There are pros and cons to HashTag Arena (HT). First allow me to address the 1 stars I'm giving them, and then I'll address the 4 stars I didn't.
HT is in a great location and has great space set aside for gaming. It seems like approximately 75% is designated for gaming, while the remaining 25% is retail and concessions. The young man who attends the concession area (food and drink) is always friendly and attentive to customers, going above and beyond for them.
Now for the 4 stars I'm NOT giving them. The overall quality of HT has drastically declined over the past several month, my best guess is that it's due to a change in management that took place early this summer along with what seems to be much of the staff. Since then the quality of the customer service and concession offerings has drastically declined, their ability to keep basic items in stock is surprisingly poor and the variety of offerings was quite limited. There were often unexplained delays in "restocking" the weekly D&D Adventurer's League (AL) tables to allow players to sign up, adding to the frequent difficulty in securing a seat at a table (I'll admit the QUANTITY of seats available is not their doing, but is limited to the number of DMs available to run a game on a given night, all volunteer), but there were often delays.
However, my biggest issue resulted from a recent event. As it turns out, while they claim to have a zero tolerance for discrimination of any form, that policy does not seem to apply to discrimination against cisgender heterosexuals. AL DMs offer an opportunity to identify pronouns on session sign-in sheets and recently introduced name tags. It's great that they offer that option for individuals who are non-binary and who use gender-neutral pronouns. However, when I politely declined to include my pronouns on my name tag, two individuals who DM regularly filed a complaint and I was promptly told by HT I was no long welcome at their establishment; providing only a vague and dismissive "explanation." Not only did HT condone this discriminatory behavior, they actively supported it by banning me with no effort to obtain my perspective, nor look into the TRUE circumstances that occurred last week. Be warned when attending an event at this game, if there is someone who expects you to conform to their non-conformity, you may likewise be banned without warning or explanation.
Separately, several weeks ago, while attempting to check-in for D&D AL, I learned that when I'd attempted to purchase my seat for the evening, there had been what I later figured out was a technical issue on my end. During the exchange the individual helping me behind the counter offered several insulting insinuations about what might have happened, and both were incorrect. read more