"Cold Wars 2023" Topic

Dare I ask, how is Cold Wars?

Sparse.

Be there tomorrow, thoumaybe today could get there by afternoon but just didn't happen

Dare I say…cold?

Running smoothly from what I could see.

Great time my Thursday night game was full as was all the Del Val games in the best room at the con the Quaker Room. Some good deals in the Flea Market and my Red Dawn is coming to a table soon. Sunk the fleet at Coral Sea Friday night. Great game run by Will. Food Court was surprisingly good. Trying the Chop House tomorrow night. Lots of great games being played. If your not having fun it's a problem.

I was there for a day trip Friday. For the first time in many years didn't stay for the whole con (jury duty). Registration was slow but fine. (Training new volunteers so that was good). All the games looked great and seemed to be well attended. Terrain and figures get better every year. The vendor hall was very busy. Saw several people carrying large, expensive boxed sets so some vendors were happy. Wally's basement was good and picked up several things.

Now the less then good. Definitely low attendance. Less games than normal. Vendor hall and Wally's was smaller than normal. With several vendors not attending for various reasons, (Old Glory, BTC, TWC & George Nafziger) maybe that lead to less than normal attendance. We will need to see how Saturdays numbers look.

I also know that some people complain about how spread out everything is at VFCC. In my own unscientific test, I compared my iWatch steps for Fall-in & Historicon for the last two years and found about 10% more steps at VFCC than the Host. Didn't think that was too bad but I'm only 60 and healthy. My wife is partly disabled so I know a 10% increase in a persons steps may be more then they can handle.

Just my 2cents.

Dale

Sept 1812 w Prince Eugene

Battle of Crooked Billet
01May 1778

British take the advantage

Thanks, Skip! Appreciate the pictures and I hope you enjoyed Crooked Billet.

Yeah, overall it was a good convention for me, despite the low attendance and the crazy walking to make your way around the venue.

Was able to sell stuff in the flea. Put some of that money right back into the vendors.

Hope folks had a great time.

Eric

Had a great time hanging out with the member above this. Sold off all my modern and western wares, plus everything at the flea market.

Attendance was lowest I've seen in awhile.

Other than my AM commute from the north, I have no complaints.

I had a great time. Grabbed some excellent deals in the flea market. HMGS team did an excellent job as usual. Big thanks to all the HMGS volunteers and Gamemasters!

As a dealer I was worried when I saw that they only had half as many dealers as usual and that there were rumors that attendance was way down. But there seemed to be lots of people and lots of games and my sales were better than any previous convention at that location, so my fears were groundless.

That's great news Scott. The vendors seemed very busy.

My only minor recommendation would be to have a registration booth near the vendor hall too. Not just one for people that had pre-registered. Friday while eating lunch outside the vendor hall I had to tell two families they needed to go up two stories then over to the other building to register. They both had kids in strollers and they were just there to buy stuff.

Good con now off to paint stuff.

Dale

Perhaps you should have told them to just send one person from the group to register for all of the family.

Kcabai :
To be honest I didn't think of that with the first group but did mention it to the second group. Not sure what they did.

I attended Thursday thru Sunday. Hard to get a good read on how many people were there due to the chopped-up nature. But of my 3 games, 2 were full and one was down one. so pretty good. I played 2 games' a 1107 Shako Fr vs Russians, and a stunning 40mm Alamo game. All were full.

Flea market was OK. I sold on Sunday and did well. Exhibitors were fewer and many sold the same Warlord, Victrix, etc. But nice to have selection.

All in all, I had a great time. I do prefer the Marriott Lancaster or the old Host venuse.

Games all seemed to have players. Was back and forth one end to other maybe 6 times but getting to be older guy wasn't a issue.

First time at Valley Forge.

Obervations:
1) Attendence seemed pretty light.

2) Way fewer games than usual. Despite that, my son and I found enough games, and while those games weren't full, they had enough players to proceed.

3) Dealer area, meh. As I am not a historical minis player by and large, and I gravitate to sci-fi, there wasn't that much that interested me. This is typical.

4) Being as I pre-registered, I had no issues with registration.

5) Now, the facility… I found the constant walking back and forth, up and down the stairs (elevators were kind of slow and in frequent use) to be a bit much. Food court was pretty limited, and wow, there were hardly any restaurants around the area to go to. I also didn't care for the casino crowd. Wow, talk about a bunch of sketchy characters, and :( Big turnoff.

Our room was VERY drafty, with lots of air coming in around the A/C/heater unit, so the heat ran a lot. There was no room service. I don't care about someone making the bed, but we needed new towels, as my son had caused a bit of a shower flood and we had to use up the towels cleaning up. Having no room service meant no replacement towels. I didn't bother asking the front desk staff, as I got the impression they weren't going to be helpful anyways. Otherwise, the room was acceptable.

We'll probably skip going back to Valley Forge again.

billclo;
Not sure what your dining desires are, but I live about 3.1 miles from there and within 5 minutes, you are next to the KoP Mall and the new construction which has quite a bit from Duck Donuts to Mission BBQ.

Also, if you head up Route 422 and get off at the first exit (Trooper/Audubon), and go about 5 minutes down Trooper Road, there is a string of chains from Longhorn Steakhouse to Chickie and Pete's, etc.

Go another five minutes up Route 422 to the Oaks exit and there's another batch of chains right off 422, including Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunks, Pizzaria UNO, and Wawa…

Being 3.1 miles from home (and I can go either the Oaks or Trooper exits), I ate at Casa Del Me. Except on Sunday when I went to my local diner for lunch, Family Bistro.

Google is your friend.

As far as the sketchy characters, no argument there. But KoP isn't my township, so we weren't asked whether we wanted the casino or not.

Eric

epturner,
I did use Google to look for restaurants nearby, but for some reason it was showing me only what looked to be oddball restaurants (never heard of any of them).

I didn't go (lots of reasons), but in re leaving the premises to seek out food, I wouldn't.

It would appear that Valley Forge was laid out, and at some later date(s) they ran 76 and 476 through/over it. The net result is that the area is carved into enclaves. I've tried to familiarize myself with the area by reviewing the maps, but I keep getting turned around in my head. If you go out and lose your bearings,…

I attended the Histori'Fall'icon'In. I tried the pizza. Meh. I tried the Chinese. Double meh. The food cart was better. I wasn't gonna sell a kidney to afford a steak.

I normally bring 75% of the food I'll need to avoid this kind of issue at all my cons, so it's not a big deal for me, but I empathize with those who have food issues with VF.

I drive to the convention, and then when it's done, I drive home. Any convention site where I have to drive around looking for food and then park again at the convention forfeits points. (If I have to drive away again to sleep, the convention is in negative points even if nothing else goes wrong.)

@RP

I used to talk about going to Lancaster Cons with coworkers all the time. This one woman who went to school in Elizabethtown always used to tell me I had to visit this one place nearby for the Shoo Fly Pie. I had to keep explaining that I went to the con and parked on Friday, and I didn't venture off site until Sunday on the way home.

Which was nothing when I told my brother I was going to Williamsburg with 0.0 intentions of going into town.

"I drive to the convention, and then when it's done, I drive home. Any convention site where I have to drive around looking for food and then park again at the convention forfeits points. (If I have to drive away again to sleep, the convention is in negative points even if nothing else goes wrong.)"

Agreed. I rarely go offsite to eat (Historicon being an exception because I found something I could actually eat a block away). NOT losing my hard-won parking spot to drive around looking for food. Too much hassle going offsite to eat 3 meals a day.

King of Prussia is, if anything, overdeveloped. There are no less than 50 places to eat within a 15 minute drive. Don't want to lose your space? Order delivery. Don't want to pay delivery fees and tip? Bring snacks and stuff from the Walmart 1 mile away. Don't want to do that? Well then you're ridiculously picky and there's no helping you.

I didn't rub elbows with any casino patrons and the only time I ever saw any was around the ground level entrance above the dealer hall/tournament area. They were non-existent around the ballroom area where games and registration was.

Is the walk back and forth between the ballroom area and the dealer hall that much further than the main areas of the Host to the new dealer Hall? Its all indoors and if you want to cut the route in half you can walk around the outside of the building.

If I want to go East I generally have to drive through there, I have suck in side street traffic jams so many times.

As a vendor we usually stay off-site for the food options. In KoP we were able to get 2 rooms at the Double Tree for less than the VF casino rate. That helps with the food options immensely.

The show was okay. Definitely lower attendance and fewer vendors. We did okay in sales but lower than Fall In by 20%.

Hopefully this third show is not cancelled and we end up with just two, but this convention did nothing to help that possibility.

Hi Azure
what vendor are you?

I will say my spending was down from the last show but I did spend a good amout in the $600 USD range. (on gaming material not the hotel or food)

Not sure what others spent or budget.

-Mike

We are Griffons Lair.