On Friends And Friendship: Part 2: SHUX

Attending the first ever Shut Up & Sit Down convention, SHUX in 2017 was a joyous experience. I walked in knowing very few people and left knowing many more and feeling worse for the fact that I only got to see them for three days.

I got in to SHUX 2018 at 8am Friday morning. Well, technically, I got in at 7pm Thursday evening, when I went in to deliver a pile of my game collection to the library for the weekend. What was supposed to be a quick in and out delivery turned into something a bit longer as I stopped to say hello to lots of familiar faces, mostly local gamers volunteering at various demos.

But back to Friday morning, where three days of magic was about to begin.

Like I said, I got in to SHUX 2018 at 8am Friday morning. I marched along the long hallway leading to the entrance and was stopped halfway by a friend calling my name. Not even in the door and everything was already looking up. We went in together, flashed our badges at security, the lovely and always amazing SHUX volunteer force, and headed for the huge open gaming table space. We picked a completely random end table along one isle and set ourselves up.

Within minutes I had become reacquainted with friends from a year ago, as well as meeting in person someone I had been connected with over twitter. This was made very easy as I had immediately set up Inis on the table and as teaching it, and everyone knew I was the Inis guy from last year[1].

That table become our home for the next three days. Every morning we all met up there. Throughout the day we’d drift around, playing games at other tables, or teaching groups around the hall, but that was our home. And as the convention passed, the number of people that frequented that table grew. Some of us would join another game and then bring back people from that game to our table to play something else. People would walk past and see us playing something epic and stop to talk about it, or join in if there was still a seat free. I asked everyone that walked within earshot if they wanted to play the ever growing Karuba, until finally I had a full collection of eight players! Twice!!

And when things got quiet, late in the evening, our spot was still open and inviting. I sat down to play Fog of Love with a friend around 8pm Saturday and as we were setting up a random attendee dropped by to check it out. We invited him to sit in and relax for a bit and enjoy the unfolding chaos. Over the slow metal down of my relationship with Brent, we both became friends with TJ.

SHUX is a magical convention. People from all over the world come to Vancouver to play games and I get to meet as many of them as I can. On the last night, after we had been kicked out of the hall, myself, Jordan and Richard joined my wife and my our kids for a meal. Claire had met up with the wife of one of the gamers attending SHUX and they had gone to the aquarium for the day to hang out, and they joined us for the meal. And so it was that I got to meet John and his wife and their infant son right at the tail end of SHUX, and became friends with them too. John and I immediately bonded over each of our wives telling us to look out for the each other, and being equally perplexed at how we should accomplish that in a hall over approximately 1,700 gamers.

Saying goodbye at the end of the meal, especially to Jordan and Richard, in whose company I had spent the entire previous three days, was tough. I truly think of them as great friends. I know I probably won’t see them for another year, but by God, I can’t wait for SHUX 2019 when I get to hang out with all my great friends again!

[1] I had taught the game nine times over the three days of SHUX 2017.