Advice for a Con n00b

[Dave G]

Wow! Thanks for all of your help! keep it coming!

There are four of us going. We've got a hotel room. As of yesterday I had the bare minimum of the money I need for the trip saved up! Now I'm trying to get money to buy stuff!

I know for sure I'm bringing a cooler and keeping some food in the hotel room, but I'm also bringing some snacks along with me to the con to save money.

I'm a regular deoderant user and a fairly sanitary beanbag.

To keep the conversation going, How much spending money is enough for someone who's never been to a con. How much is going to leave me riding home with a wallet full of lint and cognitive dissonance, with too much junk in the trunk?

Thanks again, I need all the help I can get!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Decide beforehand how much money you will spend. No matter what, don't spend more, by using an ATM or a credit card or borrowing from a buddy. Personally, I would decide how much that is according to how many days the con lasts. I wouldn't spend more than $100 if it was a 2 day con, $200 if it's a big con like GenCon and I was going for all 4 days.

 

[Dave G]

I know some of you were at Gen Con and unavailable for comment when this was posted, any advice (a.k.a. bump)

 

[Lordnightshade]

The end of August I will be attending Dragonflight in Seattle, here is the beginnings of my travel list of items to bring.

Items to bring to Dragonflight:

Inflatable neck pillow (for long car ride)
Regular Pillow
Excedrin (caffeine AND painkiller can’t beat that!)
Toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, shaver, shaving cream, deodorant, hair gel, etc.)
Enough clothes for the entire trip (nothing worse than having to wear dirty clothes)
Emer’gen-C vitamin C drink mix (made by the Alacer Corp, you just add it to water and you have a super nutritious 1000mg of vitamin C and other mineral ascorbates that keeps you from getting sick when you are running on junk food and no sleep! I never go anywhere without it)
Water Bottle
Good Walking shoes (My sketchers cross trainers are great!)
Cliff Bars (easy to keep in my backpack and nutritious when there is nothing else to eat)
Several Apples (fit easily into your backpack and provide 80 calories of nutritious food)
Extra Cash
Cell Phone Charger
Cell Phone
My comfortable backpack (has a hard shell formed to my back and I can wear it for hours without much discomfort)
My “travel” PHB (Generally leave my DMG and MM behind because someone there will have one if I really need to look something up)
Character Binder (Contains all my Living City and Living Greyhawk character sheets and all their information including nifty name signs for each one that I did up on my computer)
A small selection of dice (not my favorite ones in the event some are lost/stolen)
A small selection of miniatures (mainly mini’s for the characters I will be playing)
My Art Portfolio (never know when you will want to show off your Artwork or what important person will want to see it)
Deck of cards
Other small games to play when I have a free moment
Convention tickets/registration papers (also schedules of games/events etc.)


Things to pool together with my friends to bring:
Large cooler full of food (one year we did sandwich makings and that worked out really well, saved lots of money)

For a more complete (though Gen Con specific) list, go here:

http://www.webcom.com/~apcrypha/pg052496.htm#whatelse

 

[bertman4]

Deodorant does not help if you are wearing the same clothes over and over, or if you tend to sweat a lot and stink a lot. I saw guys in the bathroom of the convention center taking sponge baths. *shudder* Now that should be outlawed. My eyes hurt from witnessing a guy lift up his flab to get at all parts of his skin. *UGH*

Bertman

 

[trentonjoe]

I would highly reccomend seeing if your con has an auction. Those things rock, you can really get sweet deals there. I once bought something like 65 different dragon magazines for 7 bucks or so.

Also, figure out what games can't be ruined for you. I don't play D&D at cons anymore unless I know the GM. To many bad experiences. However, no one can ruin risk, settlers of Catan, stratego and other board games for me. I like to play them!

Good luck and avoid 8 am slots. You'll overspleep and then be mad!