Wednesday afternoon, a strong thunderstorm popped up while I was assisting a client down in Shively. It dumped a lot of water and the lightning scared the client, and all of that combined to delay my departure by about an hour. The storm knocked the heat off quite a bit, enough so that I was able to leave the car's AC off for the drive to Indy.
Thursday morning, things too off in a hurry. We're letting the Mistborn license expire, so we marked down everything we had at the booth. The last few copies of the board game went in a hurry, and the RPG products sold off quickly enough that we had to adjust the bundle pricing for those often. We had a small shipment of a new board game, Sardegna, on hand, and it sold well. Thursday's total sales came to about half of the booth's cost, and that put us all in a good vibe. Dinner at Union 50, then back to the hotel.
I slept in Friday - normally, I work morning shifts at the show, but traded with another staffer who needed the favor. Did some shopping - The Borellus Connection for The Fall of Delta Green and the core and a supplement for Outgunned. Did my afternoon shift, sold product, closed the booth.
Saturday was my day off. Tried getting into a Night's Black Agents game with some generic tickets, but no luck. Checked the event schedule and found an Unisystem-powered Dark Tower game, and was able to join that one. The GM was really good, and it was a darn good game. Got lunch at a chicken and waffles truck, then went back to the hotel for a nap. Got a FB message from a buddy asking if I would mind picking up some miniatures for him - sure, I replied. And then he sent me the list and the money - yay PayPal - and it was a doozy. About $400 for some Kingdom Death stuff - about ten models. That would pay for a LOT of BattleMechs. Then it was time for my second game of the day - Numenera. Great GM, great group of players, and we all got starter boxes for the game. I had an invitation to the Hunters Entertainment party that evening, but was tired and waved off.
This morning, breakfast with Alex before opening up the booth for the last day of my seventeenth GenCon. Brisk sales again. Less than ten copies of Sardegna left when my shift ended. Said my goodbyes, bought a softcover DCC rulebook for a co-worker, packed up the car, and headed south. Delivered the Kingdom Death stuff. Went home, unpacked, started laundry and added the new purchases to the stack of stuff to read.
Breakfast most mornings was at a caterer's tent - scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage links, little donuts, and apple butter for $10. Heck of a deal, and quite filling and tasty. Dinner at Union 50 was good. Got some pizza from Hot Box, of course.
GenCon is increasingly looking less and less like me, and I am here for this diversity. Both of my GMs this year were women. Our Buru tables drew lots of attention, as did the Tabriz prototype - Indonesian and Persian art drew people in. Lots and lots of Gaymer and flag ribbons. Such a good thing to see.
Free League announced a second edition of the Alien RPG; unrelated, they won the Ennie for Fan Favorite Publisher. God's Teeth (Delta Green) got Best Long-Form Adventure. Catalyst is leaning into the joke with a lance box of UrbanMechs - and another box of UrbanMech LAMs. This is delightfully bonkers.
I'm GenCon tired. It's a good kind of tired. I kinda want to take a nice hot bath before bed, let my feet work out the soreness. I think this is my last con of the calendar year. I may fly out west next spring for Crafty's 20th anniversary con, and there are small shows on the calendar in 2025, but this should be it for 2024. It sure was good to be back.