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So I'm watching my events and various Pathfinder events right now and how well they're selling.
It seems to me that for Pathfinder, we could still use a lot more "beginner" events (people must be searching on these keywords) and "kid's track" events, because many of them are sold out already.
It seems like people are looking for "beginner" events, I'm not sure they're specifically interested in the beginner box. Maybe PFS should have the word "beginner" in their next version of First Steps.
We Be Goblins and WBG#2 are sold out. We Be Goblins being sold out really surprises me, it's been around for a while.
Eyes of the Ten are sold out, but it's not surprising since there are only 6 seats.
The upper tier scenarios that debut at Gencon are selling "OK" (too many seats for some of them, 60 for Hellknight?), but the older season 4 upper tier scenarios (Fortress of the Nail) are not, could probably use less of them.
Some of the older scenarios are sold out already. This was a great idea to include them on a limited basis and I hope we do that a little going forward.
Bonekeeps are selling reasonably well. Wow, there's going to be a lot of tears on Thursday and Saturday night.
The Friday special is selling a little better than Bonekeep. 200 or so tickets left (out of 810!).
Anyway, interesting.
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It seems to me that for Pathfinder, we could still use a lot more "beginner" events (people must be searching on these keywords) and "kid's track" events, because many of them are sold out already.
As I'm GMing Kid's Track, this really interested me. I did an Event Search with simply "Kid's" in the Title field. I'm finding lots of unsold tickets. 5 5 9 10 0 6 4 .....
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Got in with 4 tickets left.
Um, I'm new to this Gen Con thing. It all seems a bit crazy compared to the west coast cons.
There's no shuffler/lottery system to get into games, you just pay more money based on each game you want into? That seems really... wrong.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Signing up before hand is fine, sounds like a good idea. It's the extra money per game part that seems strange.
For your reference if you ever come west:
The large cons out here have you pick a priority for three games per time slot. Then a computer program does a lottery for everyone who signed up for each game. It weighs your number based on how many of your picks you have or have not gotten into that weekend and how high priority you gave it.
GM's get extra slots that can guarantee entry to a slot (or at least put you into a separate lottery with other GM's)
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Slot ticket prices is not unique to GenCon. Dragon*Con in Atlanta does the same. There is a per-game ticket that has to be bought ahead of time, or at the table if there was room.
Lots of cons have you pay extra for "specialty tracks". For example, Origins you need to buy your badge, but you also need to buy a "ribbon" if you wish to go into the boardgame room and play in the open boardgames. The extra fee pays for the room and any issues that arise (board games not returned to the library, etc...) at the con.
Plus, in theory it keeps the general admission ticket price low, since people not interested in boardgaming are not paying for it.
At D*Con we do something similar where GMs get free "play tickets" to use for their other slots.
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The (most palatable to players) reason for charging for slots is to make sure that people actually show up for the games they register for. Not only is a table where only two of the six players registered show up bad for those two players, it has a knock-on effect where someone else *might* have been there to play except the slot was already full.
One local PFS player drove several hours last week to GM Eyes of the Ten (Parts I-IV) at a regional convention. Eleven players were registered on Warhorn (no per-slot charge). Two last-minute cancellations and three no-shows later, there was only enough players for one group.
It's more of an issue at the conventions where you can always find something to do (a panel, a party, a costume contest, umpteen million new games to demo, a trip to the four football field sized dealers room). At the smaller conventions where PFS gaming is 40% or more of the activities, people are more likely to come for the sole purpose of playing RPGs.
Just like how vacation properties have non-refundable deposits. The theory is that once you "have some skin in the game" you'll be far more likely to follow through. Sure, some people will forfeit their five dollars, but far more will show than if people just signed up knowing they wouldn't lose anything if they didn't show.
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What are the odds that generics will get you into the Special? Slim? None? Slim-to-none? Fat-to-Some?
As one of the guys wrangling the PFS at Gen Con this year, I can tell you a "snowflake in hell" has better odds than getting into the Special with generics.
Sorry to anyone who missed out on a ticket. Maybe some will be returned and become available on site, so keep checking is the best advice I can give.
