I think we might have had the same GM for 7th Sea (her name was Heather I believe).  Definitely on the "make sure you schedule more of that next year" list.

I picked up the original Pandemic after having so much fun with the Cthulhu version so I can save the world, not just New England.

Wow all the no show GM stories, I must be lucky I've been going for 11 years and never had a no show. Almost the first this year, the GM thought it was at 3 when it was at 2 the HQ called him up a couple of minutes past 2 and he was at his hotel relaxing in preparation for running the game when he realized his mistake he RAN from his hotel to the game. He got there about 8 minutes later,HQ kept us updated and told us what was going on, he was in good shape but was sweating like crazy for about 15 minutes into the game he was a Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy fan so he did have a towel :P. It was a pretty good game as well glad I waited.

 Now players, I've been the only one to show up at a sold out event more than once. In fact this year I was the only one to show up at a game so the developers and organizers sat down and played with me then gave me the game afterwords. The no show gamers usually only happens on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. I ran into a group of first time con goers Saturday afternoon they were only in for the day and were trying to plan their 'attack' I overhear them saying they really wanted to do a certain game,Secret Hitler I think, but it was sold out. I excused myself and told them go for it anyway just because its sold out doesn't mean you can't get in especially Saturday night, show up with generics and maybe all 3 of you get it. It was a social deduction game like werewolf so probably 15- 20 players not sure I have only vaguely heard of the game.

Good:

• More space in the dealers room
  
• Enjoyed the race car simulators in the e-gaming area
  
• Did the playtest hall for the first time, enjoyed that too
  
• Had a great conversation at the bar in the ram, hadn't gone in the ram before in 11 years of gencon
  
• Had a great time doing an escape room. Solved it with 3 minutes to spare, a great balance of not too hard, not too easy.
  
• The overall experience was good this year, plenty of good games and everything felt a little more organized
  

Mixed:

• Food trucks were good, and much of the time the lines were reasonable. Some of the choices got a little "safer", which isn't why I'm there, I want the interesting and creative food trucks. Also, gluten free options were few and far between. Fortunately, my wife has a favorite local restaurant that has her well taken care of, and it's in that "gamers don't walk two blocks" zone.
  
• The cosplay photo zone in front of the dealers hall, it's nice to have the space, but the light there is terrible (not much can be done about that), and having restroom signs in the background isn't great. It might be a nice enhancement to throw up some sort of curtain backdrops in the area. Also, because so many people want to take cell phone pictures, there's a big dead space between the cosplayers and the crowd, that ends up blocking more space than is ideal. Those of us with real cameras and wide lenses can step right up, and that's nice.
  

• The snoring in my hotel room. Wasn't me, I have a cpap machine.
  
• The classic video games in the corridor to the stadium were a disappointment. If that's what you got, leave them in the truck and put up a sign apologizing for a scheduling error.
  
• I'm not into anime, but the space set aside for them looked very lightly used and unattractive. Not sure what the best use for those spaces would be, but, that wasn't it. True Dungeon fit in it's space very well, but it's a very different thing. Walking into the big dark room and having no idea where to go next and no signs wasn't great.
  
• Walking out of the ICC doors near the food trucks into a dense cloud of cigarette and vape smoke, with a nasty foul smoky gauntlet to walk to get away from the door. They should clear that out with pepper spray.
  
• Similarly, sitting down for a game next to a heavy smoker who just had a bad case of the stink. But on the plus side, it seems like the general community is getting the hygiene message.
  

The Good:

• The wider pathways in the Dealer's Hall were appreciated.  It made the whole thing much more enjoyable and I only got hit a few times the entire con instead of each day.
  

• Convention food prices.
  

The Ugly:

• I found five generic tickets on Friday outside of the convention center that belonged to someone I did not know:  Samuel Roberts.  I couldn't find him in that area so I took the tickets to the convention the next day.  I stopped at Event Registration first to ask what the options were for this situation.  The worker commented that I was a good person for not simply taking them and then said I should go to Customer Service where they could either credit them to the account or turn them into Lost and Found.  Not knowing Samuel's situation, and knowing I've been to cons before where $ 10.00 might be my entire budget for playing games for the entire affair, I stood in line over twenty minutes in Customer Service only to be told they would NOT refund the amount to the account and that I had to take them to Lost and Found.  I asked them what would happen if he didn't claim them by the end of the con, if they would then credit them back to his account.  They told me no but also said that Lost and Found could try to contact him via email or even cell phone if he had it on file.  So I went to Lost and Found.  Samuel did not have a cell phone number on his account (everyone might want to really think about doing that) so they said they would try to email him.  I confirmed that, yes, he would lose the money if he didn't get them by end of con on Sunday.  I again asked why we couldn't just refund the money to his account immediatley since there was no guarantee he would get the email in time to claim them.  I was told that wasn't allowed.  Then I was informed by the person typing the email that she couldn't talk to me while trying to do all this or she would make a mistake... only for her to start talking to the other Lost and Found worker for an extended period of time about thirty seconds later right in front of me.  I'd like to think it wasn't Gen Con making a mad grab for cash but I couldn't help feeling that way when I walked away.  Or that I cared more about a fellow gamers' money.  Oh, and that the one lady working Lost and Found was rude as hell.
  

And you're not the only one.  We still do double takes with Will.  He even toyed with the idea of showing up as a new player for Whupass.  :)

The Good:

• D&D - Baldman Games ran some amazing games of D&D, and they made an excellent choice moving away from the main halls and into the Marriott. Loved the D&D Experience. Loved the Hillsfar adventures and the special. Had so much fun playing D&D it should be illegal.
  
• GenCon itself - Meeting old friends, being able to move around the Exhibit hall and the ICC, and all the little improvements GenCon made this year made my experience better.
  
• Gate 10 Parking - Just an excellent experience parking this year.
  

• All on me - I overbooked myself, didn't have a good strategy for the Exhibit Hall, and never made it to the Cosplay area to take my usual zillion pictures.
  

• Nothing comes to mind.
  

The Good:
* Playing Hacky Sack in the halls between events and late at night... having random people jump in to join us... including Deadpool Giraffe!  It's always a lot of fun to bring it out and every age group seems to join in when they have 5-10 minutes.

* Better organization in the dealer hall this year let me walk through it most of the time in the direction I wanted to go.  Only a few really long lines and I was usually able to find what I needed without too much difficulty.

* Food Trucks.  There were a lot of them and I had some amazing food!  Best was the steak kabobs... so good!

* Convention Center.  The bathrooms I went into were clean and fit for people.  The convention staff were awesome.

* People Watching.  It's the best.  I won't ever dress in a costume, but I really appreciate all the effort that everyone who does takes.  It makes the event really awesome.

*Abothia Prime.  Great little home brewed system that's just tons of fun to play.  Glad we get in it each year!

* Getting to go to the Con with my two sons.  Really, I mean does it get any better than this?

The Bad:
* My first three events were clunkers.  One the GM didn't show and I had to battle with customer service to get my money back.  Not going to nane names, but it was a bigger company so I was really surprised.  Second was a wargame that had a lopsided scenario.  Yes, the victory points were balanced, but I basically moved units forward a couple inches every turn while my opponent shot them over and over until they died.  It wasn't fun and I'm not sure why people make scenarios like that.  When one player gets to do things for three hours and make decisions and you can't, it's just not good design.  The third was an event that a lot of people didn't show, but it was minis so the GM started people playing.  He spent 50 minutes with one 1v1 pairing and never explained the home rules system to me.  I gave up after an hour and left to find something else to do.

* Fish from food trucks.  Had one of our group get really sick from it.

The Ugly:
* Trying to get a refund.  Got two different stories and was told to find the GM of the event where the GM didn't show up to get my money back.  That's a just a bad policy.  Walked from one end of the con to the other three times and finally had to get another staffer in to help resolve the issue.

* $38/night hotel parking.  Thankfully moved after the first night.

Okay, finally had time to breathe, so here's a list.

The Good

• Our games. BYOV ran four games this year. I was a GM/writer for two, and a player for two, and all four went really well. We over-filled for three of them, and ended up I believe two players short of our max (I think was 40) in another. Although all sold out, so see below for a 'bad'.
  
• We have a new GM this year--he ran a game by himself last year and joined us this year, and he was the lead writer on Pacts & Prophesy. The game came off really well, I was happy to be a co-writer/GM, and happy to see the players have a good time. Great game, Matt :)
  
• I was the lead writer on A Breath Before the Gallows, and I went for a tension-filled courtroom drama with this one. I think it also came off well, a lot of scheming and politics. And the two characters I made up on the spot, the Xamm-bots, played very well. This game actually over-over filled. I set a 24 player max, wrote 28 characters, and ran 30 players :) So that was great.
  
• The Fey/Sithen game on Thursday night was also very good. I was just a player in that, and ended up maybe having the Wild Hunt called on me...and I was the leader of the Wild Hunt. In the end I think I dodged that bullet :) Ed and Mar really know their Fey stuff, and the Goblin players were a blast to game with.
  
• B Movie Backlot was our only game that didn't have over max players, even though it sold out. But people LOVED it. I was an angel who just wanted a job--ended up in the band AND a lead in the movie, so that was *awesome*, bro, yeah! The greatest band of the 90s, Pearl Garden, will rock forever now that I know I can make my bandmates immortal. Sweet. Mar and Caren put together a riot of a game.
  
• The Bunker, by Iocane Productions. These guys know how to put on a fantastic game, and I was not disappointed. Great props, atmosphere, puzzles, characters. Really great game, I can't recommend them enough.
  
• Monster Mash by Red Shirt Games. A mini game of powerful monsters, last monster standing. Fantastic, a lot of fun. I as the Lich Queen stayed away from the Fiendish T-Rex, but died anyway.
  
• Dealer Hall. I got to take a lot of time there this year, demoing and talking to vendors. Found a whole bunch of great stuff, including Monster Scouts, a card game about killer snails, a post apocalypse game with my home city as a starting location, and a lot more.
  
• The Orc Stomp. I volunteered for Tony again this year. I love this race, love to see so many people running their first race, or tenth, or hundredth. I went to the Con thinking about trying to run it myself and volunteer, but I ended up with only two hours of sleep Thursday night. So when Tony was short volunteers, it was no big thing to not run. In fact, I volunteered and went back to bed, when I usually just stay up after running in it. But it was great. Props to the runner in the nine foot tall inflatable T-rex costume. Not a planned part of the race there. :)
  
• Escape Room. We did an Indy based (not GenCon affiliated) escape room on Sunday night. We were trying to break the 15 minute left weekly record set by some friends, but ended up with 8 minutes and change left. Still, very fun.
  
• Friends. I got to see everyone I was hoping to see, and mostly right away on Wednesday. Walked into Union Station and there was Spicer, Roderick, and Derek, for example. So no searching for them :)
  
• Math Trade. I did the BGG math trade, ended up with 10 games to give away and 10 to receive, and managed to mostly seamlessly arrange those 20 meetings throughout the con with 20 really cool people.
  
• For the first time in a long time, stayed under budget.
  
• Carpooling half the drive with a friend for the second year, really nice arrangement, particularly on the drive home on Monday.
  
• Crowne Plaza bartender makes a really good French 75.
  

The Bad

• Tickets. This is an old issue, and I know the reasons why it's done. So it's nothing I really complain about anymore because everyone in charge knows how I feel, and I'm not bitter or angry or anything. But event tickets being able to be used as generic tickets led again to our events selling out before the Con, and then not filling with real event tickets. We didn't even fill one of them with generics, we were a couple people short. And the game *sold out*. People aren't encouraged to return tickets they know they won't use, so events remain 'sold out' when there are spaces open. Again, I know the reasons why this is done, but that doesn't make it easy on us GMs. So that's always just a hurdle to get over.
  
• Sheraton. The check-out people were great on Monday. The check-in people, on the other hand...they split our room into two reservations without telling us. So when people in our room went to ask the desk how much they owed on the room, they were given a total exactly half of what they owed. This resulted in about a 30 minute check-out procedure, and me paying for the remainder of people who had already left on my card and getting reimbursed later. So bad communication from the check-in and desk people was the problem. Otherwise, nice stay.
  

The Good

• The expanded Exhibit Hall - while it was still crowded, it was better than last year
  
• The Orc Stomp
  
• The Beer Garden
  
• The serving staff, fellow patrons and beer at the Ram
  

The Bad

• The Ram - everything not mentioned above.  And who picked the movies?  It looked like someone went to the bargain bin at Wal-Mart
  
• People with huge backpacks in the Exhibit Hall
  
• People stopping and blocking the aisle in the Exhibit Hall
  
• Champions in The Marriott - way overpriced
  
• WotC abandoning Gen Con  (which is a shame because I like 5E)
  

The Ugly
Nothing leaps to mind

Does GenCon allow GMs to 'refund' part of the purchase as an encouragement to actually show up?

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. We're wrapped up in planning and running the show, so it's great to get a peek at people's impression of the show, both good and bad. Keep it coming :)

I did want to pop in briefly to ask that if there is any specific feedback on events, please drop a note to events@gencon.com with the details, if you can. We follow up on all reports.

We'll pass compliments along so event organizers and GMs know how their hard work is appreciated.

And we very much want to know about rude or poorly prepared GMs, events that were misleading, and especially GM no-shows or other issues, so we can find out what happened and try to make sure it doesn't happen again in the future.

-
Derek Guder
Event Manager
Gen Con LLC

A game sells out in prereg, and is still listed as sold out right up to the start of the game (we check these things :) Say it's 30 players max, that's 30 tickets sold. At game time, 20 players with real tickets to the event show up. The remaining 10 never show. 

Regardless of how many generic ticketed players we manage to get to fill the game, the question is about those 10 tickets. It's my contention that, if those tickets were not allowed to be used as generic tickets for any other event at any time at the con (even after our event is done), the people holding those tickets would have some motivation to return them when they decide they aren't going to play our game. Or more motivation to wake up early enough to make the game, etc.

But if that player can just use that ticket for another event later, there is zero motivation to return it. And thus the game still lists as sold out, even when someone has decided, maybe days before, to not play. 

Is that what happens every time? I'm sure some ticket holders may have last minute changes. Heck, a car accident on the way into town from an outlying hotel would prevent someone from having time to return a ticket, perhaps. But at some point, every player with a ticket decides not to come, or oversleeps, etc. 

If that ticket could not be used for another game, that player would have motivation to return it, or be out that money. 

So that's the explanation. I know the arguments for the policy, and again, I want to be very clear that I'm not angry about it, I'm not typing this all upset or anything :) I continue to raise the issue mostly to try to make players aware of how their actions can really complicate a GMs life, and in the hopes that maybe something in the future could be done (returning of a ticket remotely, for example, either at the outlying GM HQs, or electronically like a boarding pass, or something else). 

Edit: and no, there's nothing a GM can do to refund a ticket. I can't give someone money, or a partial payment in generics or anything. Not allowed. But even if I could, if someone didn't want to play but wanted some money back and showed up to the game to get it, the damage is still done. Other potential players, looking for games to play, still see the event as 'Full'. That's the damage done to the GM and the game. The idea to help the GM is to return that ticket in time for potential players to see the event as having an available ticket, so they can buy it and actually show up. :) 

That all hangs on the assertion that "I can use it as a generic, so no big deal" is a significant motivator. I'm not sure I believe that.

Easier/trivial ticket returns may be another line of inquiry, but again, I'm not sure about the impact it would have.

$2 or $4 just isn't enough money to justify an inconvenience. The impact you see on your events stinks. 

As a EO and GM -I think that the ability to use a  ticket as genereics is a factor -even if they dont end up doing so. Just the knowledge that you can is a deterrant to turning that ticket in .
almost all of our games are sold out within 2 hours of the event registration being open. So they don't show up in the printed books (which a lot of people still use for many reasons). which leads to potential players to coming to the game area  to try to use generics .
We do get players using generics ,but not many ..

an example would be our 3dgame of thrones -all 10 sessions sold out - all people show up for 9 sessions , and for the first 7 sessions there are ample people that want to step in if there are no-shows : there are none and the interested people understand that nobody will no show .
session 9 comes along (saturday evening ) and 5 of 6 people no -show . we wait and wait because we want to run the game for the 1 peron that does show-up . texts are sent . Nobody can play , there are no people that show up to use generics because -it is still listed as sold out .
we waited 30 minutes and then pulled extra GM's from our other games just so the lone player could play .
No clue why those 5 players never showed up ,but they could use their $10.00 ticket elsewhere so they dont care .perhaps it was a group that had an accident ,but ....

Like Brotherbrock-I am not angry ,just a little frustrated -by the policy of not listing sold out games . I understand it ,but that doesnt help matters .

On the other side -I have had people (not many )come up and say can I use this game ticket for your game -and it is for one that hasnt happend yet . As I understand the rules I have to accept it . But it does bother me knowing that the GM for that game will be at least 1 short .

It can be frustrating, certainly, but the alternative of only allowing tickets to be used for the game they were issues would be even more so, particularly for groups running lots of similar events (the policy originated for card games and other "one every hour" kind of schedules).

We also look at the volume of "other tickets" being used for events and it does not appear to be a significant issue across the convention as a whole, nor a major motivator for player no-shows. We will continue to monitor that to make sure.

Changing that would really be instituting a rule that punishes people for something they're going to do anyway and making it more difficult for people to actually play in games in general, increasing frustration without directly addressing the problem of no-shows themselves.

That, combined with the reality that it is no longer feasible to include every event in the program guide, suggests that the actual solution to the situation is communication and education on getting players to use the web site to confirm events and to know about showing up to sold out events with generics - and to try to figure out how make those things as easy as possible.

Which is an entirely separate thread, so off-topic for general feedback. If folks want to discuss that, start a new thread on that topic or dig up the old one.

-
Derek Guder
Event Manager
Gen Con LLC