Gen Con 2017 planning thread

Hello and welcome to this year's Gen Con planning thread.

For the past few years, GWJ has had a great set-up at one of the hotels in downtown Indianapolis. We intend to do the same this year. Expect to have a conference room to play in for at least three days of the convention, with plenty of tables and chairs to go around.

I'll be updating this post as plans solidify.

If you're thinking of coming into Indy this year, know that the process has changed with regard to hotel rooms. The housing lottery is now an even more elaborate sh*t show than ever before. You have been warned.

Here's a link to more information.

Good luck out there. We're hoping to see you on the other side.

Photo by swyngarden on FlickR.

Update August 2017:

The GWJ conference room will be open each night from Aug. 16th through Aug. 19th. Once again it's on the 10th floor of the Hilton.

We have some incredibly generous sponsors for this year's conference room, like...
- IronWall Games
- Grand Prix International
- Cards Against Humanity
- Gamers With Jobs Community Member ThatGuy42

Looking forward to it!

As an FYI to anyone who's coming in from out of the immediate area, there's a total solar eclipse happening the Monday after Gen-Con (August 21) at about a four hour drive south from Indianapolis. I'll probably end up getting a hotel room somewhere in the path and driving down there Sunday evening/flying back Monday, since I'm not going to be anywhere near another solar eclipse any time soon.

I realize it's a work day, etc. but I figured people should be aware now so you can factor it into your plans, if that's something that interests you.

Badge registration is live...

How did anyone do in the Housing Lottery. I have an 8:47 pm entry time, so I'm pretty sure I won't be downtown this year.

9:43 pm.

I'd already made reservations at the Capitol Courtyard Marriott before, which is expensive but within walking distance, and I'm betting I'll use that. Last year I tried the Uber/Lyft to/from the convention center and it was just a giant pain in the ass.

tanstaafl wrote:

How did anyone do in the Housing Lottery. I have an 8:47 pm entry time, so I'm pretty sure I won't be downtown this year.

I got 1:11 PM Eastern.

I got 3:47 PM but one of my group got 12:10 PM.

I got 4:03pm, so I guess I'm doing ok?

I'm guessing, because I don't know how large the groups are, that the downtown/walkable hotels will be sold out by 2pm.

I got 2:10EST. I'm hoping that the registration groups are small enough that it's evenly distributed. If not, why even have a system like this?

Criegg wrote:

I got 2:10EST. I'm hoping that the registration groups are small enough that it's evenly distributed. If not, why even have a system like this?

They're doing it this way to avoid crashing their servers. Their servers crashed last year when they had everyone click at once and get a random spot in a queue, they crashed before that when it was first come first serve.

I hope you get in. I just don't expect it; everyone wants a hotel downtown and there simply isn't enough capacity for that to be feasible. It's not a question of if they'll run out of rooms, it's when. If they have 30,000 people (made up number) signing up for this, that's ~42 people per minute (assuming it's distributed over 12 hours). Maybe there are less, but that hasn't been my experience; either last year or the year before I was in the queue at number 3500 or so and I didn't find anything close by.

One of my group got a 12:01 time (!) so he's going to try to grab a suite for all 4 of us. Hopefully this will work.

Housing has started.

Got a room one block from the convention center

We managed to grab a suite at the Embassy Suites! About a block out but will hold all 4 of us. Score!

Welp, the late 9pm slots only have things 12+ miles away available for the weekend. Which is pretty much what I expected, so I'm just going to keep my expensive-but-kinda-close Capitol Courtyard reservation from Marriott proper, unless the one other person I know got a better time slot. I doubt it.

How did the 2pm slot work out?

Someone in our group with a 2:30 slot checked for someone who isn't sure they're going yet and the closest they could find was 2 miles from the ICC. They declined.

Edit: Just saw this in the GenCon Facebook feed

Wow, the housing block is 100% sold out. I don't think that's ever happened before. Weren't there distant rooms available in the portal all the way up to when it closed in July last year?

I know some people thought there would be lower turnout this year since it got moved later into August. I guess not.

Hey folks. Just poking this as I'm about to start asking if anyone is interested in sponsoring a night of the conference room. So... be thinking of that, or IM'ing me here or Tweeting at me or something.

Oh hallo everyone!

This year I am helping assemble the Gamers With Jobs Conference Room for GenCon 2017! I'm pleased to say that we'll have space available for GWJ folks to play, eat, and generally hang out at GenCon! It'll be like Fraggle Rock, but for board games. Come and dance/game your cares away!

We'll have a room from Aug. 16th through Aug. 19th this year on the 10th floor of the Hilton, linked here.

We have some incredibly generous sponsors for this year's conference room, like...
- IronWall Games
- Grand Prix International
- Cards Against Humanity
- Gamers With Jobs Community Member ThatGuy42

Seriously, the folks above are the best. Check them out if you haven't already. Can't wait to see ev'ryone!

I am officially super excited for GenCon 2017! 4 day badge bought. Housing arranged. Now to book my flights!

Running games for Monte Cook Games and Arc Dream again this year; two Thursday and one Friday. Not doing a repeat of last year where I ran 8 (!) games and nearly killed myself (and had no time to really enjoy the con myself).

At least I'll be able to meet some of the GWJrs this year.

The event schedule is being published on Sunday the 14th. Everyone get ready to start planning your events.

The event list is now live, and registration for events starts the 28th!
https://www.gencon.com/event_finder

WOO!!!!

I have never been to a GenCon and have no idea what's going on but I'd like to go. How does it work? I imagine all the rooms nearby are booked but since I'm only 4 hours away and driving my own car I don't mind a distant hotel. It looks like I buy a badge for the days I want then buy tickets to the games I want to play?

Yeah, you pretty much got it. Hotels were booked the moment the freaking system went live, so you'll be at least twelve miles out and will probably have to find parking. But if you're familiar with the area that's pretty easy for you.

You buy a badge for however many days you want and that gets you in the door and into the dealer room. There's also some free events, like author panels, that happen around the area at various times.

Event tickets are required for SOME specific things; you put those in your wishlist now that the list is around and when it goes live we all hit "PLZ LET ME BUY TICKETS!" and some we'll get and some we won't, because a bunch of them are like 5 people total and there's thousands of us trying to get in at once. If you're going with a friend you can choose to try and get 2+ tickets at once and tell it to not bother if there aren't enough slots.

There are also generic tickets, with are two bucks each. If there's an event that requires tickets but not reservations, like Indy Games On Demand, you can use generics for that. You can also try and hop into games where someone was a no-show and use them there, it's generally 1 ticket per 2 hours of game time for roleplaying games, with some exceptions.

I'm busy trying to work out an event plan, since event registration opens this Saturday. Anybody got anything they're particularly looking forward to?

(I have my eye on the 6! megagames)

Gremlin wrote:

I'm busy trying to work out an event plan, since event registration opens this Saturday. Anybody got anything they're particularly looking forward to?

(I have my eye on the 6! megagames)

It's Sunday at noon eastern, isn't it?

Did I say Saturday? I meant to say Sunday. The 28th. You are correct.

The only event I'm really hoping to get in on is Arkham Horror: Labyrinths of Lunacy. It's an epic Arkham Horror Card Game scenario with a special GenCon-only scenario deck.

There are four sessions, but two conflict with games I'm running and one conflicts with me getting to the airport on Sunday, so... Fortunately its a 36-player event so hopefully...

The two other things I want to see have been announced but aren't on the schedule yet. One is the Invisible Sun update from Monte Cook Games. The other is a special "I survived Character Generation" event where you try to create a Traveller character. (For those who aren't familiar, Traveller is somewhat infamous because it is possible to die during character generation.) Marc Miller, the designer of Traveller, has said he will be running it but hasn't gotten a time slot yet.

And I definitely want to get to see some fellow Goodjers this year! I've missed almost everyone the past two years because of scheduling conflicts; but I've deliberately left my evenings open this time around so I can actually see people!

tanstaafl wrote:

And I definitely want to get to see some fellow Goodjers this year! I've missed almost everyone the past two years because of scheduling conflicts; but I've deliberately left my evenings open this time around so I can actually see people!

My evenings are currently mostly booked with the friends I'm travelling with. I'll certainly try to stop by, though!