Gen Con Has Doubled In Size Since 2010

This year's Gen Con set a new record, with 61,423 individual attendees (that's 197,695 turnstile). The annual growth since 2010 has been 9%, and it has more than doubled its attendance since then. Of course, Indianapolis hasn't doubled its number of hotels, so it's not all good news! Next year's convention moves back to August, starting on August 4th, 2016.

Here's the full press release for those who enjoy press releases!

Gen Con 2015 Continues Six-Year Streak of Record-Breaking Growth

INDIANAPOLIS (August 3, 2015)Gen Con 2015 has set an all-new attendance record with a unique attendance of 61,423 and a turnstile attendance of 197,695, creating a six-year span of record growth. Since 2010, Gen Con has more than doubled in attendance. Year-over-year, Gen Con has experienced 9% attendance growth, primarily driven by 4-Day and Family Fun Day badge sales. Gen Con also has raised more than $38,500 for the convention’s Official 2015 Charity, The Julian Center.

Gen Con 2015 also was the first time that the convention held more than 400 exhibiting companies and sold out the retailer-and-educator-focused Trade Day. The convention was Co-Sponsored by Mayfair Games and Paizo Inc.

Gen Con will return to Indianapolis for its 49^th convention on August 4-7, 2016.

Gen Con 2015 Quotes
“Another year, another life-changing Gen Con! While it always seems impossible, the global Gen Con community continues to find ways to keep coming up with new, bigger ideas on how to make each Gen Con the best yet. On behalf of the entire Gen Con team, I would like to thank our attendees, sponsors, exhibitors, volunteers, event organizers, local partners, and the city of Indianapolis. Gen Con appreciates your warm welcome and Hoosier hospitality.” - Adrian Swartout, CEO/Owner of Gen Con LLC

“The ‘Best Four Days in Gaming’ is always a fun time in Indy, and this year was no exception. Gen Con is an important contributor to Indy’s economy, and more importantly, a great partner organization. The entire city enjoys this convention, and I was delighted to once again welcome Gen Con to Indianapolis.” - Greg Ballard, Mayor of Indianapolis

“After 13 years of hosting Gen Con, it’s clear that Indy gets Gen Con and Gen Con gets Indy. Gen Con is a one-of-a-kind cultural event that energizes our city and drives more than $67 million in annual economic activity. Central Indiana’s hospitality community is incredibly appreciative of our partnership with Gen Con and we are proud to be the home of the world’s longest-running and best-attended hobby gaming convention. We congratulate Gen Con’s leadership team on yet another year of record-setting attendance in Indy.” - Leonard Hoops, president & CEO of Visit Indy.

"What an amazing four days in downtown Indy! With so much to do and see, Gen Con continues to be the most dynamic and exciting convention to grace Indianapolis. The weather was perfect and the Convention Center and Georgia Street are close to so many activities that really showcased downtown Indy as a great place for people to gather and enjoy themselves. Sun King is grateful for our partnership with Gen Con and look forward to working to make next year even better." - Clay Robinson, Co-Founder, VP of Marketing, Sun King Brewing Co.

“We are extremely grateful to the organizers of Gen Con and all those responsible for the many charity events as well as the generous, friendly attendees this weekend. Everyone was so friendly and interested in learning more about our work helping those who are dealing with domestic and sexual violence in Indianapolis. Thank you for selecting The Julian Center as your charity. Your generosity truly helps us save lives and empower hundreds of women, men and families to live safe, independent lives.” - Catherine O’Connor, President and CEO of The Julian Center.

 

[Celebrim]

Vegas will never care about Gen Con the way Indy does because Gen Con will be just another convention in a desert town that has conventions every day.

Vegas would be a lousy place to hold a gaming convention for a lot of reasons (unless by gaming you mean Poker). For a gaming convention to thrive, I really think it needs a large local market - which Vegas is not going to provide. Many of the attendees at a gaming convention are younger and can't blow their budget on travel costs, and Vegas is just about inaccessible to every market but Los Angeles and Phoenix. Indianapolis on the other hand is within 5 hours of Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cleveland, Columbus, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Detroit. That's a massive potential market and I think is a big reason for the success of the Con.

Also, in terms of wholesomeness, Indianapolis versus Vegas is no contest.

 

[Morrus]

It'd be interesting to find out how local Gen Con attendees actually are.

 

[darjr]

How do you grow at 9% and double in 5 years?

I see plenty of kickstarters, but I'm not seeing more game stores, webstores, retail shelf-space, new collectible lines...so Con attendance has "doubled" and that means what?

It's 9% since its inception as an average. Not since 2010.

Board games are growing fast. Magic is as big as ever. And the kids who dreamed about going are old enough to make it happen. I'm in a flyover state and have had three new game stores open in the last few years.

Munchkin is in target and Walmart.

 

[Morrus]

How do you grow at 9% and double in 5 years?

It's compound. 9% on each previous year. Adds up fast.

 

[Steven Winter]

How do you grow at 9% and double in 5 years?

Yeah, those numbers don't make sense. Five years at an average 9% growth puts you at one-and-a-half times where you started, not double. You'd need 15% growth annually to double in five years. Either someone doesn't know their math (often the case) or is doing a bad job of putting it into words (equally often the case). If what they meant was "9% annually since the very first Gencon," that's something entirely different. As are "9% annually since Gen Con LLC bought the convention," "9% annually since the convention moved to Indianapolis," and "9% annually since eight years ago," which is how long it takes to double your initial amount at 9% annual growth.

Steve

 

[Hand of Evil]

would love to see the whole stats of Gen Con, attendance daily, age breakdown, % downtown vs % outside of downtown, distance traveled, etc.

 

[Elvish Lore]

Vegas would be a lousy place to hold a gaming convention for a lot of reasons (unless by gaming you mean Poker). For a gaming convention to thrive, I really think it needs a large local market - which Vegas is not going to provide. Many of the attendees at a gaming convention are younger and can't blow their budget on travel costs, and Vegas is just about inaccessible to every market but Los Angeles and Phoenix. Indianapolis on the other hand is within 5 hours of Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cleveland, Columbus, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Detroit. That's a massive potential market and I think is a big reason for the success of the Con.

Also, in terms of wholesomeness, Indianapolis versus Vegas is no contest.

I live in Los Angeles and I completely agree.

Holding it anywhere outside of the midwest would be cost prohibitive to a lot of people -- there's a reason Gen Con So Cal died a quick death: it was just too expensive for most people to fly out here.

I've no idea how if Chicago's hotel space is contiguous or spread out but that city would offer excellent accessibility, whether driving or flying into. I've got no problem with Indy but if the con is going to move, I hope it goes to Chicago.

 

[Michael Dean]

I live in the Midwest, and driving to Chicago takes me 3 1/2 hours vs. 4 hours to Indy. I love going to Chicago; there are excellent museums and beaches and cool things to do. That said, I wouldn't trade Indy for Chicago for Gen Con. Chicago traffic is a mess downtown during the weekdays, which means Wednesday-Friday of the convention would be a big time hassle. Most people, I'm guessing, would still be driving in vs. flying in, and parking is not fun downtown.

I don't think the restaurant situation around the convention would offer much of a plus over Indy, so that's a wash for me, as I note below on how they handle the annual Big Ten 5k race.

I've gone to 9 of the last 11 Gen Cons in Indy, and last year I went to the 5k/10k Big Ten Run in Chicago in July, which I think for one day was comparable to the crowd at Gen Con. We ended up on the northwest side of town for hotels out by the airport due to expense and the fact that the downtown hotels were booked solid, which added a 45-55 min drive each day to the city. Friday registration for the race was a mess downtown because it took forever to get a parking space and we were fighting Friday traffic in the evening. I'm a pretty good driver and don't get flustered easily, but Chicago always sets my teeth on edge getting around.

The overall event was nice and we loved it, but trying to get a restaurant without a two hour wait for a meal in walking distance of the race downtown was impossible. They just could not handle the post race rush, which, at Gen Con, is all day for several days running.

The whole time I was there I kept thinking, could Chicago handle Gen Con? I think yes, absolutely. Is Chicago going to be free from the same complaints I hear every year from people who don't like Indy? No way. And some of the problems would be even worse in Chicago. I hear that they have the convention space, which is great, but I am not knowledgeable about that, so I don't know if it's better than Indy's or not.

It would be nice if Gen Con opened up more of that back room for the Exhibitor Hall. It looked like they opened up some more room this year than was open two years ago when I was there. There is that room connected to the Exhibitor Hall which I think maybe could be used for exhibitors. Even if you don't add more booths, you could spread the ones you have out more to leave wider walking lanes to ease the congestion. Maybe they've thought of that and there is something wrong with that idea.

I will concede that if Gen Con grows to 90 or 100k people, it's going to be an issue which would require some big changes to address. But putting an extra 100k people in downtown Chicago for 4-6 days is not going to be noticeably better.

 

[Lanefan]

A bunch of quasi-random things to toss in here:

* - Adding more actual convention space isn't an issue at all, there's a whacking big covered football stadium a block to the south they could take over (and rumour has it this is a possibility) if needed, as it's not otherwise used much in the NFL off-season. It's the accommodation squeeze causing the headaches.

* - The 9% number is just this year's increase; each of the last two years the year-over-year increase has been closer to 20%+.

* - I don't know about Chicago but there's a quote above about possibly moving it to Orlando, and that would be a disaster. Orlando has gobs and gobs of hotels, to be sure, but they're spread out over a massive area; and as they can't even organize a decent (and free!) shuttle service to the outlying hotels in Indy I shudder to think how it'd work out in Orlando.

* - [MENTION=6727715]eyeheartawk[/MENTION] Having events in places other than the actual ICC is a good thing, in that it allows events to be run outside the Thursday-Sunday block (e.g. the Stink on Wednesday evening in Union Station, same place the Ennies are presented on Friday night).

* - [MENTION=9199]Michael Dean[/MENTION] The quickest way to expand the dealers' hall would be to move the card/board game area to somewhere else; which would be fine with me.

Lan-"just got home from GenCon, and what a long strange trip it was"-efan

 

[Hand of Evil]

personally, I wonder if the complaints about location are just raised by 9% this year and have just doubled from 2010. Gen Con is in a great location, just draw a 1000 miles circle around Indy and see all population it has to draw from. Do the same from another city, you start loosing gamers.