Or Origins, or San Diego Comic-Con, or one of the various PAXs (PACES?), or another of the really big gaming/comic book cons? It’s far too late for me to arrange to go to Gen Con this year, of course – no, really, the scheduling the family’s done for August is assuming that I’ll be manning the Command Center* – but next year I need to be thinking about this stuff, particularly if I want to, you know, professionally network and so forth.
So I guess… either Gen Con or Origins, huh? Thoughts on this are welcome. I obviously can’t do the full con circuit, but I should start thinking about where I should be going.
Moe Lane
*Oh, dear. A week where everybody’s scattered to the four winds and I’m stuck at home. How awful. How will I ever handle being by myself for that long?
I’ve been to the last couple of PAX Souths in San Antonio, and a couple of recent Worldcons. Pax was fun, but the Worldcons have gone total SJW so I probably won’t go back unless it’s really close. For SF cons, I really want to go to Libertycon for the large baen contingent, and I’d like to do dragoncon some year.
I went to one GenCon, the last in Milwaukee. I’ve never lived anywhere close to another major convention location. (my current location of South Florida is not really a geek mecca)
I’ve been to both Origins and Gen Con (in the Milwaukee, Indy and short lived Los Angeles flavors). It’s been a few years, but the general rule of thumb has been that Origins is smaller and a bit more relaxed, but if you’re a board gamer, Origins tends to be the better choice. However, given your background, you’ll probably want to do Gen Con. It’s a lot bigger and a lot more RPG heavy. This year’s Gen Con schedule has about 3300 RPG events on the schedule right now. Mostly AD&D and Pathfinder, but a smattering of everything else too. I think Indy’s a bit more expensive than Columbus though.
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Side note- if you’ve never been to a large con, it’s a bit heartlifting to see the throngs of “us” all in the same area. The dealer’s room also tends to be a bit jaw dropping if you’ve only seen a small local store before.
I attend GenCon annually. I normally just play Battletech for three straight days (3×12 hours), and don’t do tabletop RPGs, but if you happened to be there I’d probably try to go attend something you were running both for the experience and a chance to hang out for a bit.
Living in San Diego, I’ve been to Comicon a few times. It is incredible how many people show up. Even those without tickets come to hang out in the Gaslamp Quarter. Our dance group does an annual Comicon show at The Field Irish Pub, this year our theme is Pokemon. If you are interested, I can see what I can do for tickets and not have to hit the lottery.
I’ve been to the Houston Comicon a few years ago, I’m not really into either meeting the actors or cosplay. Meeting Phil Foligo and a few other people was cool though.
I go to OwlCon, the Rice University based con, yearly. Play a mix of stuff, including some LARPing. And if you ever get a chance to be in a game with Jeff Dee, of Villains and Vigilantes fame, I highly recommend it.
Networking-wise I’d recommend Origins over GenCon. Everybody is at GenCon, but they’re insanely busy and making time to talk is difficult after/while dealing with 60,000 attendees. Not everybody is at Origins, but it’s easier to carve out a little face time. Also, there’s one central bar at Origins that almost everyone comes through, which isn’t true of GenCon.
Since you’re mid-Atlantic, you might give some thought to DexCon in Morristown NJ, too. Not as many pros there but it’s a great place to demo your new game.
Gen Con is amazing and huge but that also makes it a PITA. Just look up about the annual disaster that hotels reservations are. Origins is great, be sure to go to the Secret Cabal meet up, in fact start listening to their pod cast, great show about board games and RPGs.
I go to DragonCon here in Atlanta (attendance sixty thousand or so) but as Spegen says, getting hotel reservations is always a disaster. The five host hotels for DragonCon put their room blocks on sale some ten months in advance and they’re sold out in minutes. Being in one of the host hotels is the best way to experience DragonCon, because not only are you right there for everything, you also get DragonCon TV in your room which lets you watch some of the big panels that people waited an nour or more in line to get a seat to see.
When I was younger I couldn’t afford it, once I could I hadn’t the time and eventually lost a lot of interest. Now that I’m old and could probably find the time and money, I don’t think I could find the energy 😀
I’m kinda in the middle of nowhere, and kinda out of the loop on geekery. Atlanta is a doable day trip for me (65 miles), but what, exactly, is happening there? I can’t find any kind of schedule or program information on it, and I’m not dealing with Atlanta’s pita traffic without some kinda idea what I’m getting out of it….
I do know that Dragoncon is looking to supplant the Hugos as the fan choice award.
Everything I’ve heard is that it’s a good time, but I’m a bit of an introvert and not really inclined to seek out large gatherings of people. Even if they get my jokes.
I’m of a similar mindset, but I also have kind of a geek ‘jones’ going… I miss having a group for tabletop RPGs 😀
Have you tried dragoncon.org ? If anywhere is going to have information it’s going to be there. I can tell you that the convention is based out of five hotels around the Peachtree Center mall and MARTA stop, one stop north of Five Points, if getting to a MARTA station and training it in the rest of the way is an option for you. The dealer’s/vendors room outgrew its old space so that’s over in America’s Mart now.
Their website seems short on specifics, but I sometimes find websites are laid out in a way so counter intuitive to me that the information might as well be double encrypted…. in Sanskrit 😀
Case in point: I just revisited the site, and IMMEDIATELY found the information after spending 2 hours yesterday beating my head against an impenetrable wall of confusion until I tired of the squishy sounds….
Actually just left Indy this morning. Very hot, very humid. Probably not worse than Maryland, but I was miserable.
And will be going back in 6 weeks.
So I miss it by three weeks in either direction. This year, anyway.
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Did I have a point? Sorry, just drove for 15 hours, I’m a bit fuzzy at the moment. You might want to arrive a day early or stay a day late to visit the escape room. https://escaperoomindy.com
I was going to suggest GenCon for sheer size, but if Ken Hite says Origins is better for networking in the industry, that’s the choice to make.