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I am starting this thread for discussion of if Gen Con should move from Indy. I am pretty sure the PFS forum is wrong place to put this so I ask that it be moved to the correct place on the forum.
Thanks to all for moving discussions about the future home of Gen Con to this thread.
It's a fair request. Sorry to move off on a tangent. It's easy to get drawn in to discussions on these things.
There is only one city 'big' enough locally to handle GenCon.
The organizers don't want to have anything to deal with it, though.
That being Chicago.
Chicago has a series of issues with it that preclude it being an optimal choice, the least of which is the location of the nearest convention center to the hotels, which are priced in such a way to make anything GenConIndy weekend look downright reasonable.
In addition, there is crime, and with a significant chunk of unaware gamers and other fans descending upon the city would not be a good thing at all.
While the idea of Rosemont (a suburb that's pretty much *built* on conventions) is a possibility, the logistics of such a convention would still be, to put it kindly, a mess.
If GenCon moved to Vegas or New York, I probably wouldn't be able to attend, and I suspect a lot of others feel the same.
As far as New Orleans? I nearly went to the hospital a few times at Indy. Can't imagine what it'd be like with an even higher humidity and heat...
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There is only one city 'big' enough locally to handle GenCon.The organizers don't want to have anything to deal with it, though.
That being Chicago.
Chicago has a series of issues with it that preclude it being an optimal choice, the least of which is the location of the nearest convention center to the hotels, which are priced in such a way to make anything GenConIndy weekend look downright reasonable.
In addition, there is crime, and with a significant chunk of unaware gamers and other fans descending upon the city would not be a good thing at all.
While the idea of Rosemont (a suburb that's pretty much *built* on conventions) is a possibility, the logistics of such a convention would still be, to put it kindly, a mess.
If GenCon moved to Vegas or New York, I probably wouldn't be able to attend, and I suspect a lot of others feel the same.
As far as New Orleans? I nearly went to the hospital a few times at Indy. Can't imagine what it'd be like with an even higher humidity and heat...
To be fair, juggling 61,000 gamers would be a mess anywhere you try. Even Chicago would have a problem with 61,000 people from all over the world descending on their hotels and convention center(s) for 4-6 days. GenCon is just such a large impact for a short time that it's a lot of work from both the convention staff and the locals to bring everything together.
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I think one of the issues with this topic is going to be the "everyone wants it closer to them" argument. You will see the East coasters arguing for New York areas or potentially Florida. West coasters will want it to be in LA. I'm sure my desire for it to stay where it is is partly due to the fact I can drive a few hours to Indy where as I would have to fly to the other locations. Until someone gives reasons that aren't I want it place X, because I am close to place X, I'm not going to give the discussion a second thought.
I don't want it in Chicago, even though the city is probably the best capable of handling it (or Rosemont, for that matter).
Even though it'd make it a LOT closer to where I live.
What I really DO want to see is *MORE LODGING* in Indy. If they're going to persist in this fiasco, they need to have more hotels near the convention center.
Like, an order of magnitude more.
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It takes a couple of years to build a hotel.
And from what I get from the Gen Con forums, the leaders in Indy are hesitate to allow the hotel rooms to expand.
Keep in mind that Gen Con is one weekend. Hotels have to make a profit the entire year. So if to many hotels room were built, many of the hotels would not be profitable.
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While I think it would be difficult to find a location which is centrally located that is able to handle the size of the crowd or convention center space requirements outside of Chicago, Orlando would be a definite possibility.
Not only does it have the convention center space and hotel capacity, but for us Midwesterners, the flight costs are generally low as it is a tourist destination. The one downside is that peak vacation times tend to line up with Gen Con dates, so hotel space there would be competing with other events.
As Gary points out, hotels won't support peak demand unless they can have sustained business for their capacity, and I just don't see that happening in Indy without an increase to the number and size of their other conventions.
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I have seen posts on Gen Con Forum that indicates that there is about 1000 more rooms being added in the next year or so.
And that a lot of the downtown hotel space has been taken up by the federal government.
This said, the city and state can help in this but the fact is, there will never be enough downtown hotel space for Gen Con.
Problem Indy has is they lack the demand for hotel space, at that level, 50 weeks out of the year. For a hotel to be profitable and to keep room prices up, they must average a high level of occupancy throughout the year. Indy simply doesn't have the demand so they will not build more rooms. If Gencon wants to grow, I can't see them doing it there. It should be noted, that growth isn't necessarily a good thing.
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Things to consider.
Indy is the state capital. This will draw in some good room nights. The convention center is nice so likely draws in a fair share of conventions. The hotels will get business for just being hotels. Football games likely pull in a good crowd for Saturday and Sunday 8 or so weekends a year.
So while the hotels don't sell out every weekend it is likely they are doing pretty good.
The real question is what is the number of rooms can the city support year round.
Trust me. Gencon is a cash cow that the city will not get away easily. If we want to see change we need to voice our concerns to the city and state. Mayor and governor is a good start.
Voice our concerns about transportation and hotel space.
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My wife went to a world diabetes conference in Orlando that had tens of thousands of delegates (I think it was less than sixty thousand, but they also didn't use all of the convention centre). That city seemed built for massive conferences/conventions.
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I'm of the opinion that a better city for Gen Con is basically a unicorn - it doesn't exist. If you're looking for centrally located, big convention center, and lots of connected/less than one block away rooms, there just isn't another choice. They tried doing a Gen Con on the west coast and it flopped.
Vegas has the sheer hotel volume, but it's a lot more spread out, even the strip has issues with "adult" ads and pictures, and Gen Con would not be nearly as much an "event" there because it would be basically swallowed up.
My understanding is that Chicago has no connected hotels, so that would be just terrible.
Orlando
Pro: has 3x as many hotels as Indianapolis
Con: the largest exhibit hall is 1/2 the size of the one in Indianapolis, meaning fewer vendors in a centralized area.
Vegas
Pro: has 7x as many hotels as Indianapolis. The largest exhibit halls is 3x as big as the one in Indianapolis.
Con: The city wouldn't care as much about us. Food costs are higher.
The Indianapolis metro area has about 20,000 hotel rooms. The strip in Vegas alone has about 62,000, which are all within 2 miles of the convention center. The city as a whole has 140,000.
For scale, the Indianapolis convention center exhibit hall is about 750,000 square feet. The largest similar space in Orlando is about 370,000 sq ft. Las Vegas: 2,000,000 sq ft.
Las Vegas is a lot more family friendly than it used to be. There are still a few racy ads on the street, but it's not what it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I think the biggest stumbling block would be the price. I don't know what Vegas would charge GenCon to hold it there (ie. badge prices). It might be significantly more expensive. In addition, food there is about 50-80% more expensive than in Indianapolis. While there are lots of reasonable options for hotel rooms, overall costs would probably go up for all attendees due to food and badges.
Indianapolis is a convenient location being in the middle of the US, but at GenCon's current size it's just way too crowded. The exhibit hall is a mess, the corridors are always packed, hard to get a hotel room and parking can be a real pain.
Either Indy needs to attract more customers to justify hotel space, or GenCon needs to go somewhere it's not the biggest fish in the pond.
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I've never been to a Gen Con where the exhibit hall wasn't crowded, except on Sunday before the family pass. I've only been attending since the mid 90s, but crowds in the exhibit hall is just normal.
People keep saying Las Vegas is more family friendly, but I was there just last October and was handed naked woman cards with phone numbers on the strip at 7 PM. Personally that doesn't bother me but I know it would bother many people. Perhaps we could make a CCG out of it. My biggest issue with Vegas would be that while there are more "sort of nearby" rooms, there many fewer "run up to the room and back in five minutes" rooms. Hotels there are the size of entire city blocks; in Indy, I can leave the convention center, get to my hotel, ride the elevator to my room, drop something off, ride back down, and return to where I was in less time than it would take to walk to the next door hotel in Vegas.
That "pop up to the room" convenience is why downtown rooms are so desirable in Indy, and any venue that can't supply that is less ideal.
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Last year at GenCon it was a 25 minute drive to my room (one way). Plus if I took the car, I'd have to pay $20 for parking a second time that day. So, we're talking about a 90 minute (including walking to the car, looking for a new parking space, etc) round trip with a $20 fee. So, I fail to see how Las Vegas is less convenient.
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I don't believe there is an ideal solution. With the resurgence of tabletop gaming, attendance has more than doubled in a decade and increased by approximately 20,000 in just 5 years. Based on these trends, Indy is definitely at capacity for the horde of gamers.
That being said, there has to be compromise if we change locations, whether that be connected hotels, driving distances, prices, or some other factor. I'm curious how some of the large cons handle things. The Pax's and Dragoncon, for example, have comparable, if not larger attendance, while being in the same wheelhouse; how do attendees at those conventions feel about locations and housing options? How would those locations affect the Gencon experience compared to how it is in Indy?
The Westgate, which is on the same block as the Las Vegas convention center has 2,956 rooms (+305 suites). The SLS, about a block away has another 1,720 rooms. Circus Circus has 3,773. The Stratosphere has another 2,427. That's a little over 10,000 rooms, plus probably another thousand or two in the smaller hotels within a few blocks as well.
And that isn't counting the rest of the strip that is all within 2 1/2 miles of the convention center. Will everyone be able to walk to their room multiple times a day? No. But MORE people will be able to walk to their rooms whenever they want.
The entire downtown area of Indianapolis has 7,400 hotel rooms.
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If you consider Circus Circus and Stratosphere to be within casual walking distance of each other, you and I have very different definitions of an easy walk. I think it took my wife and me 45 minutes to walk that last fall? Especially not something I'd want to do in 110 degree desert heat.
The best hotels in Vegas would be roughly equivalent to the "second tier" (non-connected, 2-4 blocks away) downtown hotels now. I'd rather have a chance at an actual good room.
My understanding of Dragon Con is that (a)they cap their attendance and (b)getting a nearby (1 block away) hotel is a nightmare. But I admit I haven't heard much on that front in the past few years.
I miss the free for all housing system too. It was never a problem getting a good room if you had a good strategy. It was frustrating and annoying, yes, but doable.
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Where are you getting the food numbers IT? I travel at least once a year to Vegas and food options are no more expensive than many cities in the midwest. Sure they have many options that are, but they have plenty of affordable eateries as well.
@ryric are you saying hotels in Vegas are on average worse then those in Indy?
My understanding of Dragon Con is that (a)they cap their attendance and (b)getting a nearby (1 block away) hotel is a nightmare. But I admit I haven't heard much on that front in the past few years.
a) No, DragonCon has never capped their attendance.
b) Yes, getting a hotel room within a few blocks is effectively a nightmare. The hotels set their own policies and you can but hope that something won't mess you up. DCon offers no support themselves. I've actually been wondering if the lotto system GenCon uses would be superior to what DragonCon does now with hotel rooms selling out in seconds.|
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Where are you getting the food numbers IT? I travel at least once a year to Vegas and food options are no more expensive than many cities in the midwest. Sure they have many options that are, but they have plenty of affordable eateries as well.
@ryric are you saying hotels in Vegas are on average worse then those in Indy?
I'm saying that each hotel is roughly the size of the ICC, but much of that space is taken up by non-room things, like restaurants, casinos, fountains, and so forth. Vegas has more rooms within a mile but less within "across the street."
Right now in Indy, there are the right next door hotels: both Marriots, the Westin, Crowne plaza, and so forth. Then there are the other downtown hotels like the Ambassador, which are good but not the top tier. Then there's everything else that requires some sort of transportation each day. Vegas has basically no hotels in the first tier, but much more in the second. Much of the strip would actually be in the last tier, as once you hit more than a half hour walking you'd be looking to ride a bus or monorail. But the buses get very crowded at peak times, and the monorail only has a few stations and can be a 20 minute walk just to get there, though it does have a stop at the convention center.
Yeah, I swore to myself I would not attend another GenCon that was not held in the state of Wisconsin, and I am holding myself to that.
Then again, conventions aren't really my scene anyway, so this is mostly a convenient excuse.
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Yeah, I swore to myself I would not attend another GenCon that was not held in the state of Wisconsin, and I am holding myself to that.
Then again, conventions aren't really my scene anyway, so this is mostly a convenient excuse.
While I love Indy as a location, there was a certain charm to Gen Con back in the Milwaukee days that is gone.
1. The TSR castle in the middle of the exhibit hall
2. That odd sloping skywalk between the MECCA center and the Arena
3. Places on the map labeled things like the Deep Labyrinth.
4. An anime "room" that was just a couple of sheets strung between those huge hall pillars.
And then it moved to the new convention center, put the exhibit hall on the third floor and we got to deal with broken escalators more than half the time.
But wow, there was no good place to eat in downtown Milwaukee. Your choices were mall food court(but not on weekends or after 5), Hooters, some random Thai place or various sports bars. Or you could walk 20 minutes and wait an hour to go to Safehouse, which was admittedly awesome - until the last couple years when they started offering a reduced menu during Gen Con.
There is absolutely no chance that Gen Con will move to New York or any other city on the East Coast.
New York is the only city that has facilities large enough, but the sheer expense of holding a convention here precludes it happening. It's also too far away for WOTC to even consider it.
