Dragonmeet was bigger and better in its new venue. The convention has now grown to a huge event in a much bigger venue than last year. The hall was packed with traders.The event offers a great opportunity to reach out to new players. Last year around fifty percent of our players were new to Pathfinder and it was similar this year. We were handing out PFS numbers all day and to my shame we ran out of numbers in the afternoon and I had to take email addresses for players.

This was a crucial event for us because it was the first big public event where we were going up against the new D&D. I am pleased to say we made a pretty good showing. We had spare helpers so that we could welcome players into to our area and get them seated comfortably and talk to them about how to carry on playing Pathfinder. We had our big pop-up banners on display so it was easy to find us and it helped us look organised and professional. We had more tables running. We also had the advantage of running "Goblin Attack!" which is a perfect quick demo for adults and is so easy for kids to pick up. That worked really well and we did some good repeat business there.

Venture Lieutenant Eran Aviram ran Pathfinder card games for most of the day and his table was always full. He and his wife ran demos and full games and everyone was having a great time. As one player left another would be ready to take their place.

Not everything went smoothly and we had some disastrous problems with Dragonmeet's booking system for players and although the venue was bigger we were shoehorned into a much smaller space than last year. But the organisers have already acknowledged these problems and promised to get them fixed for next year. I hope we can work together with them to make it easier for Pathfinder players and GMs next year. 

Although it was fraught at times and we needed to trade on GM goodwill to swop around players and tables…we still had smiles from everyone all day. We didn't turn away a single player and everyone had a good time. At one time five players walked through the door and our wonderful GMs immediately swizzled round to accommodate them. I am proud to say our Pathfinder players were the last to leave the venue at midnight, chased out by the cleaning crew and long after all other players had fled. Huzzah!

Thanks very much to Mike Brock and to Paizo for all the support material that they sent. It was very well received and kept morale high as some of our GMs ran three slots in the day. I expect Paizo felt the good vibes reflected back across the Atlantic.