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Cube Tower West 2025: A Conference Assessment
When: March 5-9, 2025
The place: Westgate Lodge in Las Vegas
Conference
From the Cube Tower West:
Be part of us for 5 days of continuous gaming, unique previews, and epic tournaments within the coronary heart of Las Vegas. Whether or not you’re an informal participant or a aggressive gamer, Cube Tower West has one thing for everybody. Get able to play, uncover, and rejoice the perfect in board gaming with different fanatics from throughout the globe.
Assessment:
Cube Tower West, one of many largest board gaming conventions in the US, takes place yearly in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2025 version of the present was held from March 5-9 on the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and On line casino.
The Westgate was a brand new location for this present as Cube Tower relocated from the Rio Lodge and On line casino the earlier yr. Whereas I used to be not in attendance final yr, everybody I spoke to raved concerning the enchancment in venue for 2025.
The Venue:
The Westgate Resort is expansive, if a bit dated. Many issues all through the lodge, on line casino, sportsbook and conference heart did present the age of the historic venue. That stated, the expansive house lent itself very effectively to the conference total.
The reception space was a bit complicated, with two desks for “examine in”, one which allowed you to get your badge and any merchandise you might need picked up and one other for attendees to seize a program, a branded procuring bag and a lanyard offered by All Play. The 2 examine in desks had been housed in a big corridor that by no means felt crowded, even throughout excessive visitors occasions.
A room simply off this corridor was used for numerous personal VIP occasions. This room could be thought of a big convention room had it existed anyplace else, however on this structure, was the smallest room within the venue. This made it an acceptable sized space for the personal occasions it might play host to.
Turning the nook from the examine in “lobby” led to an extended hallway that performed host to visitors by means of some essential rooms. The primary of those rooms, a a lot bigger convention room, was used for numerous panels all through the weekend, together with opening evening celebrations and first timer orientations. Simply down the corridor from there was the primary, and smallest, open play space. I discovered this room to be a reasonably commonplace sized room for a gaming conference. Loads of room to play with massive, spherical tables dominating the center of the room with six-foot lengthy tables lining the perimeter. This room was later used for the gamer-to-gamer flea market, simply one of the in style occasions of the present.
A advantage of the Westgate was discovered on the finish of this corridor as a full service FedEx workplace sat ready for touring avid gamers that shopped all through the weekend and now wanted to determine how they had been going to get their loot residence of their baggage.
Throughout the corridor from these rooms was the principle convention room for the weekend. This room was setup for open gaming so far as the attention may see for two-thirds of the room. The opposite third of the room was arguably the star of the present. On this third of the room was the large sport library, the play to win library and the Scorching Recreation Zone. These areas had been extremely in style all weekend lengthy.
Passing by means of the principle corridor led to a meals courtroom space that had entry to an outside courtyard the place attendees may step out for some recent air and a snack. Whereas it might be laborious to say that any meals inside the resort was an excellent worth, the meals courtroom did supply some choices that had been rather less costly, no less than.
The ultimate room was previous the meals courtroom, and was additionally highly regarded all through the weekend. A few of this room was used for open play, however the majority of the room was dominated by an expansive Demo Zone run by Envoy. This was coupled with Double Publicity’s match play space and bordered by a small, by comparability, vendor space the place attendees may store for video games and equipment.
The Nice:
Having a look on the really nice issues Cube Tower did is just not precisely straightforward. A lot of the conference was executed very, very effectively.
The Examine-In Course of
So usually this course of is neglected by conventions as only a mandatory evil that exists. Whereas the double desk setup was a bit complicated, visitors was persistently flowing and straightforward to navigate. The employees within the space had been effectively knowledgeable and did an incredible job of offering the knowledge wanted for avid gamers to get their weekend began off on the suitable foot.
Scorching Recreation Zone
Simply essentially the most populated space always, the Scorching Recreation Zone was an space of the conference setup with gaming tables and among the hottest video games of 2024-2025. The video games had been already on the desk, totally setup to start out play. Attendees had been invited to take a seat down, learn the rule books and soar proper right into a sport. As avid gamers completed their playthroughs, they might reset the sport to the start line for the subsequent group to get began. All of it had a pleasant circulation to it and the tables had been persistently full it doesn’t matter what time you handed by means of.
The Recreation Library
Most any conference needs their library to be the main target of the present. Folks present up to take a look at video games and take them to a desk the place they are going to play with buddies or search gamers and/or academics to hitch them for a spherical or two. It took no time to understand that the crown jewel of this conference was the completely huge sport library obtainable for all all through the weekend.
Demo Zone
Simply one of many largest areas of Demo video games at any conference, this space was put aside for Envoy to function demos. Supported largely by their spectacular group of Heralds, video games of all shapes, sizes, complexity and mechanics had been obtainable for folks to take a seat down and learn to play. It was laborious to go greater than an hour with out overhearing somebody touch upon how nice their expertise was with a sport being taught to them within the Demo Zone.
The Good:
The Folks
Total, the folks that converged on Las Vegas for this present had been a extremely nice bunch of individuals. It was straightforward to navigate video games with full strangers. Folks would randomly supply a train of a sport should you regarded such as you had been struggling. Others had been more than pleased to talk up avid gamers at tables to debate the sport they had been enjoying and ask their suggestions. A crowd this measurement goes to have a number of points it doesn’t matter what you do and there was proof of sore losers at match tables and basic unhealthy attitudes all through. The great far outweighed the unhealthy right here, although.
The Venue
As defined above, the Westgate was an incredible house for the scale of the group of avid gamers that attended. It was straightforward to maneuver round and never really feel overly crowded, even through the busiest occasions of the present. That stated, the age of the venue confirmed itself all through the weekend as effectively. This included the loos within the convention heart ending up out of order for a number of hours on Saturday evening, inflicting folks to must traverse the massive heart to get again to the on line casino space to search out working restrooms.
The Unhealthy:
Play To Win
Much like a sport library, most conventions draw the folks in with guarantees of free video games that they’ll win whereas additionally attempting them out for the primary time. The Play-To-Win library is a trademark of a conference and the larger it’s the higher. Regardless of what gave the impression to be a conference constructed on being larger and higher than any others, the Play To Win library was underwhelming at finest. Single copies of sizzling video games, older video games that sat on the shelf many of the weekend with out being checked out and a paltry displaying of shelf house offset by it’s placement within the midst of the large sport library all mixed to have many individuals merely shrug it off and proceed enjoying video games they introduced with them or discovered within the library.
The Buying
Conventions which can be constructed for gaming will usually downplay the seller space. A present of this measurement appeared odd to have such a small, and actually underwhelming, space of things for buy. The really evident miss was that the video games situated within the Scorching Video games Zone had been nowhere to be discovered for buy by any of the distributors. It appeared odd and disconnected from the remainder of the present.
The Costs
Meals, snacks, drinks and anything offered by the Westgate had been much more inflated than what most individuals anticipated from an occasion reminiscent of this one. It was the thrill of the weekend regardless of who you talked to, a $16 standard-sized sizzling canine was not pleasing anybody. If you weren’t staying within the lodge, supplying you with the power to deliver meals to your room that you possibly can then sneak away to for a meal, you had been left on the mercy of a really costly meals invoice on the finish of the day.
Ultimate Ideas:
This was a effectively accomplished conference that was largely effectively executed and hit on some very key factors. The gaming, which is the place the main target ought to lie, was a focus that was considerably effectively accomplished all through.
Giant conventions aren’t at all times the “finest” conventions from an expertise level. That stated, Cube Tower had sufficient going for it that almost all any gamer would discover one thing they would actually get pleasure from, ought to they determine to attend.
Congrats to the employees, volunteers and staff that pulled collectively to make Cube Tower 2025 work on so many ranges. It’s undoubtedly a conference I’ll carry on my record of reveals I need to proceed to attend sooner or later.
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