Not the Shindig…But Close!

23 hours ago
2 min read

As Syracuse gets ready for another Shindig marathon practice session with players from out of town converging on the Fun Warehouse this week for some social SM5 time and pre-Nats practice, a few of us had a smaller-scale gathering this weekend.

Nothing formal, but the perks of membership (which we can call part of “member appreciation month”) are that when we heard some visiting members from a former downstate site wanted to play we were able to pull together a group of local (and less local) FWH members for an all day tag experience that we normally wouldn’t get to have on a weekend. It was a really nice time to play with some new and familiar faces.

The majority of the day was dedicated to SM5 games (with a few special formats mixed in) with our group alternating against standard public games. This was ideal for socializing in between while getting everyone some less intense practice time. Sometimes it’s hard to pull together games that are truly just for fun and learning (let’s face it, not everyone can turn off the competitive button), but that’s what this evening was…just fun. I actually kind of enjoy SM5 when we play it like this! ;)

Because many of us travel for tag, a few Syracuse players had been down to Kynytyx in the past and now we had some of their members checking out our arena, which is the way I think a tag scene should be. We enjoyed some games…then really enjoyed some pizza. After eight hours of tag we were hungry!

I was discussing my tag experiences with our visitors, comparing how the environment in some centers is just “buy your game, play, the end” versus what it’s like to be part of a laser tag community like we are fortunate enough to have in Syracuse. When I played tag in Utah a couple of weeks ago I was welcomed as a visiting member in much the same way because we are all part of something bigger than just the walls where we play. I often compare it to Cheers, where everybody knows your name…or if they don’t, at least they know your code name!