Badges for Gen Con 2024 will go on sale Sunday, February 11 at noon Eastern on gencon.com!
Gen Con 2024 will run August 1-4 in the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium, and surrounding downtown hotels.
Keep reading for our handy checklist and tips for an easy badge reg checkout!
✔️Creating Your Account You can create an account by going to www.gencon.com and clicking the “Sign In” link under the dropdown from the profile icon at the top right. Below the Sign In section, it says “Don’t have an account yet? Create one now!” Click that header and fill out the form. Once created, an email will be sent to you with a link. Click that link to activate your account, and you should be all set! (It may take up to 24 hours for the activation email to reach you.)
✔️Buying Your Badge When badges go on sale, and you are ready to purchase your badge, follow these easy steps:
✔️Update Your Payment Info Gen Con is instituting an update to our credit card system. Account holders can now update their credit card information at any time, not just when they purchase badges or tickets.
This change will necessitate all account holders to initially re-enter their information into the system. You can do so now by going to your “My Payment Methods” when you sign into your account or just do it on checkout when you buy a badge!
✔️Set Your Pronouns Set your pronouns to be printed on your badge. Click "change" next to the "Pronouns" field to select them. You have until June 14 to change this setting — after that, we start printing badges!✔️Choose USPS Priority Mail If your mailing address is in the United States, we highly recommend you choose USPS Priority Mail as your delivery method for your badge and tickets. Skip the Will Call line and get your Gen Con experience started faster!
To choose shipping, go to the My Packets page of your Gen Con account and click "change" next to your Default Delivery Method setting. USPS Shipping costs $15 and covers everything purchased through your account until June 14, which will all be shipped to you in one convenient packet. You'll find tracking information on your My Packets page once your order has been printed.
The deadline to select USPS Shipping is June 14.
I'm curious—is there any news about badge limit caps this year? I ended up skipping last year (for a number of reasons), but by all accounts, it was so crowded that a lot of folks found it harder to enjoy than in years past, even disregarding the Lorcana situation.
I'd love to come back to GenCon next year, but if we're continuing to see so much growth that people can't move through the booth lanes with any degree of ease, then I'm not sure it's worth the expense. I'd like to hear how the organizers are addressing that overcrowding, and what plans are for future years.
(And if there's a better forum to ask this, happy to go over there—this just seemed like the obvious choice given the current active threads!)
To me the only reason it felt more crowded than usual was because it had been 4 years since it was last that busy, and because the weird and surely not-being-repeated Lorcana crush meant that a lot more people were waiting in lines in the Exhibit Hall than even usual.
Yeah, I agree with quarex: While it's always pretty crowded, last year was anomalous compared to prior years due to the Lorcana influx. Not the regular convention goers. In no prior year do I recall lines extending outside of the vendor hall onto the concourse.
Even prior to COVID restrictions, it didn't feel anywhere near as bad as it did when the Lorcana lines were there.
My first year was 2018, and then I went back again in 2021 and 2022. The size of things in 2018 felt fine, if right on the edge; if I remember correctly they were a bit under 70k that year, and last year broke that record. (Of course the experience in 2022 and especially 2021 was substantially more relaxed, which was great, but I understand those numbers aren't sustainable for the long term either for organizers or booth operators.) Feel like 60-65k is probably the sweet spot—at least using the building as they have been—but I doubt it'll drop back down to that without an artificial attendee badge cap.
2023 wasn't appreciably higher attendance than 2019, both were slightly over 70k, and both sold out of 4-Day and Saturday badges (though 2019 sold out earlier)
Mike
Reminder!
Badge purchasers — not badge holders — are eligible to request room assignments in the Gen Con housing block.
The account holder who purchases the badge must request a hotel room assignment through the unique links located on the My Housing page of their Gen Con account.
Only badge purchasers can request room assignments. If a badge is bought for you, you are not eligible to request a room assignment through your account.
Hello everyone. Excited to return this year!
Just a note for those purchasing badges for others: any new attendees will receive a link to set up their own GenCon account before they can accept the "friend/family" request you send them.
I wasn't sure if they'd just receive a link that confirms the friend/family without having to register for some reason.
They only receive the notice to link if they have an account.
Hope that answers the question.
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