GenCon 2017

[Mike]

If you're thinking about GenCon next year, start figuring things out now.

GenCon 2017 is August 17-20.

Nerd Pride is planning on being there for all four days again next year. Get in on Wednesday, the 16th, (probably evening). Leave Sunday around 3:30 or 4 (most of the Con is packing up and hauling out starting at about 3ish).

Most hotels start taking reservations one year in advance. Make your reservations NOW. Or rather, make your reservations in one week on August 16th. As long as you are being careful, you should be able to get rooms that are affordable and that will allow you to drop a day or cancel the whole reservation with no penalty as long as you do it X number of days in advance. So even if you only think you MIGHT go... reserve the room anyway, and when you figure out if this is possible or not, you can cancel later if it doesn't work out. Based on four people sharing a room, that works out to $100-150 each for the four days. Adjust that number based on how many people you can squeeze into a room and how close to the Con you want to be.

Start considering rooming and travel arrangements now. If you can find someone to share gas and hotel costs with, so much the better.

Badge sales begin online January 22nd, 2017. I assume they will still cost $120 (or close to it).

[Mrs.Darcs]

So I'm gonna book hotel rooms as soon as they are available, I'm planning on booking 2, because it's better to have and not need , than need and not have. So that's room for 8 members of The Nerd Pride! Just sayin.

[Mike]

Well Caz claimed some of that space in Listener Betrayal. He may well have been joking, but I'm holding him to it.

[TheMaster]

where is GenCon?

[Ronster]

Indianapolis...but you should be asking, "When is DragonCon?", since you are probably much closer. To which I would answer the weekend of Labor Day in Atlanta.





I will be there this year again. I will probably have a minor cosplay of Dennis Nedry seen here ( I have the shirt, the shorts, similar glasses and a can of shaving cream, what more is there?):



And yes, I hijacked the thread only to find the emoticon for "Thread Hijacked" did not make the move with us from the old forums

[Mike]

Oof. During the school year is hard. Plus... Indianapolis: 10 hours. Atlanta: 16 hours.

The two seem otherwise very similar in demographics and content... DragonCon being slightly larger. DragonCon puts more emphasis on being a Fantasy/SciFi Con, whereas GenCon bills itself as a tabletop gaming Con. But seriously... six of one, half a dozen of the other...

The most important thing though is... this is a thread for getting ready for GenCon 2017. If we still had the thread-hijacked smiley, I would have allowed your interruption, but as it is...



But yeah, Master, DragonCon would probably be way closer and way more affordable for you. But don't let that discourage you if you're intent on being part of The Best Four Days in Gaming! (Which is GenCon. Obviously.)

[Mike]

GenCon expenses: I honestly think that if money is a concern, you can plan a fun and awesome 4-day GenCon trip for around $300 per person, depending on exact travel costs. Of course, that requires that you not buy any stuff from the vendor floor, and I don't personally have the willpower for that.

Badge. If you pre-register, your 4-day badge is actually only $90 ($120 at the gate). Plus you'll want to spend a few bucks ($10-20) on specific events--I think we spent about $10 each for all the games we wanted to pre-register for.

Hotel. Hotel costs (as mentioned above) are around $100 to $150 per person for four nights. We paid $117 per person, but that was also at a hotel 5 miles out, so we had to pay $20 per day to park at the Con. If you do it right, and book early, you can get hotels at about that same price within walking distance (that's what we did last year). OR if you want to save money, you can get a rathole hotel 20 miles out for $60 a night and pay parking every day. Ratholes are fine, because all you need is a place to crash for five hours each night before you dive back in.

Travel. I don't know where you're driving in from, but Dave and I split gas costs from Nebraska to Indy, so I got off cheap. Maybe $60 total? Yours depends on who you can carpool with and how far you have to go.

Food. Look, you were going to have to eat anyway. So your food expense at the Con is based on how much you will spend over what you would have spent if you stayed home. We went out for every lunch and dinner, and so my food cost this time was probably $100 over what I normally spend, but if you prepare accordingly, you can get hotel breakfasts most places for free, and you can pack in your own snacks and whatnot to keep meal spending down. That's all up to you.

Booze. We packed in alcohol from home for after-hours stuff, and (as usual) we have great plans but still didn't wind up drinking much at all. This is really optional.

Goodies. Here's the hard part. Pat and SarahBeth gave me their hotel money in cash. "That way, you can spend it all on games!" And I did. Between new dice and new games and gifts for all the family back home, I think I spend just about the entire $200 on the vendor floor. But again, your amount of self-control is your own business.

I'm probably missing stuff, but that hits the highlights.

[TheMaster]

I just checked... i can have a REALLY great time at GenCon 2017 for about $1500.... BTW you can book hotels now at Hotels.com. I could do it for a lot less, but i gave myself a lot of food money and money to buy stuff

[Mrs.Darcs]

Re: Shithole hotel, the bed was so uncomfortable that I barely slept, luckily, as a mother of 2 under 7, I'm used to never sleeping. Also, today is the first day I can breathe after the "non" smoking room lol!

Edit: I am VERY grateful to have gotten a hotel at all, and there was free breakfast, so all in all, not a horrid thing.

Edit the second: There ARE hotels available now, just not good or close ones haha.

[Tahlvin]

If I go, I'm trying to get a concierge-level room at the Marriott across the street from the convention center. I have lifetime platinum status with Marriott from all my years of traveling for work. I could try to use my points to get the room for free, but I don't think they'd accept points for that particular period of time, given how many people will probably be trying to stay there.

[Mike]

Mrs. Darcs. FWIW, in 2015, we stayed at the La Quinta about 1 mile away. It was not a 4-star hotel by any means, but it was nicer than the Super 8 by a couple orders of magnitude. About the same price. Decent free breakfast. Close enough to walk everywhere. Based on that, I'm guessing there are several options within about a mile or so that should be perfectly adequate at that price or better.

Also, if there's a decent deal on something much closer, I'm willing to pay a little extra too, but I'm not picky. The parking thing wasn't bad, but with something in walking distance, there's always the option of people coming and going at different times if the need ever arises. We didn't have any issue with that this time... we all stayed together and it worked out well. But the more people we add, the more flexibility we might need.

[Mrs.Darcs]

I will do my best <3

[Cazmonster]

Barb and I will be discussing things for next year. I will see what can be done.

[Mike]

[Zen]

[TheMaster]

it is closer for me to go to GenCon than to Disney world, and i have been to Disney world 17 times. But yeah, Atlanta is only a 2 hour drive... decisions, decisions.

[Mrs.Darcs]

Come on Master! GenCon GenCon GenCon!

[TheMaster]

I think my decision has been made...Check out @DragonCon's Tweet: https://twitter.com/DragonCon/status/76 ... 46593?s=09

[Mike]

That IS impressive.

[Mrs.Darcs]

bah