Shrink Wrap and Van Runs: Meet The Teardown Squad
What goes up . . .
Every year at Gen Con we aim to give fans even more than the year before, and this year was certainly no exception. You can see a gallery and video this year’s terrific Gen Con 2023 booth right here.
Of course, all that cool stuff makes for a lot of fun during the convention — and a lot of work during set up and teardown! In fact, our booth is much more complicated than it used to be, and our elite team(s) of breakdance breakdown artists had to tear down all of those fixtures, pack away the books, disassemble a Ziggurat (!), put away two obelisks, stash a doom gong, haul off three vintagely heavy pinball machines, and burn rubber in a temperamental Wizard Van. In short, it’s a phenomenally busy task to get all this cool stuff there-and-back-again.
In reality, we had three teams of movers and shakers to take care of all aspects of our teardown at Gen Con 2023:
There was the main teardown squad of Goodman Games staff and volunteers who broke down the booth, Ziggurat, Obelisks, fixtures, racks, tables AND put all of those books on palettes for transport. What’s amazing is they did it in only three record-setting (and air-conditionless) hours! You have to wonder where they’re going to put it all . . .
Of course, we also had the new addition of some sweet classic pinball machines at the booth this year. And one thing about the old school cool of pinball machines . . . they are also old school heavy. To shift these 250 pound brutes around, we called upon a brute squad of our own!
But it took an actual Wizard to navigate the Wizard Van back to its final destination. Wayne Snyder set a record of his own by piloting the Van for a full two hours through some heavy phlogiston before the transmission imploded!
A huge thank you to everyone involved with this very work-intensive task! Of course, the other half of the teardown equation is tucking all of this great stuff away for its next appearance. No one seemed eager to volunteer their basements, so where exactly did it all go?
On that topic, we promise that more is yet to be revealed . . .
To check out last year’s teardown gallery, click here. And don’t miss any of our Gen Con 2023 Con and post-Con coverage!
