As we head into the final stretch, a calm grips the high seas. The crew busies themselves with the tasks at hand, making final preparations for the weekend of the con, whilst our lookout keeps a steady eye on the horizon. TsunamiCon is nigh! As we prepare ourselves for the final leg of our voyage, I want to thank a few of our distinguished sponsors and encourage you to follow suit. Without these fine folks, TsunamiCon just isn’t the same great experience we’ve come to love.
The Burrow: Gifts For Geeks. Even before we ran our very first convention here in Wichita, the Burrow was our home away from home. Derrek’s family welcomed our gaming community with open arms, and when we started pushing his little store to capacity, he expanded and gave us even more room to play. The Burrow has hosted our quarterly Game Day events and generously sponsored each and every TsunamiCon with a single-minded devotion to our local community and the hobby that brings us together. He has even eschewed the opportunity to set up shop in our dealer hall each year in favor of spending his own time enjoying the convention as a regular at the gaming tables! I cannot overemphasize how much The Burrow’s patronage has meant to TsunamiCon… a factor you’ve likely noted yourself if you’ve been collecting TsunamiCon T-shirts, as they’ve decorated each and every year’s edition as one of our beloved corporate sponsors.
Be sure to visit the store this week and thank them personally for everything they do. And pick up a TsunamiCon ticket while you’re there. Already have one? Fantastic! Buy one for a friend. You can a discount if you spend a little money at the store.
Venue 332 at Wichita Scottish Rite. Long-time attendees know that we floundered for a bit the first few years, trying to find the venue that perfectly complimented the style and substance of our event. After finally venturing away from the hotel circuit, we found just the right partner in the Wichita Scottish Rite. Kelly and her staff have shown a wonderful enthusiasm for everything we do and opened their hearts and their doors to our local gaming community. Partners in more than just the name, the Scottish Rite works with TsunamiCon to help make the event successful, investing in our event as a sponsor and helping us spread the good word. We’re excited at the opportunity to grow into the massive space available at their facility, a building with enough old world charm and immersion to please everyone’s inner child as they step into the room. And we have events all over the place… an enormous gaming room in the Great Hall, with our Marketplace nestled in an adjacent annex, an auditorium upstairs for our panels and live events, and designated rooms for special features like our Paint and Take, the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, the Puzzle Plex escape room, VIG Lounge, and more! Not to mention the fantastic concessions they make available throughout the hours of the con!
If you get a chance, I would definitely recommend you thank them for their hospitality, their support of our local gaming community, and for bringing us back year after year!
Puzzle Plex, About a year and a half ago, one of my friends in the podcasting community regaled me with tales of his family vacation and a visit to an escape room facility in one of the bigger cities he traveled through. At the time, escape rooms were a new phenomenon in the US and few and far between. In the months following that conversation, one or two such businesses popped their heads up here in Wichita, but they still weren’t common knowledge. Fortunately, a lot can change in a year… Wichita now has a handful of escape room facilities, and a growing number of Wichitans have had the pleasure of sampling their unique challenges. After taking some time to peruse some of the excellent facilities discussed online by our local community, I ultimately reached out to Puzzle Plex with a proposition. Eric and Curtis not only loved the idea, but we spent about an hour together one afternoon just touring the Scottish Rite and discussing all the possibilities. We picked a room, and they got to work. They’ll be tucked away in a lounge upstairs, and you absolutely must take this opportunity to see what they’ve come up with… not to mention get your name posted on the leaderboard!
Historical Board Gaming. Every year, I reach out to vendors and potential sponsors throughout the Midwest in the months leading up to the con, and I am always surprised at the kind and supportive words I received from most anyone I connect with during this time. This year, one of those surprises was from Doug at Historical Board Gaming. Doug runs his website out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and specializes in games and accessories for one of the oldest and proudest traditions of our hobby, historical board gaming. As a special thank you for his sponsorship of this year’s convention, I encourage you to visit his website and send link to anyone you know who enjoys the time-honored tradition represented in his store.
I also want to recognize contributions from: Greg and the team at Cardboard Carnage; Hobbytown USA, the Village Geek and Warehouse 34 for contributing games and prizes; Brad Kelly from Midwest GameFest, who has been a fantastic source of advice and encouragement and helps run and organize Shadowrun Missions at TsunamiCon; Badash Cosplay for running our cosplay events; and all our other sponsors, contributors, exhibitors, and the hard-working staff and volunteers who help us make everything happen.
Here’s to another amazing con! I’ll see you all next weekend! Huzzah!!