GenCon is a convention in Indianapolis that calls itself “the best four days in gaming”. The convention center and several of the downtown hotels host hundreds of thousands of people and thousands of events round the clock from Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon. There are scheduled game sessions for an huge selection of games. There are tournaments for card games (al la Magic the Gathering) There are board game events and miniatures games. An entirely different area is set aside for role play game sessions. Many of these sessions are pay-to-play. You purchase tickets for $2 per ticket (these are called generic tickets) and you can use those generics to get a seat at a table to play a particular game.
There are also film festivals, workshops for writers and game designers, meetings for game industry workers, and even a schedule of events for spouse who are not into gaming. The spouse track includes things like massages, cooking classes, etc.
The biggest draw for GenCon is the exhibit hall. Here is a massive retail space where companies big and small can sell their games and accessories. Most big companies make new product announcements at GenCon and sometimes you can pick up those new games at their booth before the game hits the store shelves.
If you plan to go to GenCon you need to buy your badges and book a room in January. The convention is late July/early August but the hotel rooms sell out within 12-20 hours of opening up. This year they tried a new system to get more people into hotels downtown but we still didn’t get anywere near convention center and I booked in late January.
I decided to start my Gen Con report articles with a “What is Gen Con” first. It is doubtful that one person knows all the conventions, meetings, get-togethers, or other social gatherings related to games, comics, and the like. Such a person if they exist would doubtful spend all their time reading schedules and programs and calendars and have little time for anything else.
Gen Con is a gaming convention in Indianapolis that is held each year in the later part of the summer. Tens of thousands of people go to the convention. It’s huge. There are scheduled events where people meet to play all manner of games. There are panel discussions from authors, game designers, and others. There is a costume parade, several dances, and movie screenings. It lasts four days from Thursday to Sunday and there is something happening every hour from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon.
The exhibit hall is enormous and filled with all sorts of vendor booths and demonstration areas. Game companies show off new and soon to be released games and have games for sale. Buying games a GenCon is a good idea as many companies include GenCon exclusive additions to games purchased at the con. Dice makers, cos-play costumes, miniatures games, board games, card games, art, books, and various game accessories are sold.