VCF East 3.0 wrap-up

Man am I tired... but man was that fun! Got home from the VCF East 3.0 about 45 minutes ago. The one-day event was a major success for our MARCH club (Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists.) We had more than 100 people attend today, with another 30-40 if you count the exhibitors, speakers, volunteers, and guests. The fun started Friday morning when I arrived at the venue at 7:30 for setting up. The first exhibitor arrived by about 8:30, followed by a delivery of tables from the local party rental shop. Other exhibitors trickled in throughout the day and there were several last-minute tasks to complete. A major task: the all-hands-on-deck unloading experience when Mike Ross arrived with four IBM big-iron computers estimated at 1,000 pounds each. Mike also brought his friend Henk all the way from Holland. Eight of us went to dinner at 8:00 at the hotel bar. A funny thing -- two or three times during dinner we had other people tentatively approach us and say, "You must be the VCF guys"... LOL, what gave it away, was it our pocket protectors? We hung in the bar until 1-ish when Sellam finally arrived from the airport after a few delays. Saturday, we again started at 7:30. The remaining exhibitors arrived -- 18 in total -- and at 9:30 we opened to the public and prayed thay anyone would actually come. They sure did! By 10:00 our venue was so full you could hardly walk through the aisles. The five guest speakers also had full rooms. The most popular speakers were Steve Lukasik who ran ARPA in the 1970s, and David Ahl who founded Creative Computing magazine and who drew a standing-room-only crowd. (We video recorded the lectures and we'll try to make them available soon.) We closed at 6:00. Usually the attendence at these shows dies at the end, but even after 5:00 and with many people in the lecture room, our exhibits area was still busy. Highlights of the judging process were Bill Degnan winning several categories and the Best-of-Show award for his display of very rare Commodore B-series computers, and Mike Loewen taking the People's Choice award for his demonstration of how to connect vintage computers to new ones. This was my fourth VCF and my favorite part isn't the computers, it's seeing old friends, meeting old virtual friends for the first time, amd making new friends completely. But what made me most proud as a first-time organizer was hearing from so many people who drove great distances just because they thought our show was cool. Everyone seemed to leave happy -- even Andy Molloy whose Apple IIe power supply burned up in the morning and whose Canon Cat wouldn't turn on in the afternoon -- and people encouraged us to reach for even higher goals next year. Many people took pictures. Please post them soon!! Thanks to everyone who attended, exhibited, and volunteered. You made our hard work extremely worthwhile. - Evan