It is most definitely not fine in the other areas of the ICC. I helped set up in the Catalyst room last year which is also where they handed out badges and tshirts and it was /sweltering/. Like omg melt sweltering. Like they could not release me fast enough. There is no way I would have gamed in there.

We've been playing games in the Serpentine corridor, and over by event registration, and by the food court for years on Wed, and ITS FINE.  Also, Gen Con can shell out the $$$ to pay for AC in certain areas of the building.  I strongly doubt they are prohibited from using any AC in the entire convention center.  Sorry, AC is a non-issue.  If they wanted to open certain areas on Wed, they could.

I agree that the hallways weren't bad at all. However the rooms were atrocious. When, just standing listening to the gm policies has your shirt completely soaked with sweat and you haven't even /started/ actually doing any sort of activity, that is definitely NOT just 'FINE' or a non-issue. In fact, as I recall, there were tons and tons of complaints about the heat last year. Was the trade day stuff in the convention center or in a hotel or union station? <edit> Looks like this year, anyway, they are at the JW. Which has air conditioning.

That said, I would love for wednesday to be a real con day with just gaming and no exhibit hall. But we get there early, as in monday, so it'd be grand. 

Sunday however...meh. We are usually the last to leave of our group, many have flights out about noon, and then there is hotel checkout and such. Vacation is sunday to sunday for us, so getting back super late sunday night would be awful.

I would say it comes down to a cost factor if they could run the AC Full blast all the time in August for no additional charge I am sure they would. I work in logistics and have worked in warehouse management for over a decade I know when I look at renting warehouse space for storage or transloading there is usually a utility cost associated or baked into the rate. God help you if you need to store something in climate controlled area not even frozen but just at a decent room temp. Think about what it costs to heat/cool your home for a day then imagine doing that for 100Xs the space with giant doors or a lot of windows. It adds up quickly.

I think it goes back to what I mentioned before if we want a longer con it may be doable but we would end up having to pay more. I would wager Gen Con has ran the logistics and shaved cost down to where they can and probably even passed some of that our way to keep prices down to let more people attend. If we want full AC on Wednesday sure maybe they could do that but would you be willing to pay more? If so how much more?

On Wednesday, when I'm standing in line to claim my badge and such, I don't find that hot.  Gaming could be held in the same area of the building.

Trying to extend Sunday a few hours is an interesting idea, as well.  Though I know many people that have to leave because they don't have Monday off.

How would it work? Setting up a ton of tables and chairs in the middle of the ICC hallways, only to take them down sometime that night because you need those to be hallways again by Thursday? Very difficult. 

Most of the dealers are unloading & setting up on Wednesday, meaning the loading dock doors are all open.  I don't know how selective the A/C is, but they'd be pumping a lot of cold air outside if it was an everywhere or nothing system.

Would love to see more open space, things to do Wed in the convention center. I love the bars in Indy but not usually the place i'd prefer to game. 

Sunday is always a melancholy day for me as it feels like such a letdown as people leave and the energy level/critical mass of what is con falls apart. I stay through till Monday anymore and would love more casual/boardgame library hours on Sunday. An after/end con social with a bar (even just soda) would be awesome. A place to meet others and play/see what treasures one has found during con. 

I think part of the reason that Sunday feels like such a downer day is that the con closes down early that day. I wonder if people would be more enthused about Sunday events if the con went until midnight the final day or somewhere around that.

There is very little incentive for people to take Monday off work and stay late on Sunday, because the convention closes at 4pm.  If events went late and the dealers hall went until normal time, then more people would stay.

 Maybe on sunday one hotel could be designated for the 4th day crowd. Don't try to keep the whole thing rolling, just try to concentrate those that linger past noon into a smaller space. Or two smaller spaces. Don't make sunday eclusively that one hotel, but as the day goes on, schedule into that space, and make some official open gaming space available. Last year at the hyatt, there were two rooms full of gencon people playing games at 8pm. I don't know how or why, I'm pretty sure that gencon hadn't arranged for the space, I suspect that the hyatt was just not interested in kicking anyone out. Even just informal "we aren't going to quit" spaces would be nice. I will be at the hyatt again this year, anyone wants one more afternoon/evening of gaming can join me there.

I schedule Monday as my travel/wind down day for gencon because I want 4 days of gaming. There have been years we've started the drive home sunday afternoon, but we have bounced back and started staying again. Spending one of the best 4 days of gaming napping in the car isn't fun. And it scares my passengers.

If I'm driving, I wouldn't get very far anyway before packing it in if I left Sunday evening; might as well just stay put in Indy, get a good night's sleep, and hit the road before rush hour starts Monday morning.

If I'm flying, Indy airport on Sunday afternoon-evening is likely much more a zoo than it would be on Monday afternoon-evening.  And, if I tried to leave on Sunday, with the way the flights work I'd be heading out to the airport in the late morning; thus making Sunday pretty much a write-off.  So, same conclusion: stay put in Indy one extra night.

@ploveking: whereabouts in the Hyatt?

 Where were we gaming sunday evening? It was the second floor, the far right two rooms in that row of event rooms that you walk past going from the elevators to the skywalk. The hyatt lobby is often game-friendly too.

I'd just like to throw in that (speaking as a dealer) four days is about all I can handle. For a big show like this, it's non-stop. It's awesome, sure, but totally exhausting. (And expensive, between fees, hotel, food, employees, parking, etc.) I'd rather not go to five days offcially- and here's why. For big shows, there is a load/travel day, then a load-in/setup day, four show days, a breakdown day, and a travel day. That's a week. Adding a day to that pushes it into the NEXT week, and then it's hard to book another show. 

As to the heat? It was 93 in the event hall last year during load-in, and the poor woman setting up behind me had to keep pausing to puke from heat exhaustion. It was unreal, and awful. If I didn't love GenCon, I'd have thought seriously about calling OSHA. 

I think rather than expanding to another day, which would be a huge burden on the vendors, maybe just schedule gaming events to run later into the evening on Sunday.  That might make more folks inclined to stay in town, which would improve attendance for Sunday overall, and help make Sunday feel more like a full day of the con.  Right now Sunday really feels like a half day (or less), since there aren't many events and they stop so early.

Running events later might help take care of people's desire for more of the Gen con experience, without burning out the vendors any more than they are already.