Most years I wind up with a few generic tickets on Sunday afternoon.  I'm not going to waste time in the CS line to get $4 or $6 in system credit, and I'm sure there are other people who feel the same way.  It would be nice if there was a box where we could deposit any unused generics (and possibly unused event tickets) and have their value donated to one of Gen Con's charity partners.  Certainly it's a better use for them than tossing them in the trash.

That is a brilliant idea! 

I love this idea!

Massive +1 for this idea.

Full disclosure, this is not my original idea.  Someone mentioned doing this in an offhand comment on the Friends of Gen Con FB group, and I'm reposting it here where the PTB of Gen Con will have a better chance of seeing it.

This is great!!!  My only question is:  Why hasn't this been done already???

I like it.

Great idea!

I've always cashed by tickets back in. The options were:
1. Lose the value of the tickets.
2. Do nothing.

IF we had:
3. Drop off the tickets and have that value go to a charity...

I'd be there.

+1

It's possible that there is some sort of legal complication that prevents them from doing this.    Or even logistical reasons....   Sorting those tickets for processing alone would be a pretty large task.   Let alone all the people that would put things other than generics into the bin....

None of those reasons would prevent Gen Con from donating if they chose to.

I think it's a great idea. However I also know how people are and all kinds of random things could end up in the bin which would take a lot of time to sort through.

As a possible refinement of the idea, Gen Con has a large group of amazing volunteers. Why not have one (or more) of those volunteers stationed somewhere near Will Call/Customer Service for an hour or so at the close of the convention on Sunday.

Hand your generics to the volunteer and they drop them in a bin to be later counted and their value donated. As Gen Con moves more towards electronic tickets, this process could most likely be even further streamlined. 

I want Gen Con to get onboard with the idea of donating the unused tickets to charity.  How they actually collect the tickets is a detail to be worked out later. 

Once they go fully to e-tickets, this idea pretty much goes away, as people won’t need generics and will just pay for the event when they get into it.

This is something I’d like to see for this year and the few years remaining where paper tickets will still be a thing.

OK, first, my question above was kinda rhetorical, but whatever.

Second, as buffy mentioned above, I just think this a great idea, and don't see the need to "what if" it to the point Gen Con decides not to try it.

Really, a bin near some already stationed area would be great.  I should not be only the last two hours of the con, but the entire con.  What about people who are only there for 1 day, or don't stay through Sunday (like myself, for example).  Also, I really don't see trash getting thrown into such a charity collection.  Would someone really go out of their way to do that?  Again, if a bin is just placed by a stationed area, they can have a couple volunteers organize it...really, how many tickets would there be? How long would it really take.

Again, GREAT idea, should have been in place for YEARS.  Good thinking Buffy!!! 

No one is trying to "what if" it in order to stop GenCon from doing it.   If you really think that they aren't capable of thinking of these incredibly basic scenarios for them selves, then you have a fairly low opinion of them....

Also, I think that it's a good idea as well.  I was just answering what I thought was a question in good faith.

Regardless...   You make a few unwarranted assumptions.   You assume that people would only throw trash in these receptacles.  While that is certainly a possibility, I was more thinking of non-generic tickets.   So...   You now need someone to sort through all the tickets in the bin for the ones that they need, and those that they don't.    If we're thinking that there will be enough generics to make this worth it, then that's a definite concern.

So, now it's a matter of cost vs. benefit.   GenCon knows just how many generics go unused.   Too few, and it's not worth the effort to collect them, sort them, and donate the money.   GenCon is, after all, a business.   All of which, they already know.   

You are again looking at the trees, and ignoring the forest.  Each unreturned ticket represents $1.90 in pure profit for Gen Con.  They keep 5%, and put the rest back in your account as system credit, so every 1000 tickets is worth $1900 extra to them.

They have to decide to give up that profit & donate it to charity before any of this goes forward.  They do raise a lot of money for their charity partners during the con (through Cardhalla, auctions, etc.), the question is how much they donate up & above that from their own coffers.  This would be additional money they'd be donating.

As far as the details, it's easy to prevent most trash from being thrown in the box by using a lid with a ticket slot, the same as you see at carnivals & raffles.  Someone would have to be clueless or a real azzhat to try & throw garbage in it.

As far as unused event tickets, my original proposal asked to include those as well.  They have 3 options for those; 1) don't accept them for charity, 2) accept them but donate only the $2 generic ticket cost, or 3) donate the full face value of the ticket.

As far as their cost of doing it, it's minor, but no matter what, it's a cost; charity always is.  Let's say a Gen Con employee costs them $20/hr (not salary, employer cost), and that's probably a bit high.  Under scenario 1 above, it's fairly easy for someone to run through the pile of collected tickets and separate out the non-generics, and count the generics.  Under scenario 2, it's even easier, just count the slips.  Scenario 3 would require scanning the tickets to get their value, and would take the longest.  Let's say a person can do 15 tickets/minute with the scanner, that's 750/hr (with a break).  So, if 10,000 tickets are turned in, that's about 13 hours of work.  Donate value: $20,000; employee cost: ~$500 (double it so someone can confirm), total cost for Gen Con: ~$20,500.  Under scenarios 1 & 2, it would be even less cost, since more tickets could be handled per hour.

Charity is all about corporate goodwill.  Gen Con has to decide how much goodwill they wish to spread.  Heck, even if they only donate 50% of the ticket values, it's still a nice chunk of change for the charities.

To voice_of_reason: I just mentioned Sunday because that's when most people turn in their generics.  If they did this, no reason the box couldn't be there throughout the whole con.