I had the opportunity to look over the events for Gen Con this year, and will say I was very pleased on the PFS event selection.
I had heard the number of events (and the room) was increased quite a bit, but I did not have an idea it was that much. That is great!
I am hoping that on event sign-up day, it isn’t like last year. I was right there during sign-up and submitted my ‘Wish List’. My screen locked up with ‘Loading’ and when the screen finally came up, I was signed up for one of my events (had signed up for 5 PFS), the rest were all greyed out.
It did finally work out and I was able to get into the events, as Paizo did a great job in getting in people with generics, but I would like to avoid having to do that this year if possible.
So I am just saying I am hoping event sign-up doesn’t fill up as quickly, or is as crazy, as last year.
Hobbun, I share your concern about the Gen Con registration. Last year, I was in the same boat: There were a couple of events our group absolutely HAD to get into. We waited for registration to open, submitted our list, and BAM! Gen Con's servers locked up. We eventually got into some of the events that we wanted, but the whole situation was pretty frustrating.
This probably had to do with the fact that, later, Gen Con announced it drew something like 36,000 attendees in 2011 -- the most in its existence (and certainly the most in the six consecutive years our group had gone!).
With those kind of numbers, you'd think Gen Con would boost its servers a bit this year. Sadly, I don't think this is the case. When badge ordering opened this year (I think it was on a Friday), I know we weren't actually able to get our order processed until that Sunday night. F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-N-G!
I'm just as happy with the PF/PFS events this year, but if the con's website is any indication, it's a toss of the dice whether we'll actually be able to get into the events we want. Don't know about you, but I think all we can do is hope and wait that May 20 won't be another registration disaster.