I believe each badge gets assigned a time regardless of if you log in on time or not. If you bought your badge after noon, then I do believe they get shunted to the back of the line, but if the badge was bought prior to that, then you have the same chance as everyone else.


Does anybody know if the downtown hotel are still open?

How do people get out of block? I tried a few years ago but the hotels wouldn't even consider it?
--FJP

I believe each badge gets assigned a time regardless of if you log in on time or not. If you bought your badge after noon, then I do believe they get shunted to the back of the line, but if the badge was bought prior to that, then you have the same chance as everyone else.
That's correct.

Downtown hotels are gone now. I take that back, a couple just popped back up, or my search was jacked, not sure which.

Does anybody know if the downtown hotel are still open?
Okay cool. I was assuming they'd be available for quite a while considering they are pretty expensive and there's thousands of rooms.

I believe each badge gets assigned a time regardless of if you log in on time or not. If you bought your badge after noon, then I do believe they get shunted to the back of the line, but if the badge was bought prior to that, then you have the same chance as everyone else.

Downtown hotels are gone now.

How do people get out of block? I tried a few years ago but the hotels wouldn't even consider it?
Vulturing the hotel sites between 13-11 months before Gen Con, waiting to see if rooms become available in the automated reservation system with the hotel before the local hotel management locks out the majority of the hotel for Gen Con's use.

I take that back, a couple just popped back up, or my search was jacked, not sure which.

How do people get out of block? I tried a few years ago but the hotels wouldn't even consider it?
Vulturing the hotel sites between 13-11 months before Gen Con, waiting to see if rooms become available in the automated reservation system with the hotel before the local hotel management locks out the majority of the hotel for Gen Con's use.

Downtown hotels are gone now.
Well, they went after about an hour last year, and that was with that "cutting in line" exploit. So not too surprising.

Downtown hotels are gone now.
Well, they went after about an hour last year, and that was with that "cutting in line" exploit. So not too surprising.
That's weird, because on Reddit they said 10 minutes ago a ton were still open.

How do people get out of block? I tried a few years ago but the hotels wouldn't even consider it?
--FJP

How do people get out of block? I tried a few years ago but the hotels wouldn't even consider it?
Vulturing the hotel sites between 13-11 months before Gen Con, waiting to see if rooms become available in the automated reservation system with the hotel before the local hotel management locks out the majority of the hotel for Gen Con's use.

If I put in Guests: 1, I get some downtown hotels to return. Guests: 2, I get none. This is of course for the standard stay of Wed - Sun.

Downtown hotels are gone now.
Well, they went after about an hour last year, and that was with that "cutting in line" exploit. So not too surprising.
That's weird, because on Reddit they said 10 minutes ago a ton were still open. I'm not going to believe anything I hear on here, maybe people are trying to get people to leave.

That's dumb. It makes it impossible to plan. If every badge is a random number then I could've received it the moment I bought the badge. Then at least I would have known ahead of time that I needed to look outside the GenCon system. Making people wait until the last minute to learn that you're screwed seems quite arbitrary and malicious.

There appears to still be several downtown hotels still available, but only for 2 guests or less.

I'm irritated that it doesn't matter what time you log into the housing system. I was ready to go right at noon and have an almost 3 hour wait. A friend logged in 5 mintes ago and has a 15 minute wait.
That's what I thought too but it's definitely not happening. What the hell's going to be available after 3 hours? That's like saying, "Thanks for buying our $90 badge but don't bother coming."
If you're going to require everybody to log in at noon or else be moved to the end of the line, then that's going to result in a gigantic crush at noon that most likely would cause the servers to fill. What happens when somebody tries to log in, only to get "Server full...Server full...Server full...Sorry, but you logged in too late and your time has been moved from 12:15 to 3:00"?
Wasn't this the problem in 2014 (the portal opened for everybody at the same time, and it became a de facto lottery as to who could get a connection to the server before the downtown rooms sold out) that led to the random times being assigned in 2015 in the first place?