SC3 Nov. 9, 2024 - The Backyard Awakens!
It's good to be back. In the backyard, that is. After regretfully having to cancel last year's backyard party, 2024 saw true return to SC3 form. Our previous backyard party was all the way back in 2022, not long after the world emerged from the COVID pandemic. At that time, many people were still understandably cautious, limiting their outside contact. Nevertheless, attendance at that event was a respectable 120 people.
Flash forward two years and our RSVP count more than doubled that! We don't mind telling you, we were sweating a bit after receiving 250 RSVPs. Would the backyard hold that many? Would there be enough pizza? Would fistfights break out over who got to play Professor Pac-Man next? It was a nail-biter for sure.
We needn't have worried, because the backyard was up to the task. As usual, not every RSVP showed up (real life happens, we get it) but around 200 people did make the journey to Claremont, lured by the siren song of arcade cabs and Saturn Bomberman. That's quite the crowd, but we managed. Thankfully we had lots of help. Big thanks go out to Paul (the Pulse) for bringing the 3DO, Virtual Boy and multicarts; Jay F. for lending us some arcade cabs; Sean and Lorraine for food-service duty; Rik for setting up some of his vintage tabletops; William D. for bringing his Neo Geo 50; and Carlos L. for organizing and running the raffle! We were thrilled to see the raffle return, as were many of our attendees. Hope you won something good!
We'd like to give a special shout-out to Clark P., who ran around for three days doing everything from loading arcade cabinets onto a truck, to setting up tables, to sawing off a tree limb that was getting in the way, then to fixing the arcade machines he'd just helped move. Many of you may have seen him with a flashlight, waist-deep in the Joust cabinet, fighting to bring it back to life. If you were able to saddle up your ostrich and lance some buzzard-riders on Saturday, you have Sir Clark to thank.
This event marked the first time we issued meal tickets and restricted the amount of food per attendee. This wasn't our preference, but food prices (well, all prices) have marched ever upward, and we had to do something to rein in expenses. Your donations keep SC3 going; we appreciate every one of them, and we really don't want to ask people to contribute more than we already do. But boy, did you come through! It's not unusual for a couple folks to chip in a bit more than the suggested $10, but this time it felt like a lot more people donated a little extra. Thanks to all of you, the food, electricity and equipment rentals were completely covered. Thanks for that. And thanks for being so understanding about the need for a meal-ticket system. It energizes us to keep putting SC3 together, knowing that we have such great attendees who appreciate all that goes into it.
So, thanks again and hopefully there will be no unforeseen circumstances or global medical emergencies interfering with the next SC3, which has yet to be announced but will likely happen around April 2025. We hope to see you there, and in the meantime, keep gaming!
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