RetroWorld Expo returns for a second year with a 2 day event.  RWX is a celebration of classic and retro video gaming that also embraces tabletop gaming, modern video gaming, homebrew gaming, anime, action figures, comic books, cosplay, arcade machines, and much more.



We had a great time putting on the first RetroWorld Expo last October, and are committed to making the expo better every year.  Here are some of the things we are working on for RWX16.

2 Day Event

This seemed like a no-brainer, but it was a little more complicated once we thought about it.  Lots of people suggested that we do a 2 day event in year one, but in our first year, we really had no idea how many people were going to show up.  It turns out that quite a few people showed up and almost all of the feedback we have heard has been positive.  That being said, a 2 day event is still a risk. The venue costs the same amount to rent on Sunday as it does to rent on Saturday, so we are doubling our rental cost and charging less for a Sunday badge. We didn't want to charge as much for a Sunday Badge as we do for a Saturday badge, because the hours are shorter.  We also wanted to make the event affordable for families who could only come out for one day.  We are hoping to make up the additional venue cost with increased attendance so please, be sure to tell your friends and pre-order some...

Merchandise

This is another area that we will admit requires improvement over last year.  This was another case of "Year One" Syndrome.  Not only did we have no idea how many people would show up, we had no idea how many people would be interested in buying a shirt with the event's name on it.  We didn't want to buy too many RWX t-shirts, so we estimated low.  Really low.  Really, really low.  We sold out of t-shirts in year one in about an hour.

How can we fix this?  Preorders!  Yes, I know it seems like we are taking the "Gamestop" way out, but it makes a lot of sense.  We design a shirt, post pictures of it in the same place we are taking pre-orders for tickets, and allow people to pre-purcahse so that everyone who wants a shirt gets one.  We will also have shirts available for sale at the show and we will estimate higher this time.  We have teamed up with Rich Smith of The Rich Smith Robot for this year's t-shirt design and we think he knocked it out of the park.  You know how I feel about Konami silver box games, so is it really any surprise that this is the artistic direction I gave Rich? 

Being a big fan of Walt Disney World, I have always been casually interested in Disney pins.  We pick one up every time we go to Disney World.  This year, we have designed a pin for RetroWorld and are offering it in a bundle with the t-shirt pre-order, $22 for both.  Both the t-shirt and pin will be available at the show but a pre-order guarantees both and there is no order limit, get as many as you want, they make great stocking stuffers.  There are one or two more merchandise surprises, but we will wait to show those until the designs are final...


Improved Arcade

Lots of people loved the arcade last year and really let us know.  Hats off to Lance and Kris who obtained, repaired, maintained, stored, and moved all of our machines last year.  The arcade was missing a few things, though.  One of the things is was missing was a name.  When I was growing up, my local shopping mall had an arcade in it called Time Out.  It was awesome.  I didn't want to go to "The Arcade", I wanted to go to "Time Out".  We have named our arcade "Time Warp".  Partially for my love of my childhood arcade and partially because that's what it is, a Time Warp.  One of the other bits of feedback that we heard a few times was that it wasn't clear that all of the machines were set to freeplay.  We will do a better job of making that more clear this year.

I'm sure everyone is very happy that we named our arcade but the Pin Heads are looking at me saying "That's not all you were missing last year..." 

Pinball
We have heard you loud and clear.  While we have nothing official to announce in the way of partnerships with other groups or pinball machines that may or may not be playable at our show, please know that we are working very hard with several groups right now to make pinball a major part of the Time Warp Arcade.  More to come soon..

Tabletop

We had a freeplay tabletop area last year with a decent library of tabletop games.  We are adding tabletop and CCG exhibitors, vendors, and tournaments to this area in 2016.  Rio Grande Games was kind enough to provide games for our demo library last year and they will be doing the same this year.  We will also have a representative from Z-Man/Plaid Hat Games running game demos, tournaments, and facilitating giveaways.  In year one, we thought that the tabletop vendors wouldn't want to be away from the main floor, but halfway through the first expo, we had a few vendors ask us if they could move to be closer to the freeplay tabletop area. So this year, we are starting off right.

Guests
Many of the guests who attended last year will be welcomed back again.  So far The Gaming Historian, The Game Chasers, Pixel Dan, Gamester 81, Eric Lappe and Banjo Guy Ollie are all confirmed.  There will be many more guests announced in the coming weeks and months.  For now let me leave you with one more confirmed guest who is often requested of us.  Pat the NES Punk.


Concerts

The musical acts are one of the highlights of every expo I've been to.  We were very luck to have such great musical guests last year.  Since we only had one day, many people showed up for the expo first thing in the morning and the concerts didn't start until dinner time.  That's a long time to ask someone to stay at your expo without a rest.  Now if it were a 2 day event and people could head back to the hotel in the late afternoon or early evening, they would be able to stay up late on Saturday night to enjoy the concerts!  But what about everyone else?  What about the people who can only be there for the first half of the day on Saturday or can only make it on Sunday?  We are changing up the concert structure so that everyone who attends will have the opportunity to hear great video game inspired music.  We will be setting up a stage in one of the side rooms (the area that the console freeplay and tournament area was last year).  This stage will feature bands throughout the day and into the evening.

Console Freeplay and Tournaments

But if you put a stage where console freeplay and tournaments were, where will console freeplay and tournaments go?  I'm glad you asked.  We are moving them to the main floor.  With the help of the excellent staff at the Oakdale, Mike in particular, we have changed the floorplan to allow setup even more consoles than we had last year on a nice big chunk of the main floor.  We are in the final stages of approving the floorplan now and we will be sharing it soon.  One of the other things we were able to do with this revised floorplan is to fit even more...

Exhibitors and Vendors

We know why all of you gamers, collectors, and enthusiasts really come to these shows.  You want to shop, right?  Add a few things to the collection.  With last year's layout, we went a little nuts (first year jitters) and it made things harder on exhibitors and vendors than it needed to be.  We had 8'x8' spaces, 10'x10' spaces, regular level, gold level, platinum level... I mean it was almost like you were trying to pre-order Final Fantasy XV instead of rent space at an expo.  We simplified things this year.  We are selling table space this year.  1 table, 1 price, as many tables as you want.  Not only is it simple, we can fit way more exhibitors and table when we lay out the expo floor this way.  Like I said before, we will share the floorplan as soon as it is final, but you are going to be happy with what we were able to fit on the floor without overcrowding the place.

Thats all for now.  Keep an eye on www.retroworldexpo.com and follow us on Facebook for updates on all the cool things coming to RWX16.  See you in October!

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