Really, no swag bags and to make matters worse when I arrived Friday afternoon there weren't any program guides as well.  Went back several times and didn't actually get a guide till LATE Saturday.  By that time it was too little too late.  I asked multiple times from staff and their answers were all the same, just check back in 30 minutes.  I paid over a hundred dollars for my 4 day pass and looked forward to the Swag Bags as a way to get updates, free stuff and the dice.  Instead I had to search the booths down myself and either buy a bag or fill my pockets.  I was told by the guys in the coupon booth that the supplier didnt get them to the event in time, but shouldn't that have been handled MONTHS before it began in time to make all the bags up??

There hasn't been swag bags for a few years now; what made you expect there to be one?

Can't speak to the program, though. Got mine Wednesday and didn't look again to see if they were there. That sounds frustrating.

I don't go to gen con for the swag bags. :/ So don't really care in the end. Booths give out so much sort of makes up for it. Have so many bags, little free games or sample packs of cards. 

I do however completely understand the program book frustration. 

Empty bags were handed out the last 2 years. Is that what your talking about?   Jeez...   Bring a backpack or something.  The cost to fill swag bags has tripled along with attendance. I'm sure gencon would provide the bag handing out services if companies wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for freebies. But GenCon certainly isn't going to pay for items to give away!

After going to some of the Gen Cons over the last ten years I personally miss the swag bags. It wasn't all awesome stuff, unless you were VIG, but I wish they still had it. I probably wouldn't care if I had never seen them at past Gen Cons.

Does anyone know who the sponsor was for the bags that didn't arrive in time? For the last two years, it was Ortus Regni, but I didn't see a presence for them this year.  Luckily, I brought our 2015 bag along, so we could conveniently carry stuff around. The 2014 and 2015 bags were not swag bags, but since they were shoulder bags, they were really handy.  Did they run out of coupon books?

What's a swag bag?

Seriously, those haven't been around for a few years now.  A coupon book is the new swag.  There were also program books on Saturday at a few locations as late as Saturday in the afternoon.

Heck, the last time they had a swag bag I liked they had an Axis and Allies miniatures booster and a World of Warcraft card game starter in the bag, but that was years ago.

I remember getting that swag once upon a time too.  But here's the thing: I also remember giving everything besides the dice to my nephew because they just weren't things I wanted.  If there had been an RPG supplement or a D&D miniatures booster instead I would have gotten excited and kept it.

I also remember seeing the booster packs lying around the convention center, abandoned, because someone decided they didn't want to haul them around. 

And there's the crux of the problem.  One person's "awesome swag" is another person's "meh, more crap to carry around that I'll never use".  Imagine if you had donated 30,000 booster packs to the convention to hand out.  Now imagine if you saw them lying around, cast aside like garbage.  How excited would you be to donate 30,000 more next year, let alone the 65,000 or so you'd need to supply the convention this year?

I did see them refilling the program books several times during the con.  That sounds very frustrating.

I don't get being upset about the swag bags.  I take it you didn't bring your own bag?  I'm sorry about that but most vendors give away bags (of varying sizes) away when you buy something so even if you didn't bring your own backpack or messenger bag, you could have gotten bags to hold anything you bought. 

I was there on Friday from 7 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. and saw lots of program guides at the stands in front of the dealer room literally all day. *shrug*

I don't see the point of getting a swag bag at GenCon. You're not going to get anything of value from it, and the stuff you do get is promotional material that you can easily find at the vendors' booths. As a marketing tool, it's scattershot at best, and personally, I don't think it's worth the effort.
 

I think that's pretty much what the vendors decided too.  Some of them put coupons in the coupon book that you can turn in for swag (the d6 from Crystal Caste, for example).  That probably works out better for them since anyone who wants it has to come look at their wares, and people who don't want it won't come around for it, so they don't end up giving out as many.

Plus, it's probably no more expensive to pay to get a coupon in the coupon book than to bag up 60,000 dice, each with a little adhesive label saying where it came from, and deliver them to Gen Con. 

Getting rid of those was exactly the right thing to do. The coupons work waaaay better. 

I didnt ask peoples opinions on here about the Bags, in the past there have always been bags, when I inquired about the bags at the coupons desk I was told they had them but were not delivered.  Now you can ramble on about how vital you think they are, the FACT of the matter is that we did not receive them and I PAID FOR THEM IN MY TICKET PRICE.  You can choose to waste your money any way you want but as a CONSUMER who PAID IN FULL before the event I expect to get what I am promised.  My OP was about the services and how LACKING they were this year.  Fanboy rants about how great Gencon is dont concern me.  This among other issues are why I will NOT be attending GenCon next year.

If you buy something at most vendors, they will give you a plastic or paper bag to hold it for free.

Also, you can bring a backpack or a messanger bag from home that will hold most of your stuff while allowing you to keep your hands open.