GenCon UK After the party....

[Bagpuss]

I've very mixed feelings about GENCON UK. While I enjoy convention gaming and liking the fact it is back on a holiday camp instead of a convention centre in London. There seemed so many things wrong that spoiled the event for me.

First of is someone tells you the event is going to be in staged in an arena, you image a bricks and mortar sports hall or concert event, with good lighting, heating and facilities. You don't imagine a leaky tent in the middle of a cold wet Autumn, with terrible lighting.

They had a great consupport website that allows you to buy tickets for events online, and download modules for the games you will be running, well in advance of the convention.

But then when you arrived. They seemed to have not set aside those tickets, so the events you pre-booked for have sold out!

And/or sold you one day passes, when they don't actually supply one day passes.

They eventually got round to printing a timetable of games.

But one wasn't even in the programme.

And the one they did print out and put on display was listed in alphabetical order by Game Name, not by time slot so it was really difficult to find out what you could play in the next slot.

And it listed many games that had already sold out.

It was staged a Butlins, not a convention centre which allowed for 24 hour gaming if you desired.

But then its 24 hours of gaming in a freezing cold tent, without food or water after 11pm.

It was staged a Butlins, not a convention centre which allowed for resonably priced accomadation on site.

But it was Butlin's Minehead, which was too far south to attract many gamers from the North and too far outside of London to attract players that had got use to having it in their backyard. Hence attendance was low, and since it was all under one roof you could see just how poorly attended it was.

There were a number of trader stands, and even some from actual game companies.

But very few actually sold anything at any form of discount, what is the point of buying stuff at Gencon when you can get it cheaper online, or from your local game shop at home?

Bring and buy was good however I got Shadowforce Archer for £8, and Fading Suns D20 for £4.

Megadungeon was a mixed bag, I had a great game , but I hear others weren't so lucky. :\

 

[MonsterMash]

So I'm not too sad that I missed it then.

For next year I'd hope they can sort a lot of the glitches out. I believe that some of the old UK GenCons were notorious for the cold in the holiday camps they were held in (CryoGenCon). I'd say a more central venue would be better for numbers as Minehead isn't good for people from Scotland, the North or the East, somewhere in the Birmingham region might be better for accessability, but is there Butlins in West Bromwhich?

 

[Brakkart]

Well as for them not selling day passes, yes they did. I know because I bought one for the sunday and so did my best mate who went with me. Was my first time at a Gen Con (figured I had to go this year, it being on my doorstep so to speak). I didn't find the tent to be cold at all, it seemed to heat up quite nicely once it started filling up in the late morning.

The number of empty tables was a bit offputting though, I had expected it to be more packed than it was. As to attendance the people on the gate at Butlins said that attendance had actually been quite a bit higher than the con organisers were expecting. Not sure how accurate that is, but I am hopefull that they will choose to hold Gen Con in Minehead again.

I found the Trade Hall to be very well stocked, well apart from me being unable to find 2 books I was looking for (Slayer's Guide to Lizardfolk and Black Sails Over Freeport), still I picked up a Ravenloft Gazeteer vol 5, a novel and found the only issue of 3e Dragon magazine that I'd been missing in a £1 bargain bin still in its polybag.

Being held at Butlins was good, if you got bored in the games hall (which considering that neither I or my my friend wanted to play in any card tournaments and everything else seemed to be booked up happened pretty quickly), you could go and hit the rides (Go-Karts were good!) or the pool. Plus there was a very good selection of food vendors and bars on site.

all in all I look forward to it being held at Butlins again, next time though I think I'll either aim to hit the first day of the con, or get accomodation and go for all four days.

 

[Bagpuss]

And you living in Somerset has nothing to do with why Minehead seems a good location?

I think you'll find you were sold Weekend passes, perhaps at a reduced price.

I'm glad you had a good experience of the Convention but don't think you come to Gencon to go go-karting or swimming. As for the trade hall I think you probably could have bought most of the stuff they had on sale (unless it was really old second hand stuff) online for cheaper and without paying the £11 entry price.

I could believe the complete lack of offers, hardly anyone was offering discounts, and what discounts there were, were about 10% at most.