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Cube Tower West 2025: A Conference Evaluation
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 lovers from throughout the globe.
Evaluation:
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 12 months. Whereas I used to be not in attendance final 12 months, everybody I spoke to raved in regards to the enchancment in venue for 2025.
The Venue:
The Westgate Resort is expansive, if a bit dated. Many issues all through the resort, on line casino, sportsbook and conference heart did present the age of the historic venue. That mentioned, the expansive house lent itself very effectively to the conference general.
The reception space was a bit complicated, with two desks for “test in”, one which allowed you to get your badge and any merchandise you may need picked up and one other for attendees to seize a program, a branded buying bag and a lanyard supplied by All Play. The 2 test in desks have 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 non-public VIP occasions. This room can be thought of a big convention room had it existed anyplace else, however on this format, was the smallest room within the venue. This made it an applicable sized space for the non-public occasions it will play host to.
Turning the nook from the test in “lobby” led to an extended hallway that performed host to visitors by way 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 customary 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 fashionable 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 players that shopped all through the weekend and now wanted to determine how they have 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 might 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 recreation library, the play to win library and the Scorching Sport Zone. These areas have been extremely fashionable all weekend lengthy.
Passing by way of the principle corridor led to a meals court docket space that had entry to an out of doors courtyard the place attendees might step out for some recent air and a snack. Whereas it will be exhausting to say that any meals throughout the resort was a great worth, the meals court docket did provide some choices that have been rather less costly, at the least.
The ultimate room was previous the meals court docket, and was additionally very talked-about 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 event play space and bordered by a small, by comparability, vendor space the place attendees might store for video games and equipment.
The Nice:
Looking on the really nice issues Cube Tower did just isn’t precisely straightforward. A lot of the conference was executed very, very effectively.
The Test-In Course of
So typically this course of is ignored by conventions as only a needed evil that exists. Whereas the double desk setup was a bit complicated, visitors was persistently flowing and simple to navigate. The employees within the space have been effectively knowledgeable and did an important job of offering the knowledge wanted for players to get their weekend began off on the suitable foot.
Scorching Sport Zone
Simply probably the most populated space always, the Scorching Sport Zone was an space of the conference setup with gaming tables and a number of the hottest video games of 2024-2025. The video games have been already on the desk, absolutely setup to start out play. Attendees have been invited to take a seat down, learn the rule books and bounce proper right into a recreation. As players completed their playthroughs, they might reset the sport to the place to begin for the following group to get began. All of it had a pleasant movement to it and the tables have been persistently full it doesn’t matter what time you handed by way of.
The Sport Library
Most any conference desires 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 pals or search gamers and/or lecturers to hitch them for a spherical or two. It took no time to comprehend that the crown jewel of this conference was the completely large recreation library accessible 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 have been accessible for folks to take a seat down and discover ways to play. It was exhausting to go greater than an hour with out overhearing somebody touch upon how nice their expertise was with a recreation being taught to them within the Demo Zone.
The Good:
The Folks
Total, the folks that converged on Las Vegas for this present have been a extremely nice bunch of individuals. It was straightforward to navigate video games with full strangers. Folks would randomly provide a educate of a recreation when you seemed such as you have been struggling. Others have been more than pleased to speak up players at tables to debate the sport they have been enjoying and ask their suggestions. A crowd this dimension goes to have a number of points it doesn’t matter what you do and there was proof of sore losers at event tables and basic dangerous attitudes all through. The nice far outweighed the dangerous right here, although.
The Venue
As defined above, the Westgate was an important house for the scale of the group of players that attended. It was straightforward to maneuver round and never really feel overly crowded, even throughout the busiest occasions of the present. That mentioned, the age of the venue confirmed itself all through the weekend as effectively. This included the bogs 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 seek out working restrooms.
The Dangerous:
Play To Win
Much like a recreation library, most conventions draw the folks in with guarantees of free video games that they will win whereas additionally making an attempt 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 appeared 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 scorching video games, older video games that sat on the shelf a lot 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 recreation 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 Purchasing
Conventions which might be constructed for gaming will typically downplay the seller space. A present of this dimension appeared odd to have such a small, and truthfully underwhelming, space of things for buy. The really evident miss was that the video games situated within the Scorching Video games Zone have 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 the rest supplied by the Westgate have been much more inflated than what most individuals anticipated from an occasion corresponding to this one. It was the excitement of the weekend irrespective of who you talked to, a $16 standard-sized scorching canine was not pleasing anybody. If you weren’t staying within the resort, providing you with the power to carry meals to your room that you could possibly then sneak away to for a meal, you have been left on the mercy of a really costly meals invoice on the finish of the day.
Ultimate Ideas:
This was a effectively finished 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 finished all through.
Massive conventions should not at all times the “finest” conventions from an expertise level. That mentioned, Cube Tower had sufficient going for it that the majority any gamer would discover one thing they would really get pleasure from, ought to they resolve to attend.
Congrats to the employees, volunteers and staff that pulled collectively to make Cube Tower 2025 work on so many ranges. It’s positively a conference I’ll carry on my listing of reveals I need to proceed to attend sooner or later.
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