Messen Origin Story - Tom G.
On the road to Spiel this year, Sarah reminded me about the first Messen event. I had forgotten.
2023 was the first ‘convention-like’ event, however it wasn’t the first Messen. Proto-Messen appeared in 2022. Sarah & I, as with many people, were ready to get out of a post-pandemic house. We decided to travel the world and stop off at Spiel along the way. Travel felt risky, but manageable. The vaccines were very good at abating the worst of COVID by then. I remember the feeling of relief when I received the first shots at a UW Medicine hospital near us.
We decided to see Prague (inspired by Praga), Budapest, Southern Alps jaunt, finishing in the Ruhr valley in Essen for Spiel. To prep for weeks of travel and adventures, we started urban hiking around Seattle for about 8-10 miles a day for months leading up to the trip. We deadlifted slightly full suit cases to tone up our upper body. Imagine a boring Rocky-gets-stronger montage (Pretty sure our neighbors quite enjoyed our strange antics in the front yard.) The adventures and Spiel 2022 were pretty exhilarating and completely changed our dining room (different story).
That year, we brought back a few gems: Revive, Tiletum, Woodcraft, Atiwa, Discordia, Kingdom Defenders, Findoorff, Pilgrim, Come Together, Rise (aka track madness), The Great Split, Bonfire, and a few others. Revive was by far my favorite game that year. My friend and Messen community member Scott C. clued me in on it, but I was down on it before we left. Funnily enough, we mutually convinced each other to reverse our decisions–I added it to my list, and he dropped his pre-order. We didn’t discover what happened for several months after. Sorry, Scott C., you were right!
At Spiel in 2022, we briefly met Uwe Rosenberg & Stephan Feld. Each surprisingly tall. The convention was subdued, but it was clear Spiel was alive & well.
That year Spiel was in early October, so we were back by mid-October. Everything on hand for a proto-Messen. Well, everything but one. Our friends and early Messen community. So I set about creating events. Looking at my calendar we held a three day Messen 11 - 13 November 2022 at our house. We also hosted little pop up events at Blue Highway Games. This is the true origin of the Messen Community and the Annual Community Event (ACE). I indeed considered it a mini-Essen, but dropped the rationale the next year. I just like the word Messen.
Messen did not leap up fully formed, but progressed through a series of learnings, experiments, and clarification of mission over the last four years.
At first, I wanted to host a cool event with fun friends. Then it became more about forming a community of awesome people. Now I see Messen and its ancillary events as forming connections between people at its core, which in turn creates community.
Messen will continue to change and grow. Currently Messen is a Community, a spin-off business called Messen Events, a charity event, boardgame yard sale, and quite a few other things. What could it be in the next four years? What are your thoughts? Post them in the Messen Discord, I would love to read about them.
