|
Hey Everyone,
It looks like I'm going to be able to get to Gen Con this year despite my work schedule. There's always a chance something happens at work in early August and I'm forced to cancel but, the timing this year finally looks right.
I'm going to Gen Con!
And I want to maximize my time there. For me, that means getting everything Paizo has to offer -- especially playing in high level PFS -- but also going to a couple workshops and lectures.
So, what do I do?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Don't just live in the Pathfinder room. There's plenty of PFS to be had there, but there's so much other stuff you won't want to miss, too. Maybe do 4-6 of the 10 PFS sessions, and spend the other half of the convention on other things.
Definitely put aside either Thursday or Friday afternoon to go walk the vendor room. It'll take the entire afternoon, and you still won't see it all. Don't do this on the weekend, because on Saturday, it'll be twice as crowded, and by Sunday, the vendors are closing up shop. But don't try to get into the Paizo booth Thursday. That's when there's a line, and you could be waiting an hour or more just to get in. Save it for a quick trip later in the weekend, when there's no line and you can walk right in.
If you can get into a True Dungeon session, it's worth the experience, at least once. They're very expensive (around $50), so you'll probably only want to do one the first time. But if you can get in, go for it - it's totally worth it.
Take a look at the event schedule and pick at least one little "oddball" thing to try out, just for something different. Or instead of a scheduled event, this could be taking an hour or two to sit down for a full game you've never played before in the vendor room - lots of the vendors have playing space to demo their games.
If Tracy Hickman has influenced your life at all, I highly recommend stopping by his booth. He's one of the most sincere and friendly people I've ever met and odds are you will be able to stand and talk to him for 5 minutes. So if you haven't met him, set aside a couple minutes in the trade hall to track him down and talk.
Related, go to his Killer Breakfast. Even if you can't get a stage spot, he puts on a fun gaming style show where he kills several hundred PC's in amusing fashion. It's usually Saturday morning. I've been to it twice and highly recommend it.
Try games you've never played before. Pretty much the entire industry is at GenCon. Either that game your group refuses to try, or just something that sounds interesting. There will be people playing anything and everything, so get in something you can't get at home. Personally, I'll spend most of my time at Games on Demand, an event space that hosts small press games.
Workshops/lectures/seminars are good. I assume there are some that fill up, but I've never been to one. Usually, even if you don't have a pre-registered ticket, they're first come/first serve. If the names of the speakers aren't ultra-famous and it's not a major event (big company talking about their future releases for the next year), there's space.
If you're going to a restaurant, plan on it taking 2-3 hours during peak times (dinner peak is like 5pm to 10pm). There are 50,000 other people trying to get dinner too. Eating out all the time is also expensive. I recommend picking up some semi-healthy snacks from the grocery store and stocking your hotel room. If your hotel is downtown, you can keep everything there, otherwise pack 1-2 meals worth and bring it with you for the day. The foodtrucks have improved the past few years and can sometimes have lines, but are often a good bet for something reasonably fast and well priced.
If your voice starts to give out, cough drops and hot tea can preserve it.
|
Show up early. Seriously, this is a most important thing. Get there early and spend time exploring so you get a diverse experience. Show up for events in a timely fashion so you can meet people and get to know them. Show up early so you're not feeling rushed when you sit down at a game table. You'll enjoy yourself so much more if you don't feel like you're rushing between events.
And relax. You can't see it all, so don't try. Just enjoy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, get your badge mailed to you. Unless you want to waste several hours in line to get it.
Last year the line for badges was several city blocks long, every morning.
|
|
Thanks for the help guys -- lots to think about. (I'm especially concerned about wait-time for restaurants.)
.
Is there a better way -- any way at all -- to get a schedule of events truncated to Pathfinder only?
The Excel Spreadsheet I got from GenCon.com has approximately 1 billion events, 8 trillion of which have nothing to do with Pathfinder.
....I had a student go through and copy/paste all Pathinder events from Column G into a new Excel sheet but even that is too ridiculously big. (The columns go from A to AE -- 31 friggin columns! And the Rows go down to 365; that's one event for every day of the year!)
I can't look at the events by date because they're in no order, and that seems the best place to start. If there was a list of all Pathfinder events by date at least I could start narrowing down my itinerary.
Again, thanks for everything!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Use the official Gen Con Event Finder on their web site. Search for "PFS". Then click the "Start Time" header to get it to sort by session times. This link might give it to you, sorted correctly.
Concerning dinner, it's good to just have plans. If you know you only have an hour between events, don't go to a restaurant, find a food truck or eat some snacks. The more expensive restaurants will sometimes have shorter waits. Also, the further you go from the convention center, the shorter the wait. A lot of people never go more than 5-6 blocks from the convention center. A short taxi/uber ride will get you out of that zone and greatly reduce the number of people. I think last year I never went more than 3 blocks, but I only ate at restaurants twice and had planned for lots of time both occasions.
|
|
I'll disagree on the restaurants. I've never gone farther than Scotty's, and while every place is busy, they're usually not THAT bad.
There are plenty of pretty good restaurants 1-3 blocks from the convention center. Just take a look in and see if there's a line to get seated. If they can get you to a table right away, you'll usually be fine. They all know how busy GenCon weekend is, so they have extra staff to get everyone served right away.
|
|
I like nice restaurants. I don't eat cheap and, on vacations such as this, I'm prepared to spend. Hopefully it'll just be the Applebees & Chilis & Olive Gardens & Outbacks & other crap like that that's full up while the nicer restaurants are more available.
Regarding food trucks & vendors -- they good?
The food trucks are good. There was one with pulled pork my friends were raving about, but was gone the day I went down there. The one I had was Korean tacos and was so good I went back for seconds and thirds.
If you're budgeting for a more expensive meal, St. Elmo's is fabulous. It's a very old school steakhouse. Everything I had was very classic, nothing new or novel, but it was all prepared expertly. One of the best steaks I've ever had at a restaurant. My meal (with lots of alcohol) clocked in around $120, but I'm setting aside money to do it again (I scored a free badge and hotel room this year). The shrimp cocktail... I've remembering it and am craving another one.
The nicer restaurants are definitely a little easier to get into. They're still busy, but most con-goers are already spending so much money other places, they don't spend it on food.
|
|
Oh, get your badge mailed to you. Unless you want to waste several hours in line to get it.
Last year the line for badges was several city blocks long, every morning.
The line is horrible during the day, but Will Call is open 24/7. Arrive at the con on Wednesday and you can get into Will Call late in the evening or even at midnight and there's no line to speak of. But you have to be willing to show up in the middle of the night. If you're not forgetful have your badge mailed to you. If you are, just plan ahead on when you intend to spend time getting your badge.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The line is horrible during the day, but Will Call is open 24/7. Arrive at the con on Wednesday and you can get into Will Call late in the evening or even at midnight and there's no line to speak of. But you have to be willing to show up in the middle of the night. If you're not forgetful have your badge mailed to you. If you are, just plan ahead on when you intend to spend time getting your badge.Oh, get your badge mailed to you. Unless you want to waste several hours in line to get it.
Last year the line for badges was several city blocks long, every morning.
Last year we arrived in town Wed, about 6:30 local. The line was a city block long. We went, had dinner, my friends got a shave and haircut at the barber, the line was still a city block long. My friend went back at 11 pm, the line was still a city block long.
Getting the badge shipped only costs $10 and comes with a 100% replacement guarantee.
|
|
Ayup, mailing it is.
.
How hard is it to find various halls/rooms for the various events?
I plan to make a flexible itinerary but, some of the conventions I've been to over the decades (for work, theater, chess, sports -- this'll be my first D&D Con) have been very difficult in finding a certain location.
Is it pretty easy to find "Room A" or "Grand Hall B" or whatever?
And how great of a distance can it be to walk from, say, "Room A" to "Grand Hall B"?
|
|
The place is huge, with tons of rooms. You WILL get lost. And it will frequently take 10+ minutes to get where you're going, even if you do know where that is, just because of the size of the convention center and density of the crowds.
Luckily, the Pathfinder room is pretty much the easiest thing to find. There's not much going on upstairs, and it's the biggest room on the 2nd floor by far, with signs here and there pointing you to the Sagamore Ballroom, which is the PFS room.