Gen Con By The Numbers

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While flying home from Gen Con on Monday, the convention released its attendance numbers for the Best Four Days In Gaming. If you were there at the convention, you knew there were a lot of people there. The place was busy, there were big crowds lining up at the door each day to get in when the exhibitor's hall would open up, and sales are off the charts. Paizo sold through their run of Starfinder on the first day (by 2pm I have heard). Green Ronin sold through their daily allotment of the D&D 5E setting books made in conjunction with Geek And Sundry's Critical Role channel every day. By Saturday, Modiphius had sold through their copies of ENnies Award winning game Tales From The Loop. Everyone that I spoke with had great sales throughout the weekend, although a few did suffer from being in the hinterlands of a much larger than before exhibition hall.

The layout of the exhibition hall was different this year. The walking areas between booths was wider, but not overly wide as I have seen at some comic conventions of late, which meant that there was a better flow of traffic over the dealer room floor. According to Gen Con there were 500 exhibitors in the hall, and while a few (like dicemakers Gamescience and Chessex) had multiple booths, I don't know if those counted as one exhibitor or if they counted by booth space sold. Studio 2 had an enormous, and always busy, area shared with a number of the publishers that they work with. IGDN (the Indie Game Developers Network) had a good sized cooperative booth that serviced a number of indie game publishers.

Over the course of the four days Gen Con had 19,000 ticketed events, which includes games, panels and seminars. There were also a number of unticketed events like the Gen Con Museum and the Games Library, both out on the floor of Lucas Oil stadium. Lucas Oil was also the home to the games being run and sponsored by ConTessa. ConTessa also ran a number of seminars and panels, I got to be on a couple of them (which helped lead to my loss of voice).

The official overall numbers, from the Gen Con press release, "Gen Con celebrated its 50th convention with its ninth consecutive year of record turnstile attendance, reaching 207,979, an approximate 4% increase over 2016. The convention also sold out of all attendee badges prior to the show for the first time in its 50-year history. For the third consecutive year, Gen Con targeted an approximate attendance of 60,000 unique attendees."

Regardless of how you look at it, or what sort of gaming you enjoy, Gen Con was a huge event and a huge success for everyone involved.

 

[Von Ether]

Hotel space isn't an issue in Indy. See, they host this really big, really famous, race each year that draws way more people than GC. And they all fit for a few days.... So if you can't get a room? It's because you weren't looking/were unwilling to stay somewhere other than within walking distance.

Nor is the Con confined within the walls of just the Convention center (& hasn't been since they moved to Indy). Events are spread between the ICC, at least 4 hotels with all their meeting spaces on multiple floors, the Union Station center, & now the football stadium.
If they plan to keep using the football stadium they'll have to make sure not to overlap with a Colts pre-season game though. (wich'll be too bad as sometimes I get a Colts game along with my D&D)

I'm positive there were more than 60k people there this year. But we were never tripping over each other, not even on Sat in the dealers hall.

Cost? Don't know anything about that. But space wise GC is fine.

According to one of the tour guides to the GenCon museum, Indy has a different set of plans (and fees) for when they expect an event to bring 100,000 people into town, so GenCon is in this awkward space of needing more elbow room, but not being where they need to be financially to make the city be even more accommodating.

On that note, a sold-out GenCon for a couple of years could be the marketing thing they need to get enough people to commit and get them over that hump for a 75,000 people show. Take this all with a grain of salt.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

You can reserve outside of the housing block starting about now, but the downtown rooms are fairly pricey. The housing block gets you a better rate, but you are not guaranteed your first (or second, or third, etc...) choice.

Some people make a refundable reservation outside the housing portal then cancel it if they get better during the housing lottery.

Like how much better? Is it still 200 bucks a night or something like that?

 

[AriochQ]

Like how much better? Is it still 200 bucks a night or something like that?

I would expect to pay $400-$500/night for a downtown room outside the housing block. Within the housing block is around $200/night.

 

[JediSoth]

You can reserve outside of the housing block starting about now, but the downtown rooms are fairly pricey. The housing block gets you a better rate, but you are not guaranteed your first (or second, or third, etc...) choice.

Some people make a refundable reservation outside the housing portal then cancel it if they get better during the housing lottery.

I have heard stories (so take this as the anecdotal evidence it is) of people's prior reservations downtown being canceled when the housing block actually opens. More than one person on the Gen Con Indy Facebook group reported this happening to them.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I would expect to pay $400-$500/night for a downtown room outside the housing block. Within the housing block is around $200/night.

Wow, screw that. I"ll stay a bit further out if go next year.

 

[AriochQ]

I have heard stories (so take this as the anecdotal evidence it is) of people's prior reservations downtown being canceled when the housing block actually opens. More than one person on the Gen Con Indy Facebook group reported this happening to them.

Last year one of the hotels (I don't remember which one) messed up and didn't block off their GC rooms from the calendar and they ended up as purchasable on sites like Expedia. Word got out and a bunch of people jumped on the reservation bandwagon thinking they were getting a great deal. After about a month, the hotel realized their mistake and cancelled the reservations. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is...

 

[LordEntrails]

Does it need to grow?

I mean, sure, we all think bigger is often better. And the more the merrier. And if a business doesn't grow it dies...

But not really. Maybe 65k is right where GC should stay for the next 10 years.

I mean, rather than try to have one con that is everything to everyone, why not have more larger cons? I would rather see 10 cons of 50k each than one con of 500k people. When something gets too large, there is no way you can experience it all anyways. And the biggest reason I've only been to GC once (and will probably only go one more time in my life) is that it is in Indiana, which is no where close to where I live.

It's a lot like San Diego Comic Con. Amazing and enjoyable experience, but it got too large to really enjoy it anymore. Sure, getting to see your favorite celebrity (if you are into that) won't happen at a small con, but having to wait 20 hours in line for that one event...?

 

[LordOz]

Does anyone ever talk about ALL the walking you do. I saw a fellow, must have been 400 plus pounds easy, and it looked like he was going to go in cardiac arrest in the elevator on me.

And as for me, I started taking Advil in the morning like a multivitamin so my dogs wouldn't start barking until the late afternoon.

My farthest day was 14 miles, though to be fair I started the day with the Orc Stomp 5k. My friend made a comment that he needs to start prepping for next year, as all of the walking put a hurt on him (we're both 51, not spring chickens any more).