On Sun, Jul 02, 2006 at 09:35:51PM -0500, Carl D Cravens wrote: >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. Fair enough. Stabcon was about 1/5 of that, and isn't a "local" convention for me; the BRS cons are cheaper (because I don't have to drive as far). I haven't been to conventions in Europe, but I'm giving serious thought to going to Linkjo"ping next year... >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. Certainly I wanted to go to GenCon before I knew anything about what happend there. >> 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. Hmm. Personally I find it much easier to look over a hundred booths in the dealers' room than to skim through a hundred web sites. And I can ask the questions that won't be answered on the web sites. >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. As long as you know you want it. Reviews and word-of-mouth, for me, are no substitute for browsing through the book and talking to the author. >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. The last few times I went, I was playing in about one 4-hour slot a day, usually running in another, and spending the rest of the time socialising and/or in the dealers' room. -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/
