Neoncon 2009 wrap-up

A summary of Neoncon 2009 - Michael Berman

Neoncon 2009 marks the third year of the convention in Las Vegas, their second at Palace Station Hotel and Casino. What's fantastic about this year in particular is that GamesU was sponsored by Gen Con! Working with Gen Con has many benefits, as was evident at this year's event.

As soon as I walked upstairs from the main casino floor, I knew I was in the right place. The layout naturally began with the registration area. Right across from that was the vendor area, then a room for Warhammer 40k, Miniatures, Pick-up Gaming, RPG, Board, GamesU, and LARP (Live Action Roleplay).

The convention sported over 20,000 sq. ft of spacious rooms split between vendors and tables available for the event. Since it was in a casino, hunger and thirst were not a problem for those attending. A Subway and Starbucks were conveniently located on the floor below, and a drink bar right in the event.

Speakers and Guests
Doug Daulton, co-founder and Executive Director of Neoncon introduced the event and Erik Mona keynoted. Marcelo A. Figueroa also made an appearance. He talked about the customer service and marketing aspects of the industry. There were several other appearances, including Juliet Meyer from Las Vegas based Petroglyph studio.

John Wick, designer and author of games like Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea and has done work for Upper Deck, Totally Games and others. He did a great workshop where you could bring your idea for a game and he'd give you advice and ideas to help you turn it into an actual game that a publisher might buy.

Another was Stan, who is a prolific writer and game designer who has worked on projects for Wizards of the Coast, Upper Deck, TSR, and West End Games among others. He is currently doing new adventures for Call of Cthulhu (which was a pretty popular game at the convention).

Also, Ryan Macklin, who is a podcaster of three popular gaming themed podcasts: Master Plan, This Just in from Gencon and Voice of the Revolution spoke on gaming and the media. Another podcaster who spoke was Ed Healy of the podcast War Pig, Atomic Array, Open Design Podcast and RPG Countdown.

Matthew Grau, writer and rules designer for D&D, Marvel Super Heroes, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars and CthulhuTech as well as Pathfinder Society's Joshua Frost gave talks.

The Games
One of the miniatures games that was played was Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures or DDM. It was run by Garry Stupak, stat card designer for and member of the international organization DDMGuild which is Wizards of the Coast's official guild of D&D Minis Skirmishes and Dungeon Delves games.

The tournament was great with prizes of D&D minis, free up-to-date stat cards and hours of getting to play with not only your gamer peers but also with Garry himself. That tournament alone made the four day admission of $40 (for early-birds) worth every penny all by itself.

The Indie Games Carnival was also worth the price of admission by itself. You got to play games that most people haven't even heard of. These were of every genre imaginable and some I hadn't even considered as being something you could make a game of. Some of the games were still in development and the designer himself (and herself in a couple of cases) was there to play a demo of the game with you.

Vendors and Dealers
Several books, miniatures and models were on display at the various booths. Some fantastic art from Christian N. St Pierre as well. New games were also actively being played. One in particular, "Barca", caught my eye. It is a chess-like strategy board game played with three primary pieces: a mouse, elephant, and lion.

The big gaming store vendor was Battlezone Comics which is here in Las Vegas and at battlezonecomics.com. They sell comic books, video games and a wide variety of table-top strategy and role playing games. At the convention, they had good sales on many items including dice, card sleeves, minis and role playing books.

Theresa Mather had a booth of beautiful fantasy creature artwork. She sold both original paintings and well made prints. She had dragons, griffins and many other mythical beasts. The prints were numbered limited editions. At the show, she even autographed the back of the small size print I bought of a gold dragon rolling a D6 die. It came handsomely mat-board framed and ready to hang up for only $10.

There was also the Museum of Mythical History booth. They were promoting the development of the first museum focused on mythology. I found this particularly intriguing because you don't often hear about museums developed around fictional settings. A documentary will be announced in the near future related to their efforts.

The spirit of Neoncon
If you love RPG strategy games, Neoncon is definitely the Las Vegas place you want to be next year. Sign up as soon as you can for early discounts! If you live or plan to visit the area, don't forget about all the other cool events that are associated, such as Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, Conquest Vegas, Vegas Game Days, amongst many others! Vega Gamers also does a mini-convention each month.

Written by: Michael Berman with contributions by John Enfield