GenCon 2002 - update & policy

[Ron Edwards]

Jason,

Thanks for posting the link.

Seth,

Maybe I wasn't clear about something. You will not be able to trade up. WotC has no (or very few) "official exhibitor badges" for our booth. We handle all that on-site, or at least that's how it worked last year. When you contact them, I think all you'll get is "do you or don't you want your registration, sir?" Mentioning us, mentioning exhibitor badges, will only confuse them terribly. No one can give them $60 for an exhibitor badge except me and Jason, and we can't do that until the con. At worst, they will tag the booth (Jason and me) as trying to pull some sort of shenanigans through you and all sorts of unpleasantries can ensue from there.

Sigh. As I said, keep the registration or don't. If you do, you are still welcome at the booth. If you don't, you will be on our list to get a badge for, once you mail one of us $60, and then you're "booth staff." Given the prices and the miniscule difference in role, I think you're best off staying status quo.

As for the hotel room, please understand that staying at the room is not necessarily related to being booth staff. If a person chips in for the room (amount depends on post-con accounting), then he or she is in, as long as they don't mind the sleeping space being roughly 6'6" long and 3' wide, on the floor (like everyone else's). To be perfectly clear, a person in your situation can keep his current registration and still have a place to stay.

Folks - no commitments are being made to individuals on these forums. You have to contact us off-forum, and me personally regarding the hotel room.

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

When will you and Jason be arriving? Leaving?

[Jason L Blair]

Jared,

I'll be arriving late afternoon on Wednesday. I'll check in at the Hyatt first, then hit the con for my badge and to help set up the booth (at least set up the Key 20 part). I'll be leaving straight from the con.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

The contact page offers no obvious place to start in terms of trying to obtain a refund for a badge, and if I'm understanding Ron correctly, talking to Jeanette Keblish about it would open the door to whole new worlds of frustration and pain for everyone (not just me), so I suppose I'd do best to stick with my current badge, and deny assiduously that I am staff of any kind.  "Nossir, I am not acting as booth staff.  I am a law-abiding citizen and would never flout authority by doing such a thing without an official exhibitor badge.  Why, I just met all these people here, and we happened to hit it off.  No, don't mention it, sir, I'm grateful for the chance to chat with you fine folks from Convention Policy Enforcement.  And if I might say, those jackboots are very stylish--and the whip! Isn't that a Gauleiter Xtreme custom model? The chromium-embossed skull on the pommel, I'd know it anywhere!"

[woodelf]

I know you and Ron are spending a boatload of cash to have an indie games presence at the con, potentially allowing Adept Press and Key20 to be eclipsed a bit for the greater good of all indie games, trading on your hard earned individual successes for the benefit of other designers, and we both recognize how cool that is and want to be part of the booth.

speaking of which, just wanted to make an official apology on the part of The Impossible Dream for not helping out at the booth.  We talked about it, and decided that it would just be too much--before i first heard the idea we'd already committed to running a boatload of games (68hrs (collectively) of games, for only 4 GMs, plus a 4-GM 20-player game (all RPGs)).  i hope we can squeeze in getting ashcans of a couple of our games ready (to show people), in addition to writing and playtesting the scenarios (more than half are new scenarios).

It's not the $7 that bothers me, but that the 33% increase in the cost of exhibitor badges seems so targeted at trashing the kind of collective endeavors of enthusiasm the two of you have made sacrifices for. Who'd have thought rigor-mortis would defend itself so aggressively? WotC isn't dead, it's undead. Blech!

Paul

i wonder...do you actually think WotC gave this any thought at all?  i would've figured it was just a shameless money-grab based on the assumption that the exhibitor market is less elastic than the gamer market.

anyway, with the pending changeover in ownership (and, for the first time, possibly an improvement), perhaps now is the time to float the idea past Adkison to put his money where his mouth is and help out the small-press community by lowering the price of small booths and raising the price fo large booths, and reducing the cost of extra badges.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi woodelf,

Ashcans are no problem, so bring'em by or otherwise organize getting them to the booth, and we'll hand them out.

"perhaps now is the time to float the idea past Adkison to put his money where his mouth is and help out the small-press community"

Ay-firmative. I'll be making an effort in this very direction.

Best,
Ron

[Nathan]

Hey folks,

This Gencon planning is sounding very, very nice. I commend everyone who is putting in hard work to make this a success. I am going to be there too! I can't believe I'm saying that! :)  I mean, I'll be driving from Oklahoma guys... Oklahoma! It will take me a half a year by wagon train to get there, but heck, I'll bring some cow patties up fer ya. :)

Anyway, my dilemna is this. I already asked Ron about it, but I guess I figure I should ask everyone. I am on a limited budget. I would like to sell EAK, but the extra $100 is going to hit me somewhat hard. In other words by not selling EAK (and not paying the extra $100 Ron is asking), it will make my life a little easier -- but, is the trade off worth it? If I sell EAK at Gencon, will it be worth whatever heartache is involved?

For those of you who have sold games at Gencon before -- is the exposure worth it? Should I go for it?

Thanks,
Nathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hi everyone,

Nathan and I discussed the selling issue by private message. Just to let y'all know that he didn't ask the void, which did not answer ...

Best,
Ron