I was idly wondering about this.  An anime convention, PopCon, came through July 7 through 10th.  I wasn't attending, but I followed some cosplayers from the Circle Center Mall into the convention center and strolled around.  PopCon is much much smaller than GenCon (it was using maybe 1/10 of the convention center, and a different event was being held on the other side).  I wandered in and mingled a little.  But there were people outside the actual exhibit halls who seemed to be checking badges at the doors, so I couldn't go in that deep.

The convention center is an open and sprawling building.  I go in sometimes when there's no events at all.  I think it's generally a pretty public place.  Otherwise, they'd have to have badge checks at the entrances.

I wonder if anyone remembers the year gencon decided to crack down on badges 2009 or 2010? and had check points which narrowed traffic flow down to One person at a time at pretty much every corridor that was horrible.  

Not only did it slow traffic to a crawl the security goons were rude as all get out.

Yeah, I don't remember that, either.

AFAIK GenCon has never done anything like that.

I've been going since 93 ( expect for two years) and every year since 2004.   I don't remember anything vaguely resembling this

The check points were manned by convention center security. Basically once you got past registration you had to pass a check point just to walk down the hallways in addition to check points at the dealer hall.  Good times thankfully it only happened one year.

Now that think about it might have been pre 2009.  Years kind of blend together.

Funny, the only time i remember people checking ID's (outside of the entrance to the exhibitor halls) was going into the room for checking out games..

Several years ago we were gaming late in a conference room in the Marriott.  All the scheduled events in the room were done for the day and we were using a table.  It was well past midnight and Gen Con staff came into the room and asked to see our badges. Two people in our group has left them in their room. They were asked to leave and get them.  Gen Con is monitoring the rooms.  

Nobody has asserted that GenCon can't kick people out of GenCon specific areas. 
What we are saying is that the Omni Hotel Lobby (as an example) is *not* a GenCon area, and if I don't have my badge on me and I'm hanging out there they can't kick me out.  And if they try, I'm perfectly within my rights to tell them to screw off.

I wonder if you are thinking of the year they were tearing down the old football stadium (RCA Dome / Hoosier Dome) that used to be attached to the ICC, and expanding the convention center itself.  You had to go through a slightly unusual checkpoint to get from a common hallway though a bunch of torn-apart building (that probably sounds a lot worse than it was, but it was obviously still a work in progress, no carpet, construction gear roped off, etc.) to get to where the Magic and other card games were.
 

This year will already be way overpopulated. We have already seen the effects of population bloat for housing, next month we get to see the effects on food truck lines, restaurant lines, parking, getting through the exhibit hall, and so on. We don't need more people who aren't supposed to be there are showing up. I am all for enforcing wearing badges in all areas of Gen Con, including areas in surrounding hotels contracted for use by Gen Con.

Lets nip this ghosting nonsense in the bud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mj6B4DtNyM