the Radisson side ( the Grand and Independence Ballrooms), the rooms on the Casino side were not something you were even going to find unless you went looking for them. Again, not bitching, just observing.

I did have a really good time. The volunteer staff was amazing, as were all the GMs, dealers and fellow gamers I interacted with. A special shout out to the Washington Grand Company for their (as usual) fantastic Triumph! events.

FWIW, Midnight Madness was great, but Saturday afternoon in Wally's was a ghost town. I'd be curious to know how the dealers felt about being adjacent.

Most of our crew didn't attend either. Then again, we're from the Lebanon-Lancaster-Harrisburg area and we're spoiled. If the con would've been at the Host, we would've been there. And two of us are regular GMs.

Well, for what its worth, the VFCC has certainly changed for the better since we were last there.

I also noticed Harmony House's absence and have idea why they did not show up. BTC's absence has an easy explanation. The owner Doug Kline had was on a trip for his real, "put food on the table" employer and simply could not make it. He told me if that were not the case, he would have been there.

Colonel Bill

Well, FWIW the second, I'm live in Enola, right across the river from Harrisburg, and the 90 minute drive wasn't bad at all.

Also, according to my Galaxy Gear by Samsung, the distance from the lobby of the Radisson Tower to the entrance to the Dealer Hall was 459 steps, to include 25 steps on the stairs. Round trip to include one pass down each aisle of the vendor encampment and the flea market was 1044 steps.

As regards the flea market, one vendor said if the flea market was adjacent and open the same hours, this ould be his last show. Other vendors didn't mention it one way or the other.

Ciao, Colonel Bill

As regards the flea market, one vendor said if the flea market was adjacent and open the same hours, this ould be his last show.

They can take their ball and go home. Dealers have all day Friday now before any flea market sessions even start.

The site was excellent from my perspective. From my room to most of the gaming rooms took less then 3 minutes.

From there to the dealer's area was far less then from any area at the Host to get to the dealer's area. Those that went the long "back way" inside the hotel could have simply walked out the front door less and then 50 yards to get to the same location. It was no problem whatsoever.

All of the 4 games I played were well attended, though I did see some with few numbers. Dealer area was pretty good, but not as much as the summer con, which I would expect. Food options on sight were good, the hotel restaurant was very good and gamers got a 10% discount!

Over all I would say it was much better than the Host (been there many times) as good as the New Lancaster site downtown (and since I got a room on site, much better from my point of view). I drove 9 hours from Ohio, so anyone closer that complained about the distance has no sympathy from me.

Anyone can complain about even the most minute conditions of any gaming venue if it doesn't personally meet "their" particular situation, but looking at the big picture, this was in my opinion, by far the best venue for a game convention of all the Eastern locations I have attended. I will go again anytime it is here, and again I am driving 9 hours to get there.

If they come back to this location, I would even consider putting on one or more game events myself.

Good job HMGS on this event from my perspective, I'll come again for sure.

Kim

Overall I liked the venue, but it did seem like attendance was down. Saturday evening the game areas were very lightly attended. Whole rooms with 6 or 8 empty tables and others with only one occupied. I'd say 75% of the tables were empty Saturday evening. This really surprised me since that's usually the busiest time of the the whole con for gaming. I'm hoping that this was just a blip due to a 'new' location. Hopefully next year will be better.

Scott, I've found that for at least the last few years more and more people are calling it a convention and leaving after dinner on Saturday, while Friday night is the very busy evening. I don't know its because of aging or people just feel that finishing late and spending another evening in a hotel isn't worth it. It is a growing problem and others have noticed it.

Not getting the VF hate, I live very close, work even closer at times. The casino seemed very nice and there are many other places within 10 minutes to stay if needed.

Was weather a factor for anyone?

I liked the site. The noise level was not a problem. The room my gam was in for my games was not cramped. It was well lit and the HMGS staff was terrific! I did not mind wandering about it was so much better than the old Host. I have not seen the new one yet.

Access to the building was good. I had a terrific time.

Ps. I loved the new registration set up. Great idea!

Comments from a first timer at VFCC: I agree with most everything that's been said, but especially was distracted by the horizontal layout. As a dealer, I had hoped to get to the Toys for Tots raffle by 6 pm, on Fri or Sat. Leaving the vendor area close to 6, that was, ahhh, impossible. finding rooms was tough in the beginning.

My sales were down, to be expected from the first time in a new venue. Other dealers I spoke to were furious, livid, choose your adjective, about having the flea market area right next to the dealer hall. Philosophically, I think it is your cash buying old stuff (Wally) versus new stuff (Dealer) but you had to walk past the Wally area just to get to the dealer area, so I get the anger. I keep suggesting not having them open at the same time, but my suggestions are always ignored. Maybe next time? (Dealers from 9-6, Wally from 6-9) Other than that, nothing but praise for volunteers, staff, GMs, and Dan. I brought two newbies, and they were blown away!

Thanks again to all who made Fall In great!

Daniel
Six Sided Simulations

Dan, HMGS and his volunteers did an awesome job with what they were handed. Hotel was great. Games were great. The running of the con was great.

That said, I think the site is a dud. I like a more centralized approach. I love Distlefink on a Friday night. Or for that matter, the Fredricksburg Convention Center. I was looking at pics of the con, man did I miss a lot of games. Too hard to find. Too bad, they looked great.

As for the attendance, Fall In is always the lightest, add in a new venue, this was no surprise.

On the plus side I walked out of the casino up $140 USD, which went to dealers and flea market.

One Sentence review: It was a well run show, but move back to the Host.

Xin/Jeff

ther dealers I spoke to were furious, livid, choose your adjective, about having the flea market area right next to the dealer hall. Philosophically, I think it is your cash buying old stuff (Wally) versus new stuff (Dealer) but you had to walk past the Wally area just to get to the dealer area, so I get the anger. I keep suggesting not having them open at the same time, but my suggestions are always ignored. Maybe next time? (Dealers from 9-6, Wally from 6-9) Other than that, nothing but praise for volunteers, staff, GMs, and Dan. I brought two newbies, and they were blown away!

Absolutely not. Dealers already got their way and have a complete monopoly on Friday. Dealers Hall is open on Saturday before the first flea market session. The second afternoon session was dead, so in reality they only had competition for 3 hours.

Not to be a negative nancy. I ran two games on Friday that were a blast with great players. I had an 8 player TSATF game on Saturday and only had two players show. The game was a good one, nip and tuck.
I saw NO walkup players for any of my 3 games. I HATED the food options. The food court seemed like bad high school concession stand food. The chop house was tasty but very expensive. The bar in the Radisson had the karaoke volume turned up to 11. A quik trip out on Saturday saw no convenient eateries to the road.
I somehow pulled a hamstring (espite walking less than I do at home) so all the walking was miserable.
The HMGS side was fine. I had a good table right behind registration, but I saw very few other games
I question whether I will return.

I wonder how much, if any, the casino cut into dealer sales? I went to the casino bar both nights and would see various con goers there playing 21 or the machines. Money that could have been spent in the vendor hall.
Also heard on Saturday morning at two different games about someone ‘sleeping one off' and missing the game.

I'm surprised no one has commented on the date of the con next year. A couple of guys I was there with said that alone makes it a no go, regardless if where it is.

I hadn't noticed that historygamer. That's surprisingly early.

Yeah, and conflicts with a million other things, from Halloween parties to kids' sports, etc.

Was the last time we had the con around Halloween when we had that freak snowstorm in Lancaster?

Personally I didn't care for the location other than it was only 40 minutes from home which was a huge plus. Upon arrival we thought we would get a bite to eat and went to the food court. $5.59 USD asked for an ice tea from Dunkin Donuts later we exited and headed to Wegmans up the road.

We've all complained about the Host but the one thing the host has that I miss at every other venue we have tried is the central location where everyone meets up to talk, drink, and get a bite to eat. I miss that socialization.

Ate at the tavern on Friday evening and the prices weren't bad and the food was good. This was closer to the host as a gathering spot for everyone.

Personally I miss the host and the closeness that location brings.

"I keep suggesting not having them open at the same time, but my suggestions are always ignored. Maybe next time? (Dealers from 9-6, Wally from 6-9.)"

So, I find out how much I have to spend after the dealers hall is closed? Let me tell you how much the dealers will make on that program. Actually, let me tell you how much anyone makes on that program, because the day the only available flea market table is 6-9 Saturday is the day I give up altogether and take my stuff to Little Wars instead.

One more time for dealers and con directors: the flea market is a draw, and for quite a number of us the primary draw. The more it's shoved into a corner--or cancelled, as it is now for Friday through the day--the less reason we have to travel hundreds of miles, rent motel rooms and pay admission. If you want people to come, you have to offer them the things they want to do, and not the things you would rather they do.

Rant over.

Saturday attendance. I have heard mention elsewhere that a problem with a casino site is that if you have to drive elsewhere for dinner, you'll have trouble parking on your return. One response to that would be to cancel the Saturday evening reservation and eat on the road on the way home. So it may be an ongoing problem with multiple-use sites.

Well, color me stupid. I got a nice PM from the HMGS pres and he indicates initial numbers suggest attendance was UP 7.5 % for Fall In. And this is why I posted prior to doing my article, to get feedback for a sanity check

So now, given my experience and the comments from others, I sit here open mouthed and completely baffled.

Colonel Bill

What he said. The Fleamarket is a draw. I run a fleamarket table once or twice a year to unload my piles of junk. That money made then goes straight into Dealer's room purchases of The Next New Things.

A friend of mine who is a dealer and has attended all the HMGS eastern conventions for some years passed on VF. He said the loading and unloading was just to difficult.

Tom

For Lard America, this was our lightest attendance as far as running games. I had to cancel my two games do to health issues and another member had to cancel two games due to a work conflict. Additionally two of our regulars were out of the country.

This was the first time we have had to cancel multiple games since we started as a club at Fall In 2017. Normally Lard America runs between 15 and 25 games at a convention and we were down to something like 4 at this convention. So a number of factors affected our attendance.

We should be back up to strength at Cold Wars.

I disliked the spread out nature of the games. The grand ball room always seemed to have empty tables as did a number of the smaller rooms. Never understood the point of driving a bunch of miles to a con to play or present a game in a small isolated room. It just does not feel any different then going to my buddies house on a Saturday or hosting a game in my basement. A large room filled with games creates energy. I don't want a bigger con to have the same feel as gaming at home or at one of the smaller regional things. It should feel bigger and grander with a lot of energy. Fall In failed for me in that respect. This was more a product of the spread out and often isolated feel of the rooms where games were run. Plenty of games around, but being broken across a large number of small rooms made things feel a little boring.

When I was there I had a vague sense that attendance was up. As with the LCCC, the VFCC is so broken up it's hard to get any comprehensive sense of how many people are there. It just seemed to me that I was continually passing clots of gamers on their way someplace.

I think one factor in creating a sense of poor turnout was that many of the game rooms weren't game booked up to capacity. This is likely a good thing, as it means there is room to expand. That may be something we may have trouble doing at LCCC. Although the 2 blocks up Holiday Inn has some event space we may end up being able to use.

There were some weird aspects to things. There were fewer vendors, tho the ConDir has already indicated he will be reconfiguring the space allocations next time around trimming away some of the CAVERNOUS space that had been allotted to the tourneys.

The late Friday Wally's was well attended. But the Saturday PM WB was quite simply DOA. The usual pattern for Saturday has been full in the AM. Most of the AM sellers stay on to the PM, with some (but not a lot) of new sellers backfilling. Not this time. Not even close.

Seller access to the WB required an elevator ride, but the Host requires that now too, so apples to apples.

The Sunday WB was pretty well stocked, but a lot of return vendors from Saturday.

I did a recon some 6 weeks ago and expected parking to be a big issue. It wasn't.

HMGS Con Registration used to be a (insert ethnicity of your choice) firedrill. Maybe 5 years ago things turned around big time, and has run really smoothly since. Same same this year.

The walk between buildings was long, maybe comparable to the walk from the Lampeter to the Tennis Barn. The wavy blue carpet in the long hall may not have helped. It was like being in the bottom of a fish tank.

Wherever you were at any given point, the decision to go to the other building was not one made lightly.

Valley Forge/King of Prussia is a complex congested business service area. It's in some ways like a rail yard with contiguous but unconnected rail lines. You can't just go from A to B unless you REALLY know what you're doing. It is largely severed in 2 by I76. There were tons of eateries off site within convenient distance, BUT if you didn't know how to get to them, you'd have played merry hell finding your way there, and would have had a real issue finding your way back. We were actually pretty close to The King of Prussia Mall. Fat lot of good that did a bunch of noobs.

I didn't spend a whole lot of $ but it broke out 85/15% vendor/WB. The WB stuff was 95% OOP, and 5% cottage 3D printer vendor. The vendor hall purchases I made were 75% preorders.

QUERY: What are the dates for next year?

I've read several complaints that there were no 15mm Nappys in the Vendor Hall. Essex may not be everyone's cup of tea, but pretty sure that C&B can special order, and I figure Eureka would be able to fulfill an AB special order submitted in advance.

I can't explain why there were significant numbers of Saturday AM games with few/no gamers. I have the sense that over the years, there have been shifts in our overall usage of the con experience. Sunday AM has always been an issue. In recent years people have been observing that Saturday PM is slowing down. Now Saturday AM? There may be something to the Friday WB bogging people down for Saturday AM. I rolled in about 9:30A pretty bleary.

I stayed offsite and commuted. I was lucky as I found a back way onto the north lot that enabled me to avoid transiting the site to get to the available spaces. I think next year I'll spring for a Marriott room. On the downside, having the vendor area 1 elevator ride from my room may be a dangerous combination.

On the whole a good show. As with most recent shows held places other than The Host, most of the "crew" I know blew it off. Unfortunate, tho no longer surprising.

As ever, we must all endeavor to persevere.

My suspicion regarding Saturday AM is we were too knackered from Friday's walk-a-bout and decided to sleep in.

Just a feeling, mind.

Keith F.

Went Thursday thru Sunday. I live in Northern VA and make it a point to attend all of the big 3 HMGS cons…cant say that I've ever had a bad experience at any of them (least fun was probably the one outside of Baltimore). My observations:
1) convention was over a dispersed area. No room was overly crowded but it was a little harder to casually explore all of the rooms and drop in for a game.
2) noticed how close the flea market was to vendor hall and thought to myself that the vendors probably didn't appreciate that.
3) was really baffled by how sparse the sellers were at the Saturday evening Wally's. Hardly anyone there.
4) a friend remarked that concession food tasted like they brought in the Host's catering staff. Not good at all. Avoided the food court but had some good bar food at the Tavern.
5) I enjoyed it and will happily return.

Addl comments:
I have been attending cons for a good 20 years (expect when HCon was in FB). This is the first con I attended where I did not spend $1 USD in WB. That has never happened before to me. All my money went to the Dealer Hall. I guess this is in part to not attending Friday night WB. I am sure there were others that missed that too.

I ran one game. It was full, 5 players, sadly had to turn someone away. Overall I thought the con was really well attended so I am shocked to hear about the Carnage and Glory games with no attendance. I have played those games at other cons and I agree they are certainly museum quality.

Overall I would gladly attend another con at this site now that I am familiar with the layout and how to best navigate everything.