On Sun, 2 Jul 2006, Roger Burton West wrote:

> What does GenCon cost these days? Convention registration at Stabcon was
> about 10-15% of my total cost (fuel and hotel making up the rest). When
> the balance falls that way, you might as well go to the convention too.

Pre-reg, all four days is $65.  A single-day is $35.  ($75 and $45 
after June 23rd.)

To go to GenCon would cost me $303 per person in airfare.  Then the 
hotel is probably going to run about $150 a night for three nights, if 
we get one close enough we don't need a rental car.  Or we go further 
away and get a rental car and it costs somewhere around the same.

So we're looking at about $1000, give or take a hundred, if we were 
going to GenCon, not counting food or con purchases.  So the con would 
be about 10-15% of the full price... but that's a pretty big full 
price.  About 544 British pounds, for reference.

I'm doing the math and find myself wondering why I wanted to go to 
GenCon at all... that's a freakin' lot of money for me.  But GenCon is 
almost like a pilgrimage one makes because it is expected of the 
disciples.  I dunno... I expect GenCon to have a certain amount of 
magic.  And despite not liking half of the games we played in, it 
_did_ have a lot of magic for me the one time I went.  Some of that 
magic was in seeing all the stuff in the dealer's room that was new to 
me.

> Don't new games get released at GenCon any more? Or games from 
> companies too small to have a distribution deal to the FLGS, but 
> which can just about scrape together the cost of a booth?

They do... but because of the Internet, they aren't surprising.  And I 
know that I can order anything over the net after it's released.  Not 
much point in spending $1000 to go to a convention to pay full-price, 
when I can order it from Amazon for 30% off.

> get the chance to talk with game designers - not just at panels but
> informally

As mentioned, I want to go to GenCon for the atmosphere and to meet 
people.  Last time I started to plan a trip, I intended to not join in 
a single organized game... if I gamed, it was going to be because I'd 
found neat people and we wanted to game together.

-- 
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net)                Gamers List Owner
  [  Wichita RP Community Resource -- http://www.wichitagamers.com/  ]
I *wish* I could remember where I parked my hard disk.