Alan Moon's Gathering Of Friends: A Newbie Report
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 2:11PM
Jeff and I just recently attended our very first Gathering of Friends, an invite-only gaming event in Columbus, OH hosted by game designer, Alan Moon. Alan is considered to be one of the foremost designers of German-style board games and a two-time Spiel des Jahres winner. You can find out more info about him at his website as well as on BoardGameGeek.
Alan started his Gathering Of Friends in 1990, with 23 attendees, and the numbers gradually increased. According to Bruce Linsey's Friendly Records, 365 people attended last year. 
I got invited by putting together a booklet of comics and photographs for Alan, with the encouragement and help of two friends who were attendees. Alan e-mailed me when he received the package, saying that he and his wife Janet loved the book. He said I could attend the Gathering as long as I didn't tell my two friends that I had been invited (!); he wanted to play a practical joke on them.
Anyway, I was allowed to bring my spouse...which made me (and Jeff!) very happy. Jeff had been the one to get me into boardgaming, after all.
All the gaming took place in one big room at the hotel. We picked up our registration badges at Alan's table (he wasn't there at the time), a bit nervous because we didn't recognize many people at first. The badges were colour-coded (see explanations above), and I found that the red "first-timer" stripe on our badges was VERY useful -- people were extra-friendly, going out of their way to chat with us and welcome us to the event.
Not surprisingly, there were games EVERYWHERE. Attendees are encouraged but not required to bring their own games for other people to play. After getting advice from others on The Gathering discussion forums (password-protected, sorry), Jeff and I put post-it notes inside and on the box cover of each game we brought in our car. We piled these on top of one of the long tables that lined the walls; any games we didn't want others to play, we put underneath.
One of the first people we got to know was Cedric Caumont, a game publisher from Repos Production in Belgium. I had posted in the forums, asking if anyone else wanted a ride to the Apple Store in Columbus to pick up their iPads, and Cedric responded. In case you missed it, here's the report from our iPad line-up day.
We also enjoyed meeting Cedric's partner at Repos, Thomas Provoost:
We enjoyed hanging out during The Gathering, playing a bunch of games together as well as sharing meals. Repos publishes two of my favourite games, Ca$h'n'Guns and Ghost Stories: White Moon, plus is coming out with a much anticipated game later this year: 7 WONDERS:
(Box cover image may change)
I only had a chance to play this prototype once, but -loved- it. I wasn't the only one; quite a few people at the event were talking about it. You can find more info and read reviews of 7 Wonders on BGG.
One of the cool things about The Gathering was that there were game designers and publishers everywhere demonstrating prototypes as well as not-yet-released games. It reminded me in some ways of a writers' convention, except instead of pitching and promoting books, people were pitching and promoting games. But like a filk convention, there were also plenty of people just hanging out for the fun of it.
(Above: a game of Werewolf, around 1:30 a.m.)
It was hard not to be starstruck, this first time; I met the designers and publishers of so many of the games I've played and enjoyed. 
There were lots of tournaments and other special events, including a challenge just for game designers. Not sure of the details, but I think the participating designers were given some components to design a game at the last Gathering, and a set of judges played them all this year before deciding on a winner.
Above: the fellow with the green hair is Friedemann Friese, who designed Power Grid, among other games.
While Jeff gamed pretty much the entire time, I usually worked in the mornings, went out for lunch with people, played games, went back to the room for a short nap, then either did some more work or played some more games until dinnertime. I'm not a night person, so the naps helped me stay up a bit longer. No matter what time I went down to the gaming room, there was ALWAYS boardgaming going on.
I spent as much time socializing as I did playing games, catching up with gaming friends I had already met at BGG con before as well as getting to know new people. I was hugely curious about these other people who (like us) had been crazy enough to come to a 10 day boardgaming event. Conversations were always fun and interesting.
(Above: Tara from Germany, Jeff, Cedrick & Thomas from Belgium)
Gah. So much more I could write about, but not enough time.
Here's a photo of the games that Jeff and I came home with:
I had to leave a few days early to fly back for FilKONtario (FKO report coming soon!), but Jeff stayed for the full 10 days.
Please do check out some of the photos I took at The Gathering. Many thanks to Alan Moon for inviting Jeff and me, Daniel Karp & Nataline Viray-Fung for the encouragement, and to the other attendees for making us feel so welcome! I'm already looking forward to the next Gathering.
NOTE:
Some of you may be wondering how to get invited to The Gathering. As far as I know, you have to get personally invited by Alan Moon. If you don't know Alan, then you usually need to get a recommendation from someone (possibly two people?) who has been attending The Gathering for at least five years. Even then, Alan only accepts recommendations at certain times of the year -- he'll let former attendees know when he is looking for new people.
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Reader Comments (5)
Always great to see you, Debbie! Looking forward to November...
Thank for the fun report. And, ahahah, Arkham Horror! Good luck protecting Arkham from the Elder Gods!
Sounds like a really fun time, but wow - 10 days of boardgaming!!! Also I am entertained to see that a Lego store has exactly the same furniture etc over there as it has over here, up to and including the littly round windowed display areas down the sides :-)
Ooooh, you got the latest Dominion expansion! Cooolll.... :D
[...] year, FilKONtario overlapped with the end of The Gathering so instead of driving home with Jeff, I flew home a few days early. (Accompanying Karen Linsley in [...]