I took a trip the Richmond Open, to check out the event. I had attended the event back in twenty two and thought it was a nice little event. I missed it last year, as I had another trip that conflicted with the date. With a couple of years under its belt, I was curious how it had changed in the last few years.
I headed down with a couple of my buddies first thing in the morning and we drove to the new location. It was not in Richmond this year, but north of the city, right down the street from the Kings Dominion theme park. We parked and headed in.
Like previous years, you had to sign up online and just go to the desk and pick up your badge. The entire event was in one large hall. On one hand, this makes it look larger, on the other it was a bit louder!
The event was listed as having various tournaments and they did not disappoint in this area. Pretty much all the big fantasy tourney friendly games were represented (40K, TOW, AOS, KoW, Legion, X-Wing, etc.). There was also a some Bolt Action for the historical gamer. I think the latter is a missed opportunity and I home the historical community considers doing more at the event in the future.
There were a few demo games available. I was actually hoping for more of this, as I was not there to play in a tourney. However, they are getting a start, with a few companies their showing off their games.
There were a few vendors in attendance. A couple of local hobby shops had the largest booth. However, there were also a good number of companies showing off their own game systems. Finally, there were a couple of game accessory companies (I lift with a few boxes of dice from Baron of Dice).
In the back, they had a snack bar set up with the normal fair of food. It was busy the whole time I was there. Considering there are no outside food places close by, I can see what that was. They also had some vending machines for drinks.
We made the rounds, talked to the designers on the demo games and chatted with a number of the event organizers to see how their events were going. Everyone seemed to like the location (easy free parking did not hurt). With enough time under our belt, we headed out to get an early dinner!
- Manteuffel