Note: I’m still updating parts of this post. I’m behind this month :)

In 2019 when I bought my tickets for SFGE 2020, COVID wasn’t even a thing. As the scheduled shifted, then shifted again towards the fall, things were looking pretty optimistic in the deep south. Restaurants and Theaters were open and we tossed our masks into a box in the back of the closet near the flying toaster screen saver tie and two sizes-too-small dress shirts.

Then, as August approached, the ICU beds in my county had been full for several weeks straight and our State in general was feeling the Delta Coronavirus wave. I thought seriously about not attending SFGE. In the end, I landed on “F-It, I need a break” and I back-justified the trip via my Pfizer vaccine jabs in may and historically resilient response to pulmonary illness. Both of my parents passed from Pulmonary issues but I’ve been fortunately healthy in that respect.

So, I went to SFGE and as always I’m really glad that I did.

Leading up to the show, I had every intention of bringing a game but just didn’t get a chance to make that happen. We stay perpetually understaffed and over prioritized at work these days, it has been putting a squeeze on my hours remaining for hobby endeavors.

Layout

SFGE was located at the Cobb Galleria again this year.
To be completely honest, I don’t really like the Cobb Galleria space for this show. It is big, it is concrete and it is loud. Did I mention it is loud? Also loud.

The old layouts that were at the Atlanta Renaissance Waverly Convention area were carpeted and multi-room. There was a sense of discovery as if you were Link or some other hero in a dungeon crawler. It felt a lot like walking into an arcade at the mall.

Cobb Galleria area? It feels like an expo floor. Because it is an expo floor. All of the charm of an expo floor. Yay for expo floors.

I suppose that the vendors love the new space because of game load-in simplicity. Heck, Marco drives in their trailer and uses it as a partition for their booth. I guess the good old days of carpeted flooring and themed rooms with arcade music are over.

Anecdotally, this year seemed to have fewer games and fewer attendees but I haven’t seen official numbers. The space was laid out with ample spacing between the games, so it didn’t “feel” empty and they used portions of the space that remained unused during the last show. I suppose the extra spacing might have had something to do with social distancing, as well.

It was sort of nice being able to play a two player game with a friend and not have someone completely crawled up your butt recording intros for their youtube channel.

Marco

In a slim convention season, I was grateful to see Marco was back at SFGE this year. Getting lots of mileage out of their very cool Iron Maiden release era expo pyramid. They brought plenty of Mandos, LZ’s and a few TNMT’s and a few other recent titles. All of the show games they kept stayed up for the full weekend and it was pretty easy to hop on a game.

There was also some strange partnership between Marco Specialties and Classic Game Rooms that I’m not sure I understand.