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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5667111" data-attributes="member: 20741">Robin Laws is not just right; he's BALLS ON ACCURATE.  They need to change the name of FanExpo to "GreedCon". After last year, "ConUCon" was what a lot of people were calling it privately. The so-called "GamingExpo" is now about showing off new XboX 360 and PS3 games. RPG gamers are sent to the furnace room to look for their staplers. The only reason boardgames are not treated the same is because a few manufacturers are showing up and ponying up some dollars in the Exhibit Hall for space. I don't expect that to continue for much longer, either. The problem with FanExpo is how contemptuously it treats all its invitees. These guys are motivated by PURE GREED. Last year, they oversold the event so much that on Friday and Saturday, they exceeded the capacity of that part of the Metro Convention Centre they had leased for the weekend. The city fined them on Friday (or threatened to) -- so on Saturday, FanExpo was selling tickets at $40 a pop for the day, at the same time that they were not actually letting the ticket buyers in to the Con.As a result when people left for lunch on Saturday (as other people were still showing up to buy tickets to get inside) they ended up CLOSING THE DOORS.So there were THOUSANDS, literally THOUSANDS of people with guest passes who had left for lunch and COULD NOT GET BACK IN for two hours+ into the convention. Many tables had gamers seated at the table and the game was cancelled. The GM was stuck outside and could not get back inside to run the event. It's worse than that. The organizers don't accommodate scheduling of game events until late June -- and really it's MID-JULY until you can even have a sense of whether you will get space to run a game or not. It becomes impossible to deal with this sort of asshattery and schedule  games. FanExpo knows it -- and they don't give a crap, either. So this year -- we just didn't bother. Pathfinder Society is not going to be at FanEXpo. It's just not worth it -- and having gamers and GMs locked out of the venue is about the Worst. Thing. Ever. in terms of marketing your game.The saddest thing is that RPGs were one of the very few things you could actually DO at FanExpo that didn't cost money. And that's where it all shakes down. This greedy con offers almost nothing to attendees for free. A pass into this convention is nothing more than buying a ticket for a lot  of money for the privilege of being let into an area ... so that they can spend even more money.FanExpo was supposed to be Canada's answer to DragonCon. In a sense it is. It is a popular culture con which sells a BOATLOAD of tickets. With 60,000+ individual attendees, it is MUCH bigger than DragonCon and has 1.5 times the attendees. But, unlike Dragoncon, there is only a fraction of the things to actually DO at the Con. It's really all about the dealer hall. You go in to a room with 700 vendors selling geek and genre products for top dollar. Most of the autograph booths all charge extra, too. The cost of these booths are so high, the prices make the prices at the Gencon Exhibit Hall at 10:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning look like a FIRE SALE in comparison. It's a damn shame, as there really is no gaming con in the Toronto area anymore. When the organizers of Pandemonium changed 7 years or so back, they screwed up and booked the thing at a hotel which was too expensive and the whole Con crashed and burned after a tradition of almost thirty years -- and Pandemonium's game auction was consistently the best game auction I've ever attended (Gencon INCLUDED). We've never had a replacement for Panda since. Some very  small one day cons have started up since -- but nothing that compares. Right now, <a href="http://www.hammercon.ca/" target="_blank">HammerCon</a> in Hamilton (in November) is about as good as it gets. Pathfinder Society and the RPGA will BOTH be at <a href="http://www.hammercon.ca/" target="_blank">Hammercon III</a>, btw.Well, there are large quarterly game days in the city. But the organizers of those won't permit RPG play at those events. Boardgame, wargames, cardgames and minis? Yes. But RPGs? No.You want to talk about Edition Wars among gamers that really matter? The conflict between boardgamers and RPG players is the one that is REAL. The edition war crap between 4E / 3.xx and Pathfinder is essentially an online forum phenomenon. The one between Boardgamers and RPG players, otoh, is all too real.</blockquote>

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