qwaserity wrote:
To those who have late events,
I don't know about others but you can find me sitting at my computer right when pre-registration opens. There are events that I want to get into immediately because I'm bringing two friends to GenCon this year for their first gaming convention. Our schedules were filled quickly with games and events that only happen at cons. Then we fill in the rest of the hours with learning new games, shopping and other convention experiences.
When an event is added later folks like my friends and I have no more room to add another game. We're renaissance gamers who play everything so dropping game A to play game B is a pain. I'm wondering how many other gamers bypass the late added events because their plans are already set in stone.
P.S. Our shopping is planned out in one hour breaks between events so we can't squeeze in another game.
I'm not sure I understand what message you want to send to folks with late events, but I had a few general points to provide as some kind of reply.
First, no one at any point in the process wants their events to be late, but there are many factors that can cause that - plenty of which are not actually anyone's fault, if that even matters.
Second, Gen Con is always going to accept late events as long as we have the time and space to accommodate them. There is absolutely no reason to refuse them categorically and doing so would only result in fewer people playing fewer games, which we should all be able to agree is not a good thing.
If you and your friends have built a schedule you love, feel free to completely ignore late events. That's part of the risk everyone is aware of when their events are late. You found great events - stick with them. New event additions are not going to reduce their quality in any way, or even necessarily going to be better.
If you do see some games you would rather play than what you currently have scheduled, you still have until June 19 to return those tickets online to system credit and replace them with something else (new or not).
Either way, plenty of attendees don't sign up for events day 1 of event registration. Many don't sign up for anything until they arrive onsite at the show. Late events are an opportunity for them to hop into something exciting that may not have been ready at the launch of event registration or might have filled up quickly.
I can certainly understand the frustration of having planned out your weekend only to stumble across something new and enticing, but there is ultimately no sure-fire way to resolve that, and we are not going to artificially reduce the volume of games in an attempt to do so.
-
Derek Guder
Event Manager
Gen Con LLC