Yes, the question really is as strange and seemingly trivial as the subject makes it sound. I need to know whether I can get a cheap 90-degree crescent table, for demonstrating at the Independent Gaming Explosion (2) at DexCon8.

I've posed the booth-design quandary in more detail here. Since my understanding of what you can buy in terms of card tables is limited to Google, I cannot answer the question myself. But I just find it hard to believe that nobody manufactures a crescent table to sell for less than hundreds of dollars. They don't strike me as that hard to make.

If anyone out there knows more than I do, I'd sure appreciate some advice. Even if it's just "The product you desire does not exist, give up."

...really, if you're needing something no bigger than a cardtable (except proportioned to the cresent), I can't see why you couldn't get one made yourself.
Off the top of my head, you'd need:

1) Brackets & Legs (should really be one piece), probably 6 to 8 such sets (two for each corner, of course, and some in the middle to stabalize)
2) surface material, probably a plywood or something. Depending on the size might recommend making 2 tables, each 1/4 arch that sit together.
3) padding, can pick that up nearly anywhere, a thin foam
4) a covering of some kind, possibly a plastic material, again probably not too hard to find.
5) Tools - Staple gun! For putting the foam and plastic on. Jigsaw, makes cutting your board easy.
6) Probably some kind of tape/craft tape (I KNOW its out there) to run along the edges, giving it a cleaner look, covers staples, surface edges etc.

Might want to paint the bottom like a black or other color blending with your surface material. Spent too many years in country 4-H: if we couldn't find it, we MADE it :D

As another DIY alternative, consider getting two small tables and cutting off a corner of each one. It won't be a crescent necessarily (since the tables are straight), but it should approximate one very closely and will probably be more stable than a single curved table would be. At small sizes, the difference between a curve and an angle should be pretty small.

It sounds like what you might be looking for is similar to a blackjack table (1/4, 1/3 of a circle)? You might be able to rent one fairly inexpensively from the same places that do so for church casino nights and such, perhaps purchase one similarly?

Tim Ryan

I've seen folding poker table tops as cheap as $60. They turn a standard card table into a larger hex... Would something like that work?

Tony,
not to be a dick or anything, but why do we need the extra hassles of custom tables for our demos? Shouldn't we be concentrating on the basics like a demo schedule, volunteers, menu of games/scenarios?

-L

Sounds like a damn fine idea. Can I note you down as coordinator for one of those invaluable preparation and organization tasks?

Tony,

Bed, Bath & Beyond has a folding outdoor bar set in their current advertising circular that might meet your needs. I tried to find it on their website, but no luck. So a scan is here:

http://www.123.net/~czege/foldingbar.jpg

You can see it here as well, in the photo of their portable canopy:

http://www.123.net/~czege/foldingbar2.jpg

At the very least, if it's too big or something, the design seems very slick and buildable.

Paul