AdeptiCon 2023 Historicals Retrospective
By Michael “ACON” Rafferty
AdeptiCon 2023 is in the books!
AdeptiCon 2023 was held March 22nd – 26th in Schaumburg, IL. This year we had over 6,500 badged attendees, which is the largest AdeptiCon we’ve ever had. It looks like we’ve fully recovered from the COVID slump and things are bigger and better than ever. This was the second year of having a full second venue at the Hyatt, which grew from just hosting historicals to also hosting Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.
We also had a 1:1 scale Urbanmech
This year saw significant sign-up for the Bolt Action and Saga tournaments, along with the various event and narrative games. Out of 287 amount of seats at event games, we had 216 register. That’s 75%, which is fantastic. This shows me there is a significant demand for event games and it’s something I’m working to deliver for next year. I would like to see more games run at different days and times, which means recruiting new game masters. If you’re interested in running something, let me know.
The Lead Pursuit guys ran a social Blood Red Skies Furball, which was designed as something akin to the Battletech grinders. The idea was a laidback event, where people could move some models around and be social. This proved to be a successful event, where people were able to turn up and shoot down their friends (or wives in some cases). The Lead Pursuit guys even provided some boss planes with some custom six-engined B-17s. Andy Chambers, the game designer of the Blood Red Skies game, was on hand in both the Warlord booth and the gaming hall.
Jon Russell from Warlord Games reported that his volunteers ran a total of 14 events across the weekend, including a standard Bolt Action (BA) tourney, a doubles BA tourney, and a Recon Rumble BA Tourney spread across the weekend.
We listened to concerns from last year and increased the shuttles this year. We increased the number of paid shuttles throughout the weekend, making it easy to get between the Hyatt and the Marriott. People would park at the Hyatt and shuttle over to avoid the full lots at the Marriott. It worked well and I hope it will drive more interest in the gaming at the Hyatt as people walk through.
NDNG patron favorite, Firelock games ran five event games and three tournaments: Blood and Valor, Oak and Iron, and the ever-popular Blood and Plunder.
We also had a vendor for the first time at the Hyatt. Sherwood Wargames set up a booth primarily selling Warlord products, but also had a variety of board games and some items from Battlefront and Firelock Games. We’re hoping to have them back next year because all the feedback I’ve received is that they were a big hit. I personally was happy to have them there and made a few spontaneous purchases.
Overall, I was very happy with how the Hyatt at AdeptiCon 2023 ran. The events ran smoothly and there was plenty of space for everything, even if we had to shuffle tables around. If anyone has any issues or suggestions, please reach out to historicals@adepticon.org and we can discuss them. I’ll also write some after-action reports for the games my group ran which should be up shortly.
It’s probably been a long enough break, time to start AdeptiCon 2024 prep. I have an idea for something code-named “Thundergun Express.”