D&D 5E No D&D / WotC Booth in the Hall Again at GenCon 2014?

[Lanefan]

WotC not being in the dealers' hall is a double-edged sword.

The bad part is they're harder to find, and while I did manage to find them last year the general atmosphere around their area was a bit less than energetic.

The good part is that if they *had* been in the dealers' hall they'd have taken up a lot of space that could have gone to other vendors. And as I believe the dealers' hall is sold out this year even without WotC in it, the more available space there is the better.

Lan-"looking forward to GenCon 2015 as I can't get there this year"-efan

 

[DEFCON 1]

WotC not being in the dealers' hall is a double-edged sword.

The bad part is they're harder to find, and while I did manage to find them last year the general atmosphere around their area was a bit less than energetic.

The good part is that if they *had* been in the dealers' hall they'd have taken up a lot of space that could have gone to other vendors. And as I believe the dealers' hall is sold out this year even without WotC in it, the more available space there is the better.

Lan-"looking forward to GenCon 2015 as I can't get there this year"-efan

Yup. According to a press release they put up on the gencon.com website, this year's exhibitor's hall sold out in record time-- 2 months prior to their previous record sell-out, even after expanding their exhibition space by 14%. Just looking at the exhibition hall map, there's like 380+ companies listed on it... and the press release states there's more than 30 on the waiting list.

Just looking at the amount of space Fantasy Flight are taking up... had WotC gone in there with a comparable sized booth, that could have perhaps eliminated upwards of 30 other companies from having space. So keeping all their sales in and around their gaming area probably helped everybody.

 

[Perram]

True, but not all booths are created equal... I'd rather have a WotC booth than 3~4 booths selling used RPG stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

True, but not all booths are created equal... I'd rather have a WotC booth than 3~4 booths selling used RPG stuff.

Used RPG stuff? Gimme gimme gimme!

Lan-"most of my GenCon shopping consists of trying to complete my old-school TSR adventure collection"-efan

 

[gweinel]

Mearls on twitter

JRHyne1976: I don't see the Wizards_DnD booth on the #gencon map. Am I missing something?

MikeMearls: We don't have an exhibit hall booth at cons we go to these days. We changed our GenCon plans to match PAX last year.
We're much more focused on play and events, and having one area for everything really helps.

 

[JediSoth]

That's a shame. I'd definitely at least look at their stuff if they were in the exhibit hall. But it seems unlikely I'll happen to end up in the WotC room.

I went the entire four days last year without registering where the WotC room was. It's possible I walked right by it and tuned it out, like the minis room, but that doesn't speak well for me ending up there this year either.

Cheers!
Kinak

It didn't help that half the door "guards" directed people (or at least, directed me) to the wrong doors at which that door guard insisted was EXIT ONLY (and naturally right by the exact part of the hall I needed to get to). It was not actually easy to get into that space if you didn't already know where to go. Granted, that's a Convention Center problem, but it certainly made me think twice about even trying to get into that space.

 

[Kinak]

It didn't help that half the door "guards" directed people (or at least, directed me) to the wrong doors at which that door guard insisted was EXIT ONLY (and naturally right by the exact part of the hall I needed to get to). It was not actually easy to get into that space if you didn't already know where to go. Granted, that's a Convention Center problem, but it certainly made me think twice about even trying to get into that space.

Ha! I didn't run into the guards either, but that's classic.

I was actually just talking to one of my players, who's gone to GenCon with us the last few years. When I mentioned that WotC was sticking with their plan from last year, he laughed because he thought I was making fun of them for not even bothering to show up.

Upon doublechecking, between the four of us that went for the whole con, not one of us realized at the time that there was a WotC room. And three of us knew that you could pick up the playtest adventure at the GF9 booth, so it's not as though we don't pay attention to the D&D scene.

Cheers!
Kinak