The Bay Area - Bastion of Gaming!

Hi gang,

Just came home from a whirlwind 52 hour 1100 mile business trip to the East Bay and Sacramento and back! Here are some notes:

The Sacramento Marriott in Rancho Cordova just rocks! I stayed there on Sunday night, and toured the facility on Monday morning and met with the Director of Sales. All the meeting space is internal to the hotel, with it split about 70/30 on either side of the lobby, where the room elevators are. They are building an additional 1400 sq ft of meeting room space and a Starbucks on site. The pool is huge in the back (like gamers swim....) and the rooms are very nice. They have 120 double bedded rooms (double queens!) available, so rooms won't be a problem.

Parking is free. It's right at the Sunrise exit of 50 East, so from the Bay Area it's just 80 East and then 50 East. It's that easy to get to. There are fast food places within driving distance, but the Marriott will be providing us with our own cash food sales area, like we have at the San Fransisco show.

Kevin O'Hare and I are starting to work on the floorplans for the show (April 13-15, 2007).

I also got to tour the Holiday Inn in downtown Sacramento. It is a wonderful facility too, but parking is pricey there, although they have a number of meeting rooms on the top floor of the hotel with marvelous views. But, I think the Rancho Cordova is a better fit for us.

On Sunday (working backwards here) we toured the Oakland City Center Marriott Hotel. This hotel houses the Oakland Convention Center, and has mammoth meeting space. The top floor room is breathtaking, with spectacular views of the Bay Area on two sides. There is a BART station right in front of the hotel, and an army of eateries surrounding the hotel. Easy freeway access too. And you can BART from the Oakland Airport.

So why was I at Oakland. Well....we are quickly running out of space at the Marriott in Burlingame, and we are looking at the Oakland Convention Center as a potential alternative for the show. If anyone has anecdotal stories to tell of experiences at the hotel, please let me know. We won't be making a decision about this until ConQuest this year, so there is still plenty of time.

I also got to tour three different game stores. Endgame is just WOW! What an intelligently laid out store that is. The Endgame guys have done a great job with the store. Black Diamond Games makes good use of less space, and has a very robust inventory. Games of Berkeley is a different kind of shop, in that it does the hobby stuff and everything else gamey (puzzles, toys, etc.) Got to drive around Berkeley, which I loved from college days, and I'm glad to see that Telegraph is just as unique a place to shop as ever.

Anyway, it was a nice trip which included dinner at the Original Maxi's Opera Restaurant in SF! Thanks to trip companions Kevin and Jodi who made it a really hard working, yet fun trip!

Take care all,
Mondo