UPDATE! GenCon 2015 Planning Thread - We're good to go, see you in a month

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Hello and welcome to this year's GenCon planning thread.

Today sees the opening of the bloody, hand-to-hand fight that is the housing... system. I wish every last one of you good luck. I'll see you on the other side.

This year is going to be special for the Gamers With Jobs community, because for the first time ever we're going to have our own, official playspace. And it's being sponsored.

I can't say who our sponsors are at this time, because I'm still dotting the Is and crossing the Ts as it were. Suffice to say, we have a spot to play for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. It's in once again in the Hilton.

More details to follow, but please feel free to mingle below.

Update: Our sponsors are Ironwall Games, Plaid Hat Games, and Cards Against Humanity. You can expect some schmoozing, some demos and maybe, *maybe* some free sh*t.

Update 6/29: We're all set folks! We'll be on the 10th floor of the Hilton, linked above. If you're planning on attending post here. It should be a great time.

I AM GOING TO GENCON THIS YEAR

*ahem*

Sorry, the flight costs from the UK to Indy in August are usually astronomical and I've never been able to justify it before. This year me soon to be sister-in-law is getting married in Vegas in July - it seemed rude not to take the opportunity to finally do Gencon whilst I was over.

Excited!

Trying to crunch numbers to see if I can make this happen.

Man, I've never been to GenCon, but I may have to make this my inaugural year!

For the first time ever, I plan on going to GenCon, now wether I can get the funds together or not, is a different story. I will be there with my friends who own the mech warrior pods, working a shift each day at the pods, so make sure to come find me, and come play They know me as Stormy.

I'd love to go to GenCon but I haven't made an out-of-town con in close to 20 years. (Long story.) I really need to try to make it this year.

tanstaafl wrote:

I'd love to go to GenCon but I haven't made an out-of-town con in close to 20 years. (Long story.) I really need to try to make it this year.

You totally should! Delta does a direct ATL > IND that currently runs a bit less than $250 and hotels would be cheap(er) if you manage to get in on one this Sunday.

It looks like I'm going to GenCon! I've never gone before, but I decided it was time. I'm bringing my 13-year old son with me, and he's excited.

Now to figure out housing.

Aristophan wrote:

It looks like I'm going to GenCon! I've never gone before, but I decided it was time. I'm bringing my 13-year old son with me, and he's excited.

Now to figure out housing.

Don't forget tickets (in a few months) too. Once events are up you'll want to plan out at least a couple if you want to get into the popular ones. Wandering around with generics and/or playing board games is still fun but sometimes you just want that ONE game.

I'll be at gencon as usual and I'll have loads of free time this year as the group I usually go with will not attend.

bnpederson wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

I'd love to go to GenCon but I haven't made an out-of-town con in close to 20 years. (Long story.) I really need to try to make it this year.

You totally should! Delta does a direct ATL > IND that currently runs a bit less than $250 and hotels would be cheap(er) if you manage to get in on one this Sunday.

Why this Sunday?

And airfare isn't a problem really. I worked for Delta for 16 years. I get cheap fares.

tanstaafl wrote:
bnpederson wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

I'd love to go to GenCon but I haven't made an out-of-town con in close to 20 years. (Long story.) I really need to try to make it this year.

You totally should! Delta does a direct ATL > IND that currently runs a bit less than $250 and hotels would be cheap(er) if you manage to get in on one this Sunday.

Why this Sunday?

And airfare isn't a problem really. I worked for Delta for 16 years. I get cheap fares. :)

Hah, nice. And I say Sunday because tomorrow is the first day the hotel registration through Gen-Con is open. They have pretty good deals on various hotels thanks to blocking a ton of rooms but it's first come first serve and you have to have pre-purchased a ticket already to get in, so it's hectic and often hard to find a room.

But because it's a well known convention all the hotels bump the rest of their rooms up to the highest rate possible during the convention time. I'm talking $300+/night for a Courtyard kinda prices if you want to be downtown. If you're willing to drive/bus/commute with others you can get a cheaper hotel outside of downtown and if you know someone in Indianapolis willing to let you crash you're golden. But hotels are by far the biggest cost of every convention I've ever gone to, well above the plane flight, tickets or incidentals (often combined).

Boom. Booked into the Hilton Indianapolis Friday to Monday

Same, though for Wednesday through Sunday.

One ticket to Gen Con about $90, experience, hopefully priceless... sadly the hotel is around $900, lol.

Man, what's plasma going for these days anyway....

OK, just registered. Now looking at hotels. Those things aren't cheap and all the ones near the convention center are gone.

So, either get one downtown a few blocks away or get one further out to save $50/night and trust the shuttle or rental car. Decisions, decisions.

I was able to get in at about 10:15. I got the other Hilton (Garden Inn), which is a few blocks further away, but in the same general direction as the GWJ Hilton room.

Bah. Two of the hotels I was looking at booked up as I was looking. Just grabbed one further out. Figure I'll be at the con most of the time anyway; I'll just deal with their shuttle.

Staying at the Courtyard by Marriott Airport. 7 miles out but I can deal with it. Probably quieter there at night anyway.

Coming in on Wednesday and leaving Sunday.

We're still in the housing queue, and our window doesn't open for another 90 minutes >:(

Got our two rooms, we're stuck at a Hampton Inn a few blocks away. Worse, the system simply refused to allow us to book Tuesday night - at any hotel. So Trade Day starts first thing Wednesday morning, but apparently they didn't think to include Tuesday night as an option?

Not terribly happy with the new and improved system. Yeah, the frantic F5 fest of the last few years was a pain in the butt, but at least it worked.

Being I'm less the two hours away I think it's high time my family and I get out to GenCon. Now to make the plans.

Still got 45 minutes to go until our window, and after seeing reports on Twitter that "all of downtown is booked", I went out and booked directly at the Courtyard Northwest. Doing Wednesday to Monday makes it a 5 night stay, and got us a $30/night discount off the regular/block rate, and it's a hotel that's on the shuttle line.

Still waiting through the queue to see if we can do better, but we'll see how it goes.

I've been wanting to go to this but didn't know when all the ticket stuff when down. Sounds like it's a little insane?

Buying a badge is pretty easy and straightforward. It's the housing (which happened yesterday) is insane. Everyone tries for the downtown rooms, but there aren't enough for everyone so many people (like me) are stuck with driving in from the suburbs every day. Also the event registration (May 17th) can get a little crazy as many of the popular events sell out pretty quick. It's a great event though assuming you don't mind huge crowds. I think last year's attendance was around 48,000.

And after reassessing finances, I decided to give it a miss this year. Maybe (hopefully) next year?

TheWanderer wrote:

Cards Against Humanity

*maybe* some free sh*t.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/65OpSb1.gif)

(Not going this year, but I'd like to check GenCon out one of these times. Have fun everyone!)

Yeah, the badges never sell out, but the downtown room block definitely does.

The downtown block prices are about half the rate of the off-block rates, because the hotels are already a) at capacity and b) gouging people who buy off-block.

For one night in an off-block room downtown, I was able to book 5 nights out in the 'burbs. My wife isn't too happy about it, because she likes being able to go back to the room for a quick nap some days, but I'm also not laying down $500/night for hotels.

Meanwhile, we also decided to go to Origins this year, as a friend won his way into the Star Trek Attack Wing Nationals tournament that will be held there. It feels like a totally different mindset, because I started seeing grumblings about the "good" hotels being sold out already, and when I looked, "good" at Origins meant "cheapest". It's like their housing block fills from the outside in, while GenCon goes inside out.

If you don't mind taking the shuttle or driving 8-12 miles into downtown everyday, you're still good.

But as Signus-X mentioned, the next big hurdle for GenCon is going to be Event Registration, which opens on May 17th. If you ARE planning to go, that would be the drop-dead date for at least buying a badge, as you can't register for events without a badge. They let you poke around and build a wishlist of events at the beginning of May, and then on May 17th you hit the "go" button and enter the giant queue to process your event requests and get your tickets.

If you want to get a full party of something - like playing a certain RPG session, or a True Dungeon run with 10 people, or a hyped-up unreleased board game with all your friends - those are the ones that go fast.

Tanglebones wrote:

And after reassessing finances, I decided to give it a miss this year. Maybe (hopefully) next year?

ARGH. Maybe next year.

McIrishJihad wrote:

Meanwhile, we also decided to go to Origins this year, as a friend won his way into the Star Trek Attack Wing Nationals tournament that will be held there. It feels like a totally different mindset, because I started seeing grumblings about the "good" hotels being sold out already, and when I looked, "good" at Origins meant "cheapest". It's like their housing block fills from the outside in, while GenCon goes inside out.

Nice! We're likely going to have a joint Ravenwood/Meeple booth at Origins this year, we'll see you there! Oh, and I'm not saying you'd want to drive an hour to Origins each morning, but Ravenwood IS only an hour away....

Teneman wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Meanwhile, we also decided to go to Origins this year, as a friend won his way into the Star Trek Attack Wing Nationals tournament that will be held there. It feels like a totally different mindset, because I started seeing grumblings about the "good" hotels being sold out already, and when I looked, "good" at Origins meant "cheapest". It's like their housing block fills from the outside in, while GenCon goes inside out.

Nice! We're likely going to have a joint Ravenwood/Meeple booth at Origins this year, we'll see you there! Oh, and I'm not saying you'd want to drive an hour to Origins each morning, but Ravenwood IS only an hour away.... ;)

Setup a shuttle using an RV (so we have space to play games) and it might just work...

McIrishJihad wrote:
Teneman wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Meanwhile, we also decided to go to Origins this year, as a friend won his way into the Star Trek Attack Wing Nationals tournament that will be held there. It feels like a totally different mindset, because I started seeing grumblings about the "good" hotels being sold out already, and when I looked, "good" at Origins meant "cheapest". It's like their housing block fills from the outside in, while GenCon goes inside out.

Nice! We're likely going to have a joint Ravenwood/Meeple booth at Origins this year, we'll see you there! Oh, and I'm not saying you'd want to drive an hour to Origins each morning, but Ravenwood IS only an hour away.... ;)

Setup a shuttle using an RV (so we have space to play games) and it might just work... ;)

You joke, but we might be doing just that - only with an RV that looks a lot like a Ford Explorer.

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