Gen Con is in Indianapolis, IN. Usually the second or third week of August every year.

www.gencon.com

It's well worth going, especially if you play other games. It really is the four best days in gaming. Quite an experience.

RP

I'm just a poor college student, so I'm worried about the costs involved. I don't want to drive out that far, so I'm thinking of taking a train and staying in a hotel. How expensive are the hotels in that area? Does anyone know?

If you're willing to drive 10-15 min to get to Gencon the hotels are reasonable we paid like $85 last year for 3 in a room. Gencon itself cost $70-$80 for all 4 days. You can recoup that cost by e-baying all the free stuff you get.

The site says $68 for the weekend in advance and $78 on site or $38/day.

Yeah, I hope I can afford to go. Gotta earn enough money over the summer to pay off my debts, then pay for Gencon and the trip there.

How many different formats do they have there?

Moses has posted the event schedule up on the WOTC forums.

They used to have a Gencon in Southern California, but they closed it down due to it not being profitable. I think they may still have a Europe one, but I am unsure after their restrucuring from bankcrupcy.

Go to the WOTC forums and look for the posts by Moses. He's the general organizer for the SWMs events. You have to realize, GenCon is not just for SWM. It's a general gaming convention with like 40,000+ attending. The SWMs area probably only sees about 200-300 of those people at best! So it's a HUGE event. The only way you'll find anything on the actual GenCon website about SWMs is in looking through the Event Registration listing, and you should be able to find the same set of events that Moses has posted about.

In years past (and similarly this year), you can pretty much spend from 9am to 9pm playing SWMs to heart's content. There's casual stuff like League Play, Sealed Events, Tile Wars, and Scenario Events, and then there are the more diehard, straight up competitive events like the Jedi Challenge and the Championships.


As said before, the ticket to get into the convention itself is about $70. Each SWM event that you play in is typically $10, with the Championship usually being more like $20-$30. Sealed Events or League cost you $30, but that also includes the 2 boosters you'll get with them. So, I usually end up spending about $100-$120 for events for the weekend.

Hotels can run anywhere from $50 a night to $200 a night depending on how close you want to stay to the convention center. I HIGHLY recommend you find people to room with, as that will help cut down on ALL the costs. For instance, last year, I stayed with 2 other friends about 10 minutes away from the Convention Center. We had to drive in and pay to park each day, but for the whole weekend, it only cost me about $100 for the hotel room + parking. This year, we're actually staying in a hotel across the street, so it's going to be more like $200 for the whole weekend (splitting room/parking 4 or 5 ways).

Also remember to include plenty of money for food/snacks as well, as things aren't super cheap in the convention center or the mall food court across the street. Figure on about $7-$8 per meal, unless you can locate a nearby grocery store and make food for yourself for the weekend. I'm usually too busy playing SWMs to be bothered with making food though, so we usually end up quickly visiting the food court, or one of the convention center vendors.

All in all, the trip probably costs me around $500 each year, and I'm lucky enough to only live 2 hours away, so we drive, and carpool. If you have to fly, or drive solo, or stay in a hotel room by yourself, those costs will climb pretty drastically.

Who is going and what events are you participating in? This will be our first year so we are unsure what SWM events we should sign up for. Do they all cost separately to play?

Do you have any suggestions for a noob to GenCon? My boy and I plan to attend and play only SWM. We might be there Thrusday but possibly not until Saturday depending if I can get the days off of work and the wife doesn't care hehe. When should we book our room? Also do you have a hotel you recommend that is reasonably close and affordable to the location?

Thanks for the help