But -- honest, non-snarky question -- do conventiongoers end up loving classic, under-represented games? I think, eventually, some convention hosts can get to be a "brand", and whatever they put under their banner can get some eyeballs.
I'm lucky to be a part of one of those "brands" known for quality programming at our home con and cons throughout the greater Toronto area. To answer your question, some of them get more eyeballs than others, to be sure. A decade ago,
Press Your Luck was a dormant franchise whose most recent revival on cable bore little resemblance to the original program on which it was based. Doing it over the course of a few years grew the audience, and people in the audience got used to the fun of chanting and offering advice to the players on stage.
I'm also lucky in that our team gets to use a smaller, one-night-only "baby sister" convention as something of a testing ground for gauging audience reactions to those under-the-radar game shows. In the last year pre-COVID, I had almost 100 people in the audience (a near-full room) for a game of
Whew! in which the players couldn't read the bloopers on-screen, with the Gauntlet rendered as 10 numbered arches. We're still talking about bringing it back to the main convention.
