Hi everyone!

Welcome to the beginning of the recap for a busy weekend!

We knew it was going to be a busy one already, with three events packed into it. We were going to start Saturday with Mississauga Maker Fest, right after which Bill and I were to head over to our friend Andrew’s house in Ancaster for his annual Zombiefest, and from there we planned to get up early to get to Protospiel North downtown Toronto! And it all went as planned!

This blog entry will be about Maker Fest, with the Protospiel North stories to follow.

I found out about Maker Fest through a friend who works in the Mississauga Library system. Maker Fest is for people who are creating something and want to share their ideas with others in a showcase at the Central Library in Mississauga. She sent me information and a link to apply for a table. So, apply I did.

They must have been happy with what we had to offer, because we were given a table! Since the event was from 11am – 4pm, we could go, demo our games with the public, and still get to Andrew’s for his Zombie Jamboree.

We arrived at 10am to set up and discovered that we needed a bit more space to put up our signs (Bill made some great signs for us!) and have room to play the games, so I asked the staff and they were super helpful, grabbing a small, round table to put beside our main table to use for display. The staff and volunteers, especially Rachel, were so amazing!

Here’s our table, set up and ready for people to try out some games:

I didn’t get a chance to go around and see all of the other tables, since we were so busy, but from where I was, I could see there were a couple of 3D printers, and a jewelry maker, and right next to us was Christine Fry, who made monster pillows out of old sweaters and scrap material and did printmaking. She had kids who came to her table fold paper to make little books, which they illustrated with stamps. It was really cool.

We had so many people stopping at our table to talk and try games that Bill and I barely had time to talk to each other! We demonstrated Mathemagician’s Duel, Subtract N’ Adder, the unnamed dice game and even explained Don’t Get Cthulhu’d, pretty much constantly. It reminded me (especially when I began to feel my throat getting rough) of the Games Workshop Games Days and Conflict events in which we’d demo games all day long in a loud hall full of games being played and demoed. Luckily, there was  bit of a lull at around 1pm and Bill went up to the floor where they had lunch for the exhibitors. I was expecting a couple of slices of pizza, but at Maker Fest, they take care of the exhibitors! Look at what he brought me:

There were a lot of staff and volunteers on hand, so during another lull, two of them stopped by to try Mathemagician’s Duel:

They played a good game, but one of the interactive shows ended and they were needed to help out again, so they went off to do their volunteering duties before they completed a game.

Also interested were these brothers:

They had a great match, picking the rules and their nuances up early and really getting into it. And since they have the best mom in the world, she pre-ordered a copy of the game for them!

Of course, there were more games played than this; I just didn’t get a picture of all of them.

We had a great time and enjoyed meeting and talking to all of the people, and playing our games with them. The staff and volunteers did whatever they could to make sure the experience was a good one for all involved, and in the end, even gave us a lovely thank you card:

We are very much looking forward to coming back next year, with even more new games!