AVC Online
US Tour
Well, Atari Video Club's first attempt at holding a Video game and computer trade show is now in history books.Here is a breakdown of what was going on at Atari Video Club's: Video Game Summit held on July 12th, 2003: I got to the hotel around 8am, and I was met by Rory McMahon of Suburban Chicago Atarians User Group,Later on I met Nick Damasi also of SCAT. Then I met Dan Loosen, his brother in law Matt and he managed to bring Max also (they run The Goat Store and they brought some of their inventory to sell off).
Well instead of going through the list of who came I'm going to describe the layout of the room (again I have no pics because I forgot my digicam) so you get the feel of the room: The show was split between the hallway and the room it self. In the hallway there was only two people there Matt G/Synper who was selling some of his stuff, and Andrew Bray (tiggerthehun) also selling some stuff. Inside the main room: On one side was Bohus Blahut with his selected items like a DC and stuff, next to them was the SCAT table showing off various items on the Atari home Computer line as well as selling selection of 8 bit programs from their library. Next to that was Harry Dodgson who was showing his DC version of Space ACE on a Projector, a little further down the room were RPM-Games (Rob M and his friend) showing off his home brew game for the 2600 called gravity ball.
Next to him were Dave Ross and his wife Amy showing his Commodore computers and unofficially representing the South West Regional Association of Programmers User Group, Now here where it gets interesting: next to Dave was Goat Store.com they were showing Feet of Fury for the DC and selling many others classic items. This brings us to Jagfest Area where Tom Legare had his whole display of Lynx of items on display as well as some Genesis items, a Virtual Boy and an Atari 10 in 1 system. Across from him and next to Bohus by the doors was yours truly running like a chicken with head cut off trying make sure people have paid for their admission to enter the main room. As well as showing my Jaguar games like Black Ice /White noise with instructions, Zero 5, Tempest 2k, Protector SE and Battle Sphere on the Jagfest area (Also being displayed was the various Jaguar and Lynx Press Releases) Also at the section was the entrance table which was also being used for the Atari classic section where I was showing various 2600 games like Supercharger games: Escape from the mind master, Sega Frogger, Phasor Patrol as well as the Fellowship of the rings game which was first shown at Jagfest 2002. Other 2600 games being shown was: Return of the Jedi Death Star Battle, Spiderman, Space Treat and Warring Worms.
Tourneys that was played were a Space Treat tourney which was won by Paul Zimmerman(the prize for that was Space Treat Deluxe and a Atari Age T-Shirt) the other Tourney being played was Protector SE tourney which was won by Dan "Goat Store" Loosen (the prize for that was a known at the Jagfest Prize package which consists of the following: an Atari Users Network T-shirt, a 30.00 Gift Certificate from Pack Rat Video games and a copy of Digital Press's Collectors Guide). Later on we had live music played by Bud Melvin who played his banjo accompanied by his color Game Boy, which every body enjoyed. (Around the beginning of the show I played some tunes from Weird Al Yankovic CD's on the Jag CD showing off VLM). I later on gave a copy of the collectors guide to Bud Melvin for him playing for free, another copy went to Tom L for him helping with the Jagfest area at VGS( I gave the Warring Worms MWC 2K2 edition and the Atari Age t-shirt to Rob M since he came in second in the Space Treat tourney). Not all prizes were given away due to low attendance, but everybody that showed up had fun.
(Force Designs (Terance Williams) was scheduled to attend but due to travel problems he couldn't make it) We did have one special guest at the show: Jeff Grimshaw who was the first organizer of Jagfest back in 1997 when it was held at Rosemont,IL. Plans are in the works to have another show next year at the same location. Special thanks go out to Bohus for helping with advertising and of course Jim Gobel (Inky) for starting the idea of the show in the first place. (The after the show gathering was canceled at the last minute, due to fact that it wasn't set up in time)
Click Here to see the Jagfest On tour site
Click Here to visit the Video Game Summit site