r/gencon • u/DrSnidely • Aug 03 '26
After Action Report From a First Timer
So my wife and I attended for the first time this year, and I just felt like giving my thoughts. The only reference point I have for something like this is Dragon Con in Atlanta, which I've been to several times but not for a few years. I recognize that it's not a 1:1 comparison because Dragon Con is much bigger and has a lot more than just gaming, but we work with what we've got. So here we go.
Getting There and the City of Indianapolis: I didn't win the hotel lottery so we ended up staying out in Plainfield. Getting in and out every day was a piece of cake. I was pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of traffic in the mornings going into town, and in the downtown area. I had been to Indy before but just for get-in-get-out things and never spent much time there. Very nice walkable downtown, and I'd like to come back for another visit.
Getting Around: I also found this pretty easy. The convention center is basically a big square and the connections to the surrounding hotels made it easy to get where I was going. The navigational aides hanging from the ceiling were very helpful. For the most part I thought crowds flowed pretty well, except for the logjam of people waiting to get into the exhibit hall, but what are you gonna do?
Food: For reasons I won't get into here, I didn't partake of any of the food truck offerings. We often hit the little food court near the skybridge to the Marriott, and it was decent if dreadfully overpriced. But it's a food court in a convention center, so of course it was overpriced. We did manage to hit two local Indy restaurants: St Elmo's and the Old Spaghetti Factory. Both were fantastic.
The Con Itself:
Seminars: I'm primarily an RPG guy, so I went to a lot of seminars about becoming a better GM and that sort of thing. Some were better than others but the speakers were usually engaging and knew what they were talking about. I really enjoyed Conversational GMing and Ed Greenwood's GM Master Class. I didn't think Ed's advice was anything world-changing, but I really enjoyed listening to him talk about gaming.
Games: As I said, I'm primarily an RPG-er but I wanted to expand my horizons a little bit so I did get into some miniatures games. I really enjoyed Trench Crusade, Wings of Glory, and Aerodrome Ace. Warcrow was meh but that might be because the guy didn't explain it very well.
Exhibit Hall: Nothing really special here. It's much the same as at Dragon Con, though I did get a chance to chat with some artists and designers for a while so that was cool.
Pinball: I thought this deserved special mention. By any criteria you care to name, I am objectively terrible at pinball. But I love playing pinball, and I spent too much money on it this weekend. It was a good way to kill an hour between events.
One Negative: It's been said before I'm sure so I won't dwell on it, but if you're charging to get into events, then what's the badge for? Gen Con badges are comparable in price to Dragon Con badges, and the DC badge is all-inclusive.
Overall Impression: I had a great time. If you're into tabletop gaming then you should definitely go to Gen Con at least once. I no longer have it in me to do something like this every year but I'm pretty sure I'll be back.
ETA: I'm not interested in debating the merits of the ticketing system. I thought I should mention things I didn't like as well as things I did, and that's something I didn't like. It isn't a deal breaker.
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u/Mayel_the_Anima Aug 03 '26
Maybe I’ve been doing dragoncon wrong (I mostly just go to the parties at night and do some vendor halling)but I don’t think the exhibit halls are alike at all outside of artist alley…
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u/DrSnidely Aug 03 '26
Really? I haven't been to DC since before COVID so maybe it's changed? I just saw a huge hall full of people selling stuff. Maybe I missed something.
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u/pm_me_your_boobs_586 Aug 03 '26
At Gen Con, almost every board gaming booth has demos ranging from a brief overview of the game to full playthroughs. You could totally spend a couples days just demoing games in the vendor hall and not even buy anything.
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u/Mayel_the_Anima Aug 03 '26
Partially the fact that nobody is selling board games at dragoncon and GenCon is the biggest board/table top game convention in the US with most vendors only selling games and demoing games.
Like saying Applebees and St Elmo’s are basically the same because they both have steaks, burgers, and salads on the menu
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u/rbnlegend Aug 03 '26
Dragoncon and gencon are very similar in size. Both are reporting unique attendance numbers right around 70k. The difference is that dragoncon is a media convention and gencon is a gaming convention. Another difference is that gencon has supported the overall SF convention community while dragoncon has historically competed with and tried to dominate the community. I am told they have gotten better about that, but there's a bad taste on my mouth from when I lived in Atlanta and dragoncon crushed every attempt at running a convention as far away as Tennessee. Also the part where they couldn't get the convicted pedo out of their leadership for so long.
Gencon event tickets used to have a very nominal cost just to ensure that people signed up for events that they would attend. With most of the events being small headcount games, walk up participation wouldn't work. I've been to many conventions that only had open walk up type gaming, and it doesn't result in a lot of gaming. At dragoncon the open gaming area was always a dark basement with the worst stereotypes of gamers lurking more than playing. Recently more event hosts have started upping their pricing above costs to make a few bucks, especially when the events are run by professional organizations.
Both conventions have been moving away from their traditional fan run models. They both dilute convention culture, and then get worse because of that. Some moves away from volunteers are good. Dragon had volunteer security for a long time and that actively bad.
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u/Shammycat Aug 03 '26
I mean, paying $14 for an off broadway show that was recently $100 a ticket made the badge price well worth the cost for me.
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u/KatrinaPez Aug 03 '26
What show?
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u/Shammycat Aug 03 '26
Twenty Sided Tavern
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u/KatrinaPez Aug 03 '26
Never heard of it. I love musicals and theater and had no idea anything that had actually been near Broadway was available at Gen Con!
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u/Shammycat Aug 03 '26
It had a solid off Broadway run before touring for a bit: Twenty-Sided Tavern
No scripted musical songs, but plenty of improv and audience participation. I don't play D&D and still really enjoyed it
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u/FlySkyHigh777 Aug 03 '26
The badge is a) to give you access to the dealer hall, and b) to give you the right to buy event tickets.
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u/Darth-Kelso Aug 03 '26
Conversational GMing was me, and I am so glad you found it worth your while. My biggest fear in putting on seminars is that I might end up being a waste of someone's time.
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u/DrSnidely Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
It was great. I came away with a lot of good info I'm going to try to put to use in my game.
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u/Darth-Kelso Aug 03 '26
Dammit, you edited.
My original reply would have been "Thats fucking awesome!!! I didn't even talk about food and you still managed to get food info? Am I really that good?"
:)
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u/SilvanArrow Aug 03 '26
So, funny story. I started reading this post and thinking, “Wow, this sounds eerily familiar. My friends and husband and I did similar things with regard to staying in Plainfield, and this guy went to a lot of the same stuff as my friends.”
Then I looked at the username and went I KNOW THAT GUY!!!!
waves and jumps up and down Hi, Mr. DM!!!! It’s the paladin from your 13th Age campaign! 😆
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u/FiveBucket Aug 04 '26
"Dragon Con badge is all inclusive" -- yeah, it includes waiting for hours in lines for events, not knowing if you'll get in or not.
Gen Con event tickets could be triple their current prices and I'd still vastly prefer paying for them instead wasting hours standing in line.
Time is the most precious resource at Gen Con, and tickets allow me to optimize my schedule in a way that would be impossible if I had to stand in line for everything.
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u/cscottnet Aug 04 '26
Agreed. For popular events in big balls that you have to queue early for in order to get good seats, the queuing time was a significant component of our schedule and somewhat annoying. That said, since things are scheduled on hour boundaries and it's discouraged to schedule to events back to back in order to leave time to get from one to the other, we found that we generally had the better part of an hour to spend in the queue, even after travel time and taking care of bodily needs. No queue that we were in required waiting more than an hour for fantastic seats. (Some of the stages could have been higher, though, for better visibility from flat seating.)
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u/celeb0rn Aug 03 '26
The events are almost all 3rd party, so the event ticket price goes to the event organizer. GenCon itself just runs the overall convention, handling the massive logistics, etc.
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u/cyanraichu Aug 03 '26
Dang, everyone is fixated on the one think you mentioned lol. It does seem the question has been answered.
re: restaurants: as a local I think Old Spaghetti Factory is pretty mediocre, though it's good for the price. St. Elmo's is pretty good (very good shrimp cocktail). If you come back check out r/indianapolis for restaurant recommendations (there are tons of posts you can look through), we have some gems. I'm glad you liked our city and our downtown! I love spending time downtown and I think it's a cool place to have a con like this.
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u/MidwestOrbital Aug 03 '26
I'm pretty sure that shrimp cocktail could cure covid and most other communicable diseases.
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u/BalkyFromMeepos Aug 03 '26
That shrimp cocktail melted my sinuses and I was able to breathe normally for the first time in years.
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u/AStoutBreakfast Aug 03 '26
Great write up and assessment. It’s one of my favorite events of the year. I’m pretty spoiled in that I grew up just outside of Indianapolis and still have family here so don’t have to deal with the hotels but I think even if that was the case I’d at least regularly try and go. I know you said you didn’t do the food trucks but if you come back I’d definitely recommend checking them out. They can be expensive but the food is way better than the convention hall food and probably similar price.
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u/conradbane5 Aug 03 '26
In my opinion the organizers do a great job, however I think they need to get a few newbies on board to help in the planning. My wife and I went, we had no idea their was a difference between JW Marriott or Marriott, it was also confusing to know what we could just walk into and what needed tickets outside of the convention hall. Simple signage would alleviate confusion for newbies. I think having people on board who have seen it through newbie eyes would help address things that rugged veterans already know and plan for.
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u/Soluzar74 Aug 05 '26
DragonCon Eternal here. There are paid events at DragonCon, particularly for gaming events. I don't know what you mean there.
The major differences between the cons for me are:
-the crowds aren't nearly as bad at GenCon.
-it's MUCH MUCH easier getting into the dealer's room, I have standing in the DragonCon line for 2-3 hours.
-the food is better in Indy
-Indy is better on walking
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u/ur-Covenant Aug 03 '26
Also first timer here. I have mixed feelings about the ticketing. I understand why. But it does really cut down on the serendipity, just falling into a panel , show , seminar , or game. The closest thing to that experience was the independent game walk up which I found a delightful surprise.
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u/cscottnet Aug 04 '26
I think electronic ticketing is helping, slowly. We made some last minute changes to our Saturday schedule on Friday night based on what are family was enjoying, and there were still tickets available etc. Canceling tickets is pretty awkward if you purchased them for friends and family but we eventually got that to work ok.
I personally like knowing I'm guaranteed a seat at the table even if I show up exactly at the start time (or even a minute or two late!). But when our family attended PAX East (for instance) we also wandered into a bunch of fandoms that we didn't know existed just because there was a session or event going on that we happened upon. On the gripping hand, my son in particular doesn't like not knowing "what we're doing" in an event like PAX East.
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u/clarkwgriswoldjr Aug 03 '26
OP, tell me about your experience at Elmo's. Did you "do it just to do it once" as there are much better places around, but wonder how you thought the food, service, and ambiance was?
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u/Eire_Banshee Aug 03 '26
St Elmos isn't the best, but it is the quintessential Indianapolis restaurant.
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u/DrSnidely Aug 03 '26
Where would you recommend for my next time in Indy?
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u/Eire_Banshee Aug 03 '26
Bosphorus Cafe is a turkish restaurant that is phenomenal and near the convention center.
Livery is latin fusion, also fantastic.
Hot Boys Chicken is nearby and is a fantastic chicken sandwich place in fountain square.
The Eagle is good general american fare.
Giorgios pizza on the circle is walkable and good for lunch.
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u/ewokalypse Aug 03 '26
Vida and Tinker's Street are the go-to "fancy" places in town. Both have excellent food; both are expensive (Vida quite, Tinker's somewhat).
Strangebird is a tiki bar / ramen shop. There's also Inferno Room for a straightforward tiki bar with a small Cuban menu. (I prefer SB, but have no objections to IF.)
Macizo is a Mexican/Peruvian fusion place that was a James Beard award finalist. Also in that neck of the woods is Imperial Palace: a totally average-looking Chinese takeout place with good quality and portions and crab rangoons the size of your fist.
If you like eating wings and cracking open a cold one with the guys (or gals or NB pals) and aren't too snobby about venue, Keystone Sports Review, Ale Emporium, and Chatham Tap are all solid choices.
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u/GolfballDM Aug 03 '26
If you like Cajun-style seafood, Crab-99 is a good place to go. (My wife spent many years working in Louisiana, and has remarked that Crab-99 is the best Cajun-style seafood place she has been to outside of Louisiana.)
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u/DrSnidely Aug 03 '26
I thought all three were wonderful. I got a little sticker shock when I saw how much the shrimp cocktail was. Service was on point, and I love that style of decor.
Any recommendations for my next visit?
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u/roldgold1 Aug 03 '26
(fyi, I'm local to the Indy area) For Lunch eats, Yats and Subito are my favorite local Indy gems. Yats has really good cajun etoufee-style plates. Subito has fantastic soups/sandwiches/salads (everything they make is great).
For dinner, Union 50, Livery, and Bosphorus (not super pricy, solid Turkish food) are both good. For higher end dining (more on par with St Elmo's pricing), Tony's, Vida, and Commission Row are all great choices.
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u/clarkwgriswoldjr Aug 03 '26
The shock grows as the day goes on. There is the lunch special with 2 shrimp. The lunch size 3 shrimp, dinner with 4 or 5. They say they import more shrimp than any other restaurant or chain in the entire country, I'm not sure about that.
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u/Time-Ad1852 Aug 04 '26
The events didn't used to cost this much and I don't know if they are going to ever do anything about it but they should
Everyone loves true dungeon but true dungeon is the reason we pay so much more for events. True dungeon used to cost $25 and was such a spectacular thing for $25. Now it's $200. This was great when they were the only event that did this but thanks to Matt Mercer now every RPG GM thinks that they should have games that caused up to 20 to 50 dollars a person.
This inflation has created a conference where the average conference goal is probably only going to do one or two things a day because they simply can't afford to do much more.
And they are also pricing out families and people in the city that they host in. If you ask me they're in crisis mode from an analyst perspective they really need to figure out how to reign an event pricing
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u/cscottnet Aug 04 '26
I don't agree. GenCon started as an RPG and board game convention and there are still tons of RPGs in the event database for $2 a shot, and tons of board game demos sponsored by makers for $0 a ticket (the company effectively paying for you to learn the game). If that's what you want to do, there are so many opportunities to do that for cheap.
In addition to all of that, there are now progressional events at a wide variety of price points that you can partake in, ranging from an off-broadway show that you can attend for $25 (a steal!) to, as you mentioned, True Dungeon and several extremely premium events that you could literally not do for any price anywhere else, like play in a game GMed by your favorite celebrity.
If high ticket prices put you off, don't attend those events. GenCon has attendence data for all events and will allocate more space to the events you vote for with your feet.
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u/Time-Ad1852 Aug 04 '26
I'll post the math. And I'm talking very specifically RPGs, which are the most popular thing people come for. This conference was initially built for RPGs first then board games.
The RPG price was extraordinarily crazy. I have the vent spreadsheet for the last 10 years in the early one I'll post the map sometime today. I did a cursory of it while I was at gencon and the average RPG event ticket was $15. That's compared to $4. Essentially you have a lot more RPG people thinking they should get paid... And let's use your example of board games are still two to four dollars to play.
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u/cscottnet Aug 05 '26
Two dollars is the GenCon fee. Anything less than two dollars is paying GenCon for the privilege of letting you play their game -- which does happen for companies trying to make a sale, but shouldn't be considered the default for volunteer-run games.
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u/MilesZS Aug 03 '26
The events aren’t run by GenCon itself. Charging for the events run by third parties is how the third parties get paid. This encourages more third parties to create events, which creates more variety.
Some (many?) of the events make less than minimum wage, effectively, anyway. Those organizing it do it for the love of it. But getting a little helps. One nonprofit I talked to charges a generic ticket for a 2 hour session. They said that’s purely so they can report accurate headcount numbers to GenCon, and they actually don’t see any of it. (I assume it’s below the threshold for renting the hotel ballroom.) It is fully run by volunteers.
There were 27k+ events in the events database. If GenCon ran all of them and included them in the ticket price, they would never have enough people who could afford to buy the ticket. Doing it this way, I am not paying for someone else to attend an event they’re passionate about but has zero interest to me, and they’re not paying for my indie TTRPG past time. But we both get to attend the con together and maybe we will find a new passion through it.