I visited my second VCF of 2026 this past week. VCF PNW was hosted just south of Seattle conveniently near the airport. I attended day two of the event and by the sounds of it, the first day was really busy and cramped. The venue was a community center area with enough room for close to 30 exhibits. They had close to 800 attendees come through the first day and it sounds like they had enough interest to grow the event next year to somewhere with more capacity.
The vibe of the event was a little odd. I don't want to be overly critical, but I found that I had to pace myself and take a break outside if I was waiting for a particular booth to become clear enough to have a conversation with the exhibitor. I think additional space and more exhibits will better balance out the crowds. The "demand" was greater than the "supply" this year. What struck me was the quality of some of the exhibits. There were machines I've never seen before or even knew about which is amazing for this size of an event. If they can keep up with this momentum and continue to scale keeping this level of quality, I think it'll be a solid show for vintage computer enthusiasts on the West Coast.
As I did with my visit to VCF SoCal, I went up to unsuspecting exhibits and basically did a version of "what is the most interesting thing about one of these computers?" I find that exhibitors are usually eager to talk about what makes a particular computer unique or the story of how a very rare item came into their possession.
I have three very interesting computers that I learned about. The first was a Sharp X68030 from the early 90's which I did not know existed. The Japanese computer has a very unique dual tower design with a retractable handle. It was a very powerful gaming computer for the time. It was equipped with a Yamaha sound chip and played arcade-quality ports. Capcom and SNK used it as a development machine for creating games.
The other machines were a interesting portables. One, a AA-battery powered 486 HP Omnibook 425 with a pop-out mouse and the other, a very small Japanese market IBM ThinkPad with a Pentium III.
While I was out in Seattle I visited Re-PC just south of downtown Seattle. They had a wide selection of old computers, cards, cables, and peripherals. It may not be the best place for bargain hunting, but I would certainly keep them in mind if I was looking for hard to find items for a particular project. Other folks that visited VCF PNW had posted photos on social media of Re-PC's Kent location which had a wider selection of systems. I would suspect that anything highly desirable would be snagged quickly especially around the time of VCF PNW.