Review of SPECTRUM

Let me start with saying that this "event" was an experiment in combining a LARP with other forms of gaming.

Accomodations:

The dealers room was small with only four dealers in it (A Artist, A Garb Merchant, A Game seller and a Seller of interesting toys and books)and the Heart Beat. The Japanimation room was well run with a full schedual of videos. The Con Suite was typical of any Double Exposure convention, filled with munchies and drink.There was pleanty of room for open gaming since that was all that there was. The hotel it self is great with pleanty of water coolers and garbage cans in easy access to all the rooms.

What Happened

When I arrived on Friday evening there was no registration set up do to problems with the program that they were using to generate characters for the SPECTRUM LARP. Since there were almost no gaming that you had to sign up for it really did not make too much differance that registration did not open till Saturday morning. The Gaming rooms with the exception of RPGA (They were on a different floor) where set up in themes based on the aspects of the LARP. I spent most of my time in the Red Aspect room (Table Top Games). There was a few people playing 40K, a Battletech game and my heartbreaker demo's in the room and the LARP's decided that it would be a good thing to play Native drums, Chant's and other music at a high volume to give the room a war like feel. I was not amused with this music. The yellow room which held card games did not have this problem except for spill over. From what I saw all the people involved with the LARP where having a good time. The RPGA fans where having a good time, but then again they usally have a good time no matter what convention they attend. If you were not part of the LARP or a fan of RPGA the convention left you a bit disapointed.

It was an experiment and I suppose it would have done better if they had more schedualed games or it was not held two weeks before Shorecon. I figure with the staff that about 400 people showed up for the convention, a good sized convention but the size of the hotel made it feel empty.

Steve

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)