FINAL WEEK!

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!!

 

TWO WEEKS to GO!

With only 14 days on the clock, the pressure is on. Our crew is working hard to steer the ship in the right direction and not get distracted by the marine life, and the Captain is bent leaning over his charts to see how far he stretch a metaphor. TsunamiCon… is coming.

We’re down the detail work here at TsunamiCon HQ. I did a final walkthrough at the site yesterday, working out details on how we’re using each room and what we need from the staff at the venue. The kitchens are finalizing the menus, the printers are working on programs and badges as we speak, and I’m stuffing mailers for prizes and Kickstarter rewards, sorting out shirts and dice for our VIGs, and running down a HUGE checklist of everything from signs to table numbers to badge ribbons, and more.

I thought I’d share a few pictures, just for the fun of it:

If you’ve even thought about signing up for games ahead of time, be sure to check out the huge variety of offerings available on our schedule. Buy your tickets now to register in advance, then tell your friends and family all about it and drag everyone you know to TsunamiCon 2017!

And of course, getting up to take a few pictures has it’s own challenges…;

 

THREE WEEKS To Go!

In three weeks time, the curtain rises once again on Wichita’s premiere tabletop gaming event! With more than a hundred games on the schedule – plus special programs, panels, cosplay, live entertainment, and lots of prizes to be given away – TsunamiCon 2017 promises to be our best convention yet! As we barrel down on TsunamiCon weekend, I encourage you to grab your tickets in advance, sign up for some games, and plot your course for three solid days of gaming goodness! Here’s a few of the highlights:

Thanks to Envoy, our Play-To-Win program has now grown to around 30 titles, all of which are up for grabs! Just check out one or more of the games on the list and give them a spin, then sign up for your chance to win a copy of the game. Games are free to sample from the TsunamiCon Game Library, and you’ll even find a handful of Play-To-Win demos on the schedule, so feel free to sign up! We have some fantastic selections from a variety of publishers! Enjoy community favorites like Betrayal at House on the Hill and Pandemic, or sign up to win a copy of the infamous Sheriff of NottinghamStarfall from Pandasaurus Games, KOSMOS’s mind-bending puzzle game Dimension, or Grail Games’ abstract treasure One Zero One.

Our annual TsunamiCon Cosplay Contest is a source of endless wonder and excitement, a beautiful and imaginative spectacle starring some of the area’s most brilliant cosplayers, and we could ask for no more fabulous venue that the Wichita Scottish Rite. Join us this year for a chance at cash and prizes in one of several categories, or just plan to show up and enjoy the show! Prize contributors include this year’s sponsor Epic Cosplay Wigs, and Tahnee Lane Photography.

Also, be sure to check out one of our feature cosplay themed panels scheduled for early in the day on Saturday!

Don’t miss out on your chance to board the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator. Bring your friends or join a crew as a bridge officer aboard the Artemis and immerse yourself in a unique gaming experience. The simulator runs throughout the convention, and attendees are welcome to participate as often as you like.

So, all hands on deck, maties! It’s going to be a wild ride!

FIVE WEEKS and Counting!

The breakers on the high seas whisper of a fabulous storm just beyond the horizon. The crew watches nervously for signs of darkened clouds, but the fine folks lining the pier promise us a powerful send-off indeed! As we take a stroll across the deck, we note some of the fine features that will make this voyage a memorable one!

We Have Games! Our event schedule is filling up with a broad selection of board games, card games, RPGs and live action roleplaying events! With more than 90 GAMES already on the schedule, finding something to suit your tastes is virtually inevitable! And if you don’t see what you want… you can still submit it yourself!

The board game selection hitting the tables at TsunamiCon 2017 includes a variety of fantastic titles, including community favorites, rare gems, and even brand new items hot off the trail from GEN*CON! We are continually updating our Game Library as new contributions and acquisitions roll in, and we have a growing selection of Play-To-Win items that you might very well have a chance to take home after the con! You can check out games from the library, enjoy demos from Cardboard Carnage and numerous other gamers bringing in their favorites, or even bring games of your own to share with the masses. You can look for games on the event schedule, or drop in and join or start a game on the fly.

If you’re a roleplayer – or interested in trying it out – you will find an amazing variety of games and systems at TsunamiCom, from standards like Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowrun to rare selections like Post World GamesProtocol Series, Mutant: Year Zero from Modiphius Entertainment, Yggdrasill from Cubicle 7, and even Doctor Who. A small strike force of community GMs have put forth the time and energy to prep scenarios and schedule games for your entertainment, so check out the schedule and sign up in advance or just come to the con and see what’s available. Or even bring a favorite game of your open, grab an open table, and put up a flag that says you’re looking for players (flags provided free of charge!!).

And if you’re a fan of Live Action Roleplaying – or, again, never tried it but want a chance to check it out in a friendly, immersive environment – we have some very cool LARP events on the schedule, as well. Get your badge today and sign up in advance, or show up ready to play… most of these events can handle a lot of players.

We Have Entertainment! We love gaming, but a gaming convention provides us a powerful excuse to do so much more! At TsunamiCon, you can take a short break from the games and enjoy some of our Featured Events, visit with our Special Guests (who are also running games!), cheer on the contestants in our Cosplay Contest, take in a comedy show, or even join the bridge crew of the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator!

Also, this year Puzzle Plex from Derby, Kansas, joins us with a unique escape room scenario and scavenger hunt to add another fine badge to your TsunamiCon achievements. We’ve put an escape room somewhere on the premises… but not only do you have to solve the riddles of the room, you have to find it and figure out how to get inside. If you want to know more about escape rooms and how they work, check out their website, book a room, and drag your friends and family in for an exciting and immersive experience!

TsunamiCon is your hometown tabletop gaming convention, put together by folks who love to play games and spread the joy of our hobby to anyone who will drop in and spend some time at the tables. So be sure to spread the word! Bring your friends, bring your family! The bigger it gets, the better it gets in the years ahead! With only a few weeks to go, now is the perfect time to plan your TsunamiCon experience. Buy your badge today, sign up for some games, and get ready for three long days of geeky goodness!