PaizoCon banquet

[Mike Dowd]

Congrats to Paizo for their 5th Con! I had the fortune to be able to get tickets to the banquet, and listen in on many of the announcements of the great new items coming down the pipe.

It is with great regret that my Fiancee and I will not attend any future banquets though. The food was mostly inedible, with enough hot spices to ignite a 3-alarm fire in one's mouth, the potatoes were over-salted, spiced and dry, leaving bread and green salad as the only edible dinner items in the buffet line.

The dessert item selection was also very limited, with only 2 different items available at any given time, (and even then, what did get out was mostly an empty plate) despite there being a total of 4-6 items overall.

I am highly disappointed with the banquet, and would say that it is easily among the 5 worst ones I had been to in my lifetime.

It might be easy to say that ours was an isolated opinion, but it happened to be shared by at least 80% of the table.

[number6]

I'm bumping this post as I'm likely a horrible person... or at least horribly honest.

The banquet food was fine. If you cannot handle salt then I guess this was a spicy meal for some.
The desserts were all available. I went out later to hunt for the lemonade. It was gone, but all the 4 different deserts were available and I coulda' built a mountain o' dessert.

For me the complaint with the Banquet was how long the speeches went. It was like the worst wedding I've ever been to. STOP TALKING ALREADY!!!
I was glad that the staff is built on people who are passionate at what they do and the company hires accordingly. Great.
But taking 2.5 to 3 hours to go over EVERY employee and clapping and such seemed over the top. I guiltily bailed at 10:30pm to go to sleep.
The presentations were long and drawn out and nothing seemed remotely prepared.

Thankfully the CEO was drunk. That was amusing and honest ;) :D
I kinda wish she said "Hey, I luvs ya all, free booze for the next hour!".
Then we'd have a party ;) ;) :D :D

The unprepared nature of the banquet was part and parcel for my whole Paizocon experience... except the store. That was well conceived. But then that is where the money is.

Best of luck next year. I won't be attending.... unless I get to sit at a table with a drunken Ed Greenwood!!!

[Ryan. Costello]

To each their own. I enjoyed everything on my plate, and only had to wait a few minutes for a fresh plate of desserts. I enjoyed the table I sat at immensely. James Jacobs and Greg Vaughn were there, both open, entertaining guys who were at their most relaxed of the whole con.

Some of the presentations went long, fine, but mostly when they restated information that was already available online. I think Erik Mona needs to be commended for his MCing, which was always brief and on the nose.

[Vic Wertz]

number6 wrote:

Thankfully the CEO was drunk. That was amusing and honest ;) :D

She wasn't drunk; that's just how Lisa is.

As far as food goes, I didn't have anything even approaching "3-alarm fire," but your taste is your own! Regardless, banquet catering is done by the hotel, and odds are good that next year's con won't be at the same hotel, as we've already outgrown that one.

The introductions were way too long, as were a couple of the presentations; we'll tighten things up next year.