Remember, Gen Con has been around for 50 years. It has already solidly shown that it can thrive without catering to nongamers. It has already shown that spouses and children of gamers will still show up. 

There is not enough housing for everyone close to downtown. Without downtown housing, the people wont be happy!

Solution: Ruin the experience for them so they don't want to come at all! 

Genius. 

Regarding your attempt to show grey areas for gaming, it is quite simple. Directly related to gaming, in, not directly related or only superficially related, out. 

Painting pieces so they can be used for a game? In! Especially as Gen Con was founded by a bunch of miniature wargamers.

Seminars about making games or getting into making games? In! 

Seminars about podcasting about games? In, but that is probably the line.

Scavenger hunts are games.

Artists who make the art for games? In! Without these people we have no games!

Auction? Seriously? In! You are buying and selling games.

Are you asking whether a social deduction game is a game? Obviously in.

I am not sure if I want to know what a cornhole bean bag toss is.

Sports that require a large field are obviously out. No football. We have a specific niche for gaming, we are not professional sports, we are not the Olympics. 

Well, that was easy. Where were the grey areas?

So, down to what you want. Gen Con is exceeding its ability to be the funnest time for everyone. Simply put, we have run out of room for everyone. Mind you, I don't disagree with wanting as many people as possible to have a good time, we just don't have the room. Gen Con as a company did have problems with the whole Star Wars thing, but Gen Con as a convention has no issues with making money, it is commercially successful. As to vendors? Gaming vendors are more likely to attend a show that keeps its primary focus on gaming- that is their market. Gaming vendors have less to gain by attending a large, expensive show if a significant chunk of those attendees don't care about gaming- we see this effect with comic book vendors at "comic book" shows that have basically just become pop culture and cosplay shows.

I see that you rejected some of my premises, but you didn't actually show them to be wrong. And the whole eliminating attendees for events that I don't care for (which, by your standards, is "sad") nonsense- my wife and I have actually participated in several Spa events and even an Anime event. We are taking part in a nongaming event again this year. I actually like a lot of the nongaming events. I am also not using the housing this year, I am staying at a friend's house for free. I am simply able to look past myself to see that there are bigger issues here. I don't mind that you disagree with me, I do mind if you base those disagreements on incorrect assumptions about me.

 gharris wrote:

 mhayward1978 wrote:

 gharris wrote:.

Gen Con has defined itself as a gaming convention for 50 years now. Gaming is the heart and foundation of "The Best Four Days in Gaming". "God Emperor gharris" did not declare this, Gen Con did.

Here's where I see a big problem with your line of reasoning.You seem to be saying: "Because Gen Con is 'The Best Four Days in Gaming', therefore things that are not gaming are due less consideration/promotion/etc. from Gen Con."
This inference is not necessarily so.
Gen Con can be "the best four days in gaming" while also being a broader geek experience.
Consider an analogy: The Kentucky Derby is "The greatest 2 minutes in sports."  And yet it's also famous for:

• A parade of over the top elegant hats
  

Cocktails, especially Mint Julep

• Gambling.
  

It's also very, very crowded and expensive to attend - hotel rooms cost over $500 a night.Now, imagine someone saying: "The Kentucky Derby is the greatest 2 minutes in sports, it is promoted as such, all these people wearing fancy hats and drinking mint julep and gambling need to clear out so those of us who are here to watch the sport of horse racing can enjoy the greatest 2 minutes in sports!"
Ridiculous, right?
We, and Gen Con, don't have to choose between being "the best four days in gaming" and also being a broader geek culture convention.
Just like the organizers of the Kentucky Derby don't have to choose between being "the best two minutes in sports and being a fun day out for these fashion plates:

Do I really need to explain why puppets, watching Japanese cartoons, comic books, and playing dress up outside of a LARP are not gaming? Better yet, can you explain why they ARE? 

As discussed above, whether or not they are gaming is irrelevant, Gen Con offering fun events that are not gaming does not degrade Gen Con's ability to be the Best Four Days in Gaming one iota.And in any case, this was the root of my objection - I might happen to agree with your categories of gaming.  But you know what?  There are 60,000+ attendees of Gen Con, and they will not all agree on what a game is and what a game is not.
You're picking the easier examples, let me address some more challenging ones:
Is miniature painting a game?
Are seminars games?  Maybe only some of them? What about seminars about game development?  What about seminars by people who podcast about games?  What about seminars on how to enter the gaming industry?
Are scavenger hunts games?
Are artists who make art features in games OK?  
What about an auction that sells games? 
What about social deduction games?  Physical games like cornhole bean bag toss?
What about sports - are those games?  Should Gen Con kick out Artists Alley and add a big Indianapolis Colts exhibit?  Football is a game, right?
I think it's pretty clear that even if we accepted the false idea that we have to identify what a "game" is and what is not, there is going to be a lot of gray area.

Do you want housing to get better next year? Then you need to reduce the population.

What I want, is for Gen Con to be the funnest time for the most people, and be commercially successful enough that it stays in business, and that the exhibitors who I like keep attending.Maybe your narrow focus on housing is why we're coming to different ideas about what is in Gen Cons interest.
I have to agree - reducing attendance would make housing better.
Better be careful we don't reduce it to zero - cause housing would be so easy - but I wouldn't be happy about it.

This isn't rocket science. You do that by cutting back on events. Keeping just as many events or adding more just maintains the problem. If you are going to cut events at a gaming convention you don't start with cutting the actual gaming events. 
There is no need to apologize for saying that a gaming convention should have gamers and gaming as its primary focus. This isn't the irrational ravings of "God Emperor gharris", this is what you expect from a gaming convention. 
The alternative is to keep having bad housing experiences for years to come. So what do you want? Keep the fluff and continue to have bad housing or start trimming the fluff and give attendees a better experience on housing day?
Note that Gen Con doesn't actually need fluff events to thrive. Yes, I said fluff because that is what nongaming events that inflate attendance at a gaming convention are. Gen Con repeatedly outgrew its previous homes, including the city of Milwaukee, with a minimum of fluff- keep in mind the Spa program didn't even exist until 2006.

 
I reject your premise that it is in Gen Con, or the general attendees best interest to reduce attendance.But granting that, I reject your premise that if attendance reduction is a goal it necessarily follows that any particular category or categories of events must be cut.
But granting that, I reject your premise that you have correctly identified the categories to be cut.
Your whole argument seems to be: "I'm unhappy about the housing situation, I think the best solution is to reduce attendance, I think Gen Con should eliminate the attendees who participate in events I don't care for."  
Sad.

Regarding your Kentucky Derby analogy, you left off a key part. Regardless of the hats, gambling, and the mint julips people are there to watch a race. A more appropriate analogy would be if the time for the race came along but there were massive amounts of empty seats- because people who didn't care about racing were off getting drunk off mint julips while wearing fancy hats. On top of this, you would have to mention that these drunks were buying up tickets that people that actually wanted to watch the race could have gotten. NOW you have an appropriate Kentucky Derby analogy!Regarding your attempt to show grey areas for gaming, it is quite simple. Directly related to gaming, in, not directly related or only superficially related, out. 
Painting pieces so they can be used for a game? In! Especially as Gen Con was founded by a bunch of miniature wargamers.
Seminars about making games or getting into making games? In! 
Seminars about podcasting about games? In, but that is probably the line.
Scavenger hunts are games.
Artists who make the art for games? In! Without these people we have no games!
Auction? Seriously? In! You are buying and selling games.
Are you asking whether a social deduction game is a game? Obviously in.
I am not sure if I want to know what a cornhole bean bag toss is.
Sports that require a large field are obviously out. No football. We have a specific niche for gaming, we are not professional sports, we are not the Olympics. 
Well, that was easy. Where were the grey areas?
So, down to what you want. Gen Con is exceeding its ability to be the funnest time for everyone. Simply put, we have run out of room for everyone. Mind you, I don't disagree with wanting as many people as possible to have a good time, we just don't have the room. Gen Con as a company did have problems with the whole Star Wars thing, but Gen Con as a convention has no issues with making money, it is commercially successful. As to vendors? Gaming vendors are more likely to attend a show that keeps its primary focus on gaming- that is their market. Gaming vendors have less to gain by attending a large, expensive show if a significant chunk of those attendees don't care about gaming- we see this effect with comic book vendors at "comic book" shows that have basically just become pop culture and cosplay shows.
I see that you rejected some of my premises, but you didn't actually show them to be wrong. And the whole eliminating attendees for events that I don't care for (which, by your standards, is "sad") nonsense- my wife and I have actually participated in several Spa events and even an Anime event. We are taking part in a nongaming event again this year. I actually like a lot of the nongaming events. I am also not using the housing this year, I am staying at a friend's house for free. I am simply able to look past myself to see that there are bigger issues here. I don't mind that you disagree with me, I do mind if you base those disagreements on incorrect assumptions about me.

I think it suffices to say that the majority of people here strongly disagree with your points, and you should consider that you are arguing with Gen Con attendees that care a whole lot. 

In any event, one small "flat" year does not signal a downward trend when the history since 08 has been substantial growth.
 

60,000 x 10.00 = 600k. Are you saying Gencon couldn't find enough vehicles and drivers for $550,000 (Gencon keeps 50k as "profit")?

Would a company pass up half a million dollars for a half week of work?

The example about the Kentucky Derby fell flat because he left out a key point- despite the gambling, hats and booze everyone is there to watch the race. That is different from discussing a population of people who are attending an event that don't care about the main theme of the event. Cute picture though.

The answers were "obvious" because he used examples that were directly related to making, part of the gaming industry, or were actually games. That is not showing a grey area. The one oddball one was the football one- do we really have to go over why football is not our niche of gaming, let alone why we should not have an event that literally requires an area the size of a football field to play?

The problem here was that the examples were faulty. Well presented, but faulty.

Pointing out that changes may need to be made to what has been perceived as the status quo in the past few years isn't supposed to be easy. We hit a population tipping point this year. Change will happen regardless. 
 

If it were that easy wouldn't we already have a shuttle system?

Discussion is only interesting when others are willing and able to appreciate the differing points of view and offer thoughtful insights as to alternative ways of thinking - not when it's simply tearing apart another viewpoint as you substitute opinion for fact.  I believe that moment passed by about 15 pages ago...

 gharris wrote:

 mhayward1978 wrote:

 gharris wrote:.

Gen Con has defined itself as a gaming convention for 50 years now. Gaming is the heart and foundation of "The Best Four Days in Gaming". "God Emperor gharris" did not declare this, Gen Con did.

Here's where I see a big problem with your line of reasoning.You seem to be saying: "Because Gen Con is 'The Best Four Days in Gaming', therefore things that are not gaming are due less consideration/promotion/etc. from Gen Con."
This inference is not necessarily so.
Gen Con can be "the best four days in gaming" while also being a broader geek experience.
Consider an analogy: The Kentucky Derby is "The greatest 2 minutes in sports."  And yet it's also famous for:

• A parade of over the top elegant hats
  

Cocktails, especially Mint Julep

• Gambling.
  

It's also very, very crowded and expensive to attend - hotel rooms cost over $500 a night.Now, imagine someone saying: "The Kentucky Derby is the greatest 2 minutes in sports, it is promoted as such, all these people wearing fancy hats and drinking mint julep and gambling need to clear out so those of us who are here to watch the sport of horse racing can enjoy the greatest 2 minutes in sports!"
Ridiculous, right?
We, and Gen Con, don't have to choose between being "the best four days in gaming" and also being a broader geek culture convention.
Just like the organizers of the Kentucky Derby don't have to choose between being "the best two minutes in sports and being a fun day out for these fashion plates:

Do I really need to explain why puppets, watching Japanese cartoons, comic books, and playing dress up outside of a LARP are not gaming? Better yet, can you explain why they ARE? 

As discussed above, whether or not they are gaming is irrelevant, Gen Con offering fun events that are not gaming does not degrade Gen Con's ability to be the Best Four Days in Gaming one iota.And in any case, this was the root of my objection - I might happen to agree with your categories of gaming.  But you know what?  There are 60,000+ attendees of Gen Con, and they will not all agree on what a game is and what a game is not.
You're picking the easier examples, let me address some more challenging ones:
Is miniature painting a game?
Are seminars games?  Maybe only some of them? What about seminars about game development?  What about seminars by people who podcast about games?  What about seminars on how to enter the gaming industry?
Are scavenger hunts games?
Are artists who make art features in games OK?  
What about an auction that sells games? 
What about social deduction games?  Physical games like cornhole bean bag toss?
What about sports - are those games?  Should Gen Con kick out Artists Alley and add a big Indianapolis Colts exhibit?  Football is a game, right?
I think it's pretty clear that even if we accepted the false idea that we have to identify what a "game" is and what is not, there is going to be a lot of gray area.

Do you want housing to get better next year? Then you need to reduce the population.

What I want, is for Gen Con to be the funnest time for the most people, and be commercially successful enough that it stays in business, and that the exhibitors who I like keep attending.Maybe your narrow focus on housing is why we're coming to different ideas about what is in Gen Cons interest.
I have to agree - reducing attendance would make housing better.
Better be careful we don't reduce it to zero - cause housing would be so easy - but I wouldn't be happy about it.

This isn't rocket science. You do that by cutting back on events. Keeping just as many events or adding more just maintains the problem. If you are going to cut events at a gaming convention you don't start with cutting the actual gaming events. 
There is no need to apologize for saying that a gaming convention should have gamers and gaming as its primary focus. This isn't the irrational ravings of "God Emperor gharris", this is what you expect from a gaming convention. 
The alternative is to keep having bad housing experiences for years to come. So what do you want? Keep the fluff and continue to have bad housing or start trimming the fluff and give attendees a better experience on housing day?
Note that Gen Con doesn't actually need fluff events to thrive. Yes, I said fluff because that is what nongaming events that inflate attendance at a gaming convention are. Gen Con repeatedly outgrew its previous homes, including the city of Milwaukee, with a minimum of fluff- keep in mind the Spa program didn't even exist until 2006.

 
I reject your premise that it is in Gen Con, or the general attendees best interest to reduce attendance.But granting that, I reject your premise that if attendance reduction is a goal it necessarily follows that any particular category or categories of events must be cut.
But granting that, I reject your premise that you have correctly identified the categories to be cut.
Your whole argument seems to be: "I'm unhappy about the housing situation, I think the best solution is to reduce attendance, I think Gen Con should eliminate the attendees who participate in events I don't care for."  
Sad.

Regarding your Kentucky Derby analogy, you left off a key part. Regardless of the hats, gambling, and the mint julips people are there to watch a race. A more appropriate analogy would be if the time for the race came along but there were massive amounts of empty seats- because people who didn't care about racing were off getting drunk off mint julips while wearing fancy hats. On top of this, you would have to mention that these drunks were buying up tickets that people that actually wanted to watch the race could have gotten. NOW you have an appropriate Kentucky Derby analogy!Regarding your attempt to show grey areas for gaming, it is quite simple. Directly related to gaming, in, not directly related or only superficially related, out. 
Painting pieces so they can be used for a game? In! Especially as Gen Con was founded by a bunch of miniature wargamers.
Seminars about making games or getting into making games? In! 
Seminars about podcasting about games? In, but that is probably the line.
Scavenger hunts are games.
Artists who make the art for games? In! Without these people we have no games!
Auction? Seriously? In! You are buying and selling games.
Are you asking whether a social deduction game is a game? Obviously in.
I am not sure if I want to know what a cornhole bean bag toss is.
Sports that require a large field are obviously out. No football. We have a specific niche for gaming, we are not professional sports, we are not the Olympics. 
Well, that was easy. Where were the grey areas?
So, down to what you want. Gen Con is exceeding its ability to be the funnest time for everyone. Simply put, we have run out of room for everyone. Mind you, I don't disagree with wanting as many people as possible to have a good time, we just don't have the room. Gen Con as a company did have problems with the whole Star Wars thing, but Gen Con as a convention has no issues with making money, it is commercially successful. As to vendors? Gaming vendors are more likely to attend a show that keeps its primary focus on gaming- that is their market. Gaming vendors have less to gain by attending a large, expensive show if a significant chunk of those attendees don't care about gaming- we see this effect with comic book vendors at "comic book" shows that have basically just become pop culture and cosplay shows.
I see that you rejected some of my premises, but you didn't actually show them to be wrong. And the whole eliminating attendees for events that I don't care for (which, by your standards, is "sad") nonsense- my wife and I have actually participated in several Spa events and even an Anime event. We are taking part in a nongaming event again this year. I actually like a lot of the nongaming events. I am also not using the housing this year, I am staying at a friend's house for free. I am simply able to look past myself to see that there are bigger issues here. I don't mind that you disagree with me, I do mind if you base those disagreements on incorrect assumptions about me.

hmmmmm.......a direct quote from this article states

"Little of the infield experience is actually about the horse race; rather, it's the people-watching. This is where you will find homemade hats of epic proportions, authentic Kentucky rednecks, and a damn fine group of over 60,000 people all crowded together to toast the greatest two minutes in sports (even if they never see a single horse)."

or maybe this quote

"Do a large number of them know anything about horse racing? Probably not. Will they be ordering a hot dog from one of the hundreds of vendors or a batch-made mint julep? HA! Yeah, right.
The Millionaires Row attendees are usually seen lounging on a covered terrace, casually watching the races while dining on gourmet fare and sipping on one of those famous $1,000 (!!) mint juleps. "

To be honest, the whole article is spattered with lines about how many of the Derby attendees don't care much about the actual races. I think the article makes another point that is valid here, too. 

"the Derby is all about tradition."

And so is gen con. Geeky cosplay traditions. Zombie walk traditions. Hawaiian shirt traditions. Giant geeky balloon sculpture traditions. our cardhalla tradition. The con is fun because we have made it our own. The very culture you want to strip away is what makes Gen Con a fun place to be. 
 

This whole forum chain is getting crazy with all the quoted previous entries. 

It takes effort and the desire, but it could be done.