We enjoyed this Fest more than any of the others, since we hosted the event last year. You can’t imagine how many hours go into preparing for such an occasion. Many strange thoughts enter your mind, like — maybe no one will show up, the weather will be terrible, or not enough people will stay at the hotel,… etc., etc.
The hotel in Waukesha was comfortable, except we got a room on the top (4th) floor without air conditioner; the weather was cool enough that it wasn’t noticed until Saturday afternoon; too late for the management to get it fixed. At least the window actually could be opened a little. Too bad about that thunderstorm that got the carpet a bit wet. (It dried out before we left). The food in the hotel restaurant was very good, especially for a Holiday Inn.
SMUG had arranged for a large meeting room, and it would have been “just right” if every user group and vendor expected had actually attended. Eric Johnson from Florida had a car breakdown en route, and was missed. Sharp’s and our “own” Tom Bent were missed; Zebra had 3 tables manned by SMUG members; he had sent a load of merchandise for them to sell, on consignment. Apparently he still has a lot of stuff to sell; we thought the prices were a bit high for this to be a “clearance” sale, but there were plenty of bargins for those who knew what they wanted. There was no last minute sell-out Sunday afternoon, which was a result of everything being pre-priced. I bought an “as-is” 1500 for $5, which later needed only a new Z-80 to make it work! (I later thought that the ones marked “bad keyboard” were a safer buy…everything else must work before a bad membrane is detectable, right?) .
Frank Davis along with his wife Carol were selling merchandise and talking up renewals for the “New” UPDATE magazine they plan to be publishing.
Paul Holmgren had a table selling parts for the QL and disks for the Quanta Library; Paul is now the librarian in the U.S. for the Quanta Library, and has a “Library Guide” disk for sale. The Library has been reorganized by topics, and takes more disks now as a result.
Peter Hale and Bill Cable had their wares ready for sale or ready to make up whatever the customer knew he wanted.
The only user groups, besides the host, S. M. U. G. were the Chicago Area, Cleveland, Dayton, and CATS.
S.M.U.G. had “flea market”. All merchandise was from their group. We picked up all we could comfortably carry back without splitting the suitcases!
Bill Heberlein had enough door prizes for everyone who attended to win one. The last ticket stub in the bag at the end of the day Sunday won the BIG prize, a video digitizer for the 2068. (the SMUG group sells the completed unit for 50 or 60 dollars, tested and ready to use). I think the big winner was a man from the Cleveland group.
We stayed until the very end, and then drove the rental car north of Milwaukee and stopped at Port Washington for a really delicious meal of “whitefish” at the Smith Brothers Restaurant, which is right on Lake Michigan. Thanks, Bill, for the recommendation!
We drove on to Oshkosh and took in the EAA museum on Monday, which is comparable to the Air and Space Museum here in D.C.. EAA has a better collection of small airplanes; for an extra 2 dollar donation you are allowed (alone!) inside a flyable B-17. All displays are indoors! It looks like the 1991 FEST will be in the Chicago area.
Many thanks to the S.M.U.G. group. We in particular can appreciate their efforts!