Over 36 thousand Gen Con 2011 attendies

[darjr]

Gen Con Indy 2011: Press Release - August 11, 2011 - Gen Con Indy 2011 Shatters All Previous Attendance Records

Wow! good job folks.

Last year was 30,000 and I heard that they were expecting more than that this year, but yow.
​

 

[Dice4Hire]

Might want to fix the title

But good news for everyone there.

Someday, someday, if I am lucky.....

 

[Hand of Evil]

The real question is; How soon will Gen Con out grow Indy? 2008 think 22,000, 2009 was 25,000, 2010 was 30,000 gamers, 2011 was 36,000, if you project out less than a 10% growth. 2012 should be 40,000+! 2015 Gen Con could be pulling in 50,000! Of course, that only works if there is growth but the trend is there.

(note: it is quick math )

 

[mhensley]

Attendance may slip next year as it starts later and some won't go because school will have already begun.

Turnstile attendance was over 119,707

How in the world do they come up with a "turnstile" number? There were no turnstiles to count people and many entrances.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I wonder how they figure attendees, too. Obviously badge sales is a big indicator.

As far as outgrowing Indy? Well, Indy is set up very nicely and I am confident the city can keep up with rising numbers. But as already pointed out, next year's numbers may slip with the change in date. Origins has a similar problem since they scheduled the convention the same week as Memorial Day.

 

[JediSoth]

I think it will be several years, perhaps a decade, at least before Gen Con "outgrows" Indy at the current rate of growth. We just opened an expansion of the convention center.

This year's attendance did not seem any larger than last year. To me, that means that the expansion of the convention center worked and an extra 6,000+ attendees weren't really noticeable. That's a good sign.

 

[Dedekind]

Indy is a pretty good convention city--I don't see it getting outgrown yet.

Wish I could have made it this year. I like the earlier dates, though.

 

[Twowolves]

It sure didn't seem like 36,000. It was way less crowded, and I didn't even get to wander by half the rooms I have in the past. I think the expansion was good and bad, in that you had to intentionally go to an area to see some interesting things, whereas last year interseting things wandered by you.

 

[Crothian]

It felt a lot more crowded this year. I saw lines of 50-100 people waiting outside the Piazo room at times. Sunday the dealer room was packed like it was Saturday. The will call line on Wednesday was hous long I heard. Luckily, with the new convention center areas a lot of people didn't learn the short cuts so I was able to move about pretty easily.

 

[Herschel]

This year was......interesting. The expansion seemed to hold the crowd easily but the layout was not friendly. As others have said, wandering wasn't productive and getting to certain areas (like the dealer room even) was kind of a pain as access ways weren't connected at multiple points (If you came in the NW entrance by Victory Field and the Marriotts, for example, you had to S-curve to get to the dealer room rather than a hallway circling around to it.) That made getting places on a tight schedule sometimes difficult. It also seemed like there were more events off-site this year in the surrounding hotels.

The biggest issue of foot traffic though is usually the cosplay losers who think their getup is so cool they should stand in the middle of the hall blocking people getting places. If you want to make a costume, fine, just get to the side so people can get through as the polite ones do.

Luckily for me most of my events were in Sagamore (which is a HUGE ballroom on the second floor for those unfamiliar with the center) and had access to restrooms down the back hallway where we didn't have to often deal with many of the disgusting practices often shown by convention goers in the lower public restrooms (or in the mall even). Unfortunately large gatherings increases the chance of disgusting idiots messing something up and with 36,000 people there's bound to be a number of them.

All-in-all it was a good time, as usual, and the number of events is truly astounding. It's something every gamer should experience at least once, if not once per year.