AireCon 4

Airecon4, Day 2 - What a difference 5 months makes!

AireCon is "an analogue gaming convention" in Harrogate.  I LIKE that description. It's a nice way of saying "everything except computer games". Maybe more conventions should steal the byline.

Started by a couple of enthusiastic guys a couple of years ago at one of their houses, AireCons 2 and 3 took place in 2016 at "The Jubilee Centre" in Harrogate. This venue was basically like a Church Hall on steroids. My first AireCon was number 3 - in October - where I turned up with a clutch of other RPG referees to try and entice all the board gamers into tabletop RPGs. With little success. Maybe three RPGs were run across the weekend, one of those being one of my one hour demos and the other having as many of us referees playing it as general gamers.

So I approached AireCon 4 with some trepidation. Like almost all non-RPG conventions, their web-site etc. says they're offering RPGs, but doesn't push or promote RPGs as much as they do other events. This isn't through laziness or not wanting to support them. It's just that organisers of these general conventions don't actually know what tabletop RPGs are and don't know how to promote them. I've encountered this at Anime conventions and the like. RPGs seem to be an afterthought at the events. Given the lack of interest at AireCon 3 and the general lack of promotion, when I found out that there were 7 or 8 good RPG referees going, I seriously considered giving it a miss, especially given the journey time from Birmingham. But I decided to give it one last chance.

However, I did decide that it wasn't worth pushing the board out and bringing up a heavy bag with my complete "Choose Your Adventure" stuff in it. I travelled light with only what I could fit in my wonderful "Furnace X" bag.

AireCon runs Friday to Sunday. I work Friday and it would have been difficult to travel up in time to do anything Friday evening. Certainly not enough to justify an extra night's accommodation costs. So I decided to travel up at stupid o'clock Saturday morning.

The journey was fine. I arrived in good time and breezed into the venue. This time, the convention was being held at the Harrogate International Centre. This is a proper convention centre but is right in the middle of town, just a short walk from the train station. The convention was only in one medium sized hall - and some associated rooms - but it was still a massive upgrade from the October venue. Not quite the NEC but getting there. The organisers have pumped a lot of effort and money into the event and there was excellent signage, loads of traders and lots of unique features. But what struck me was that at least a third, if not half, the venue was a sea of tables and chairs for open gaming.

The RPGs were supposed to take place in the "Paizo RPG Marquee", a tent in the middle of the hall. Remembering the great fun I'd had running RPGs in a marquee at the World SciFi con a couple of years ago, I was quite looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the "marquee" turned out to be a bit underwhelming. A family on a camping holiday would consider it luxurious but that's about it. It was black, had no internal lighting and contained four small tables.

But the organisers rustled up some small lights and we were directly adjacent to the open gaming area. We moved the signage around to make things clearer and I snaffled the table near the tent entrance, covering it with my "Choose Your Adventure" pregens, rulebooks and documentation. I rationalised that this would give passersby something to look at. Other Referees dropped rulebooks or similar from games they were able to offer.

And it worked! I'm not sure how things went on Friday (day one). I know at least one RPG was run in the dark tent and over 600 people attended the convention. But today the convention was busy - but not packed - and we ran:

Pathfinder 4 games
Star Trek (Modipheous playtest rules) 2 games
The Black Hack 2 games
 Star Wars (the one with the funny dice) 2 games
The Code of Steam and Steel 1 game
The Comics Code 1 game
Dead of Night 2 games (one set in the Traveller universe)
Mindjammer 1 game
Code of Spacelanes (Firefly setting) 1 game.

And I may have missed some.

Okay, some of these were my one hour demos and went as low as two players, but most of the games run by other referees had full tables and ran for a couple of hours apiece - particularly the Pathfinder ones.

I chose to run my games in the general gaming area. This really filled up but there was always enough space to fit another game in - completely vindicating the organisers' decision to devote so much floor space to it. One of the four tables in the tent was turned over permanently to our game display, but two of the other tables were in use for pretty much all of the day running various games.

So a massive improvement over AireCon 3 and it really justified my coming.  I took it upon myself to be front of house catching passersby and promoting the RPGs and was really pleased with my performance. I've still got some way to go, but I'm getting more confident at it. I was also pleased by the number of people who said they'd heard about RPGs and always wanted to give them a try. The word's really beginning to get out there.

Gaming at the venue goes on until 11pm on Saturday, but the RPG area seemed to wind up quicker. My Firefly game was the last running and I closed the tent at about 8pm and retired to my hotel, which was just next door.

Convention food and drink prices seemed a bit high to me, but there are loads of eating places within easy walk of the venue, so nipping out for cheaper comestibles was really really easy.

It's only to first day, for me, but I've been really impressed by AireCon 4. I've had a brilliant day. Roll on tomorrow.