Good golly, yes.

10-15 consecutive now and can't possibly stop.

I will absolutely be there.  Meeting with other Acaeumites made it the best GenCon for me in many years.  And my son will be coming too.  But this time, I'll drive down Wednesday so I can make the dinner.

And if it would help convince you to attend, Mike, I'll be sure to overpay again on more of your stuff in the auction.  

mbassoc2003 wrote:Would need to whatch how much I spent as well. That'd likely be a problem too.

This is also what scares me about going to GenCon.

mbassoc2003 wrote:and I have no idea what the missus would do while we were there, as I'd want to be there most days. She doesn't understand the FRPG thing, and it'd be a mojor problem keeping her entertained and not feeling like I was ignoring her.

Maybe all of the GenCon widows could come together and hang out while their mates are inside GenCon.  Or your wife could join you in hunting down good items and swag.

One year many years ago, I went up to GenCon (when it was in Milwaukee) for just a day, and brought the wife.  She got to see what it is like, and we both learned that, shall we say, it just ain't her cup of tea.

That being said, we've arrived at a good detente.  She does her things with her girlfriends (ask me about the two, yes two, trips to Scotland she's made without me), and I get my free time in return.

On the other hand, there are other spouses (Blackmoor's and Stratochamp's come to mind) who do come along for the ride, and seem to have a pretty good time.  So to each her own.

On the fear of spending too much money . . . embrace your fear!   There's nothing quite like walking through the convention center, and seeing enormous ballrooms filled with gamers.  And yeah, there's a lot of rare and cool stuff to buy, but if you go with a budget, and stick with it, you'll be OK.  (At least that's what I hear, since I've never been real good with budgets.   )

You can find ways to go on the cheap. Not as easy as the old days, though. We first started going in 1981. The convention was held at U of W Kenosha back then. We pitched tents at a local campground for next to nothing and used he men's locker room each morning for showers.
Ate a BK because they had some sale on whoppers or something (can't quite remember that part too well).
Anyway, I think I had $150 total to cover gasoline, campground, food and convention stuff. I was preregistered but it was damn cheap back then. Maybe $20 and $2 per event. Hell, I think I spent about $40 at the auction which bought a dozen modules and probably 10 SPI boardgames.

Of course many of these options no longer exist. But you can save money by staying in a hotel away from downtown, bring a cooler full of lunch/snack/soda. There are also plenty of "free" events and pick-up games are everywhere.

Hell, you could play one those four-day naval battle games or some other epic miniature event that lasts for three days.

I really need to write a book about this stuff...

Bracton wrote:
You mean UW Parkside.  God, how I miss Parkside.  

Correct. I say that all the time for some reason. We would go into to Kenosha for dinner every night.

Remember that bar they had on campus - Rattskellar? It was on the lowest level of the main campus building.

bbarsh wrote:We pitched tents at a local campground for next to nothing and used he men's locker room each morning for showers.

I'm pretty sure that Contrarian camped outside Indy last year.  So there are ways to do GenCon pretty cheaply.

Wait.  You actually showered each day?  That would clearly have put you in the minority back at Parkside.  

bbarsh wrote:You can find ways to go on the cheap. Not as easy as the old days, though. We first started going in 1981. The convention was held at U of W Kenosha back then. We pitched tents at a local campground for next to nothing and used he men's locker room each morning for showers.
Ate a BK because they had some sale on whoppers or something (can't quite remember that part too well).
Anyway, I think I had $150 total to cover gasoline, campground, food and convention stuff. I was preregistered but it was damn cheap back then. Maybe $20 and $2 per event. Hell, I think I spent about $40 at the auction which bought a dozen modules and probably 10 SPI boardgames.

Of course many of these options no longer exist. But you can save money by staying in a hotel away from downtown, bring a cooler full of lunch/snack/soda. There are also plenty of "free" events and pick-up games are everywhere.

Hell, you could play one those four-day naval battle games or some other epic miniature event that lasts for three days.

I really need to write a book about this stuff...

There are lots of ways to save money. Food is the easiest.  Never eat at the conventin center itself (way over the top for both food and drinks), just do some shopping at one of the local markets. My wife and I bought sandwhich fixins the first day, whenever we needed a bite with just whipped up a turkey or chicken sandwich.  Most of the hotels, even the cheaper ones, have some sort of a free breakfast.  Some even have an afternoon snack along with free booze!

There are some cheaper downtown restaurants also, if you know where to look. Most of the time you'll be too busy to think about eating anyway.

If you don't mind a lot of walking, you can room several blocks away and save a lot of money.  If you are in shape and have a nice backpack this won't be a problem.  If you are an overweight gamer type like myself...well, at least you'll get a good workout everyday!   If you really wanted to save money, and don't mind leaving early every night, you might think about a hotel outside of downtown entirely, and just driving in everyday.  Parking is around $20 a day, so if you found a place for, say, $80 a night, you'd still be saving quite a bit by driving in rather than rooming across the street.

Yes Contrarian did camp out this year, last year also.  He's a tougher man than me, it 's all I could do most nights to crawl back to my room a couple blocks away and collapse into my bed, I couldn't imagine having to drive 20 min to a campground outside the city.....

I'd also find a small box of goodies that you can price in the $10-$20 range, either duplicates or stuff you don't need, and either enter them in the auction (easy way, but you won't make as much) or the auction store (little more work, an you can't enter anything more than $40, but you'll get your price most of the time).  The stuff in the auction store can have a sliding scale, so if you really don't want to take anything back with you, price it really cheaply for the last day (Saturday) so it'll be sure to be sold.  Personally, unless it was a rare or semi-rare I wouldn't bother with the auction..ocassionally something would shock you (like a Fiend Folio going for say $15 or so) but most of the time, if the item is common it barely hits the minimum bid, if that.  If you are pretty sure you know what your item will go for, I'd opt for the Auction store.  BTW a lot of non-intuitive stuff can be placed in the store, and will sell..dvds, cds, action figures, wargames, etc.  I made $100 last year off of four seasons of Babylon Five on DVD, $25 bucks a pop, and I almost didn't even bring them with me!    Also sold some horror dvds at $8-10 apiece.  I'd limit the movie stuff to SF, fantasy or horror, every year it seems like someone brings his entire dvd or vhs collection and puts it in the auction, with nothing going for over a buck.       Anyway, the point being, you can offset part of your cost by collecting a nice check on Sunday (actually the system keeps track of what you have made and you can access this on the computers they supply; and you are allowed to withdraw this amount in cash if you like during the day!).  

I experimented last year with entering several items of many types, probably 400 items in all, and sold almost all of them for quite a bit of money (over $1000, IIRC).  Basically it paid for our room, which was awesome.  If anyone has any question about entering stuff for the auction, or auction store, I'd be happy to give you my (admittedly limited) advice from my experiences last year.  Nice thing is you can pre-enter everything through the Gencon website, including printing up the sales receipt that you stick to the item,  saves a ton of time once you get there.  

Mike B.