Reminder:

The next planning meeting for BabelCon 4.5 is Sunday, January 31st, 2:30 pm, at the Jones Creek Library, Baton Rouge.

Now is the time for gamers to show up and be counted!

A full scale invasion is underway, and its not just Trekkies & Klingons... Star Wars fanatics, Doctor Whovians, browncoats, Stargate travelers, Galactica viper pilots, Potterphiles, wiley pirates, comic book heroes, Renaissance fairgoers, anime girls, gamer geeks, and musical bards, converge for one weekend a year to meet the stars from their favorite movies, don elaborate costumes, and geek-out about what interests them.

This year our motto is "faster, better, cheaper".  Because of the stock market crash and following bad economy, attendance for these types of conventions has dropped significantly nationwide. Thus, we've had to reduce the logistics of the convention for 2010.  Next year, if all goes well, we will return to the expanded logistics format we had last year. But we don't want to give the impression the content will be small.

BabelCon has MORE programming spaces than its ever had before, its just that the logistics are tighter. We've got some cool things planned that have never been at a BabelCon before, plus a celebrity guest, gaming, shows, and all the coolest aspects of BabelCon, minus logistical gratuities like the COG Concert and the LAN room. We have 8 panel rooms planned, and more nighttime video rooms. I have confirmed that Rocky Horror will be performed after-hours by the Transylvania Electric Company (out of New Orleans), and the Renaissance Festival will be set up outdoors.

Since the logistics of BabelCon 4.5 are compact, we're doing something different with the merchant table rentals.  Instead of one giant merchant room, we're using the 4th floor as a merchant room. If you want to rent a merchant table, there is NO CHARGE. That's right, merchant tables this year are FREE if you rent a room from the hotel ($99 per night). All you have to do is rent any room on the 4th floor, and either convert the room into your merchant shop, or place a table by the door and sell right out of your room.

All the panel rooms are on the 4th floor, at each corner of the hotel, so there will be a LOT of traffic past all the merchant rooms, all day and night long. Merchants will still have to register for the convention, but the space is yours for the entire con at no extra cost. Plus this year, many panel rooms will be open during the entire convention, so its a true 24-hour convention for 2010. Merchants will still have to register for the con.

Also, for the first time ever, we have a designated party floor: the 4th Floor. And although it probably seems that way, the 4th floor is not the only place where things will be going on. Many of the things, but not all. The gaming area, registration, Ren Faire activities, shows, and fan tables will primarily be on the 1st floor.

For updated news on the convention happenings, go to Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Bayou Halfling wrote on Jan 20^th, 2010 at 12:37pm:

Jones Creek Library is at 6222 Jones Creek Rd., Baton Rouge, LA 70817.  The meeting is in one of the 4 meeting rooms. Usually the library writes which room number on a blackboard standing on an easel, but if not, its easy to find. There are only 4 meeting rooms, all right next to each other. Just look for the nerds and geeks, LOL. We usually leave the door open for the first 30 minutes.

The good news is that we had about 15 more scheduled games this year than we had last year, 14 of which went off without a hitch. The gaming signup book and assigned tables were a big plus, and all game masters on hand said their games went smoothly.

The bad news is that the people who submitted the Warhammer 40k tournament NEVER SHOWED. What is it with Warhammer organizers? Thats the third group of 40k players we've had, in five years, that submitted games but failed to deliver. From now on I am not even going to advertise a 40k game unless we have two other 40k games running at the same time.

Overall the gaming support was definitely an uptick from last year, when we had our gaming organizer bail on us at the last minute (due to a personal crisis - not his fault).

Now if we could just get some Warhammer 40k players who can follow through, we'd have a perfect gaming lineup.