Tour of SRGE: The Convention Center itself

The Seattle Retro Gaming Expo was held at the Seattle Convention Center. The same place as the Emerald City Comic Con (Eccleston or ECCC for short). Instead of the entire building, it was in one small area. The room itself was big enough for everything we wanted to do, and very nice to be in.

Before we go into a tour of the SRGE itself, we need to see the building itself. The staff is amazing, and deserves some praise. Also, the hall we had is not actually there.

The Washington State Convention Center -WSCC or SCC for short- is a very beautiful building. The bottom floor has restaurants and stores. Another floor has an entire art exhibit. There is plenty of space, and amazing designs. Even the parking has special designs.

As you can see, the path is the same color as the markers. If you go up a floor, the path is blue. It makes finding things really fast and efficient. They also have markers for every section. It was very easy to find my car.

I actually lost my parking stub, but because I had the parking validation ticket, they let me go. There were signs, and ways around this amazing parking lot design.

The people who work at the WSCC are also very nice and courteous.

This woman lives a few blocks down from the building, and walks to work every day. She gave me a hug when I lost my parking ticket. I made sure to ask if i could get her picture. She had great insights on how things worked within the building.

Other workers told me that they lock the bathrooms after a certain time. The building is open to anyone, and for the most part is ok. The few problem people cause a lot of trouble. A piece of art had been vandalized. Random strangers were just walking in, and out of the building the entire time I was there.

I know this sounds strange, but even the bathrooms in the building are amazing.

We all felt a bit awkward around the bathrooms because of how high class they were. Everything worked, and worked well. It felt like a piece of art was designed.

The area we had was really different. First off, it wasn’t really a section. The building itself was several giant warehouses.

As you can see, this is a huge room. In fact, one side of this room is where we unloaded game equipment from vans and trucks. The other side is where we had the convention. The areas are actually from walls that fold up into certain pillars.

It follows that little trail on the top, and becomes a solid wall.

The walls are moved onto the right tracks to create the area we had.

The WSCC is actually several buildings that interconnect through walkways, and make rooms, hallways, and convention areas. I figured this all out while loading stuff from one place to another. There is a maze of open rooms everywhere.

If you go into one of these conventions, you don’t really think about the people who work at the building itself. Really though, everyone is hardworking, and very kind. The building is designed to help you find everything easily. This includes things like parking, or where your area is. In fact, the area itself is just one giant warehouse. The walls, and rooms formed are from some pretty amazing curtains.

Next article I will talk about the inside of the convention, and what was where. Also, we will talk about what it took to set everything up.