Attendance can be capped?
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Posted by andrewj.rager
#51

What I would like to know is who works for Gen Con's marketing team. As people have said in Gen Con doubled in size, 30,000 to 60,000 in 5 years, while most of the other NA conventions stay in the 10,000-20,000 size. Maybe that is by design, but hats off to those who have helped grow the Con. I don't even remember how I heard about Gen Con originally, but we thought about it for 2-3 years & finally went last year. Now I can't even think about not going.

Posted by jimmythesaint
#52

I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.

Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.

Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?

I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!

 

Posted by andrewj.rager jimmythesaint
#53

jimmythesaint wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.
Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.
Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?
I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!
 
I'm thinking the cap is 75K. That's 15K on last year. They are probably just comparing ticket sales last year to this year so far & how many more tickets they sold from this point til the start of the Con. Also the Con is 2 weeks later than last year, that may help or hurt sales. Either way I think a reasonable cap, 75K is still a crazy ton of people is fair. 90% of the people thinking about going already have their badge. But I'd hate to see Gen Con become something where you have to get your badge on release day or you are out of luck.

Posted by doombunny
#54

I'm guessing there has always been a hard limit on how many people the staff can realistically handle not to mention fire codes and all, but this is the first time that we could conceivably hit that limit.

Posted by trace_sl jimmythesaint
#55

jimmythesaint wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.
Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.
Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?
I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!
 

I do think there are more hotels in the portal.
 
You see rooms come available at this time, right before the cancelation fee increase, every year as plans fall apart.

How I would love to see the demographics for Gen Con, it is something that just is not shared and yet we are people that go crazy for STATS, it is cruel. 

Posted by andrewj.rager trace_sl
#56

trace_sl wrote:
jimmythesaint wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.
Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.
Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?
I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!

I do think there are more hotels in the portal.
 
You see rooms come available at this time, right before the cancelation fee increase, every year as plans fall apart.How I would love to see the demographics for Gen Con, it is something that just is not shared and yet we are people that go crazy for STATS, it is cruel. 
I believe there are many stats that would be beneficial or at least interesting to see that Gen Con does not release.

Posted by squirecam braewe
#57

braewe wrote:
I would have thought with the addition of the LOS that attendance would have had a huge 'cap' increase since that place alone seats...how many? I mean, it can't be based on just one possible location since we would have gone over the cap in the smaller venues years ago. And there is no earthly way ALL attendees would be in one location all at the same time ever. We're just too much a variable bunch. Even the exhibit hall opening doesn't draw /everyone/.
That said. Wow. Just. Wow.
But if 200-300 of every additional 1000 people care about the exhibit hall on opening day.....then the hall entrances become even worse then previously. Which makes it more of a hazard.
 

Posted by mhayward1978 jimmythesaint
#58

jimmythesaint wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.
Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.
Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?
I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!

Allow me to solve for you "The Mystery of There Being Lots of Hotels in the Housing Portal":

* Closet hotel in the portal as of writing - 6.7 miles away, $149-179 a night for Wednesday - Monday
* Cheapest hotel in the portal as of writing - $118 a night, 10.4 miles away for Wednesday - Monday

Now look at what's available on, say, Hotels.com (similar results available on other hotel booking services):

https://www.hotels.com/search/searchmap.html?resolved-location=CITY%3A1432803%3AUNKNOWN%3AUNKNOWN&destination-id=1432803&q-destination=Indianapolis,%20Indiana,%20United%20States%20of%20America&q-check-in=2017-08-16&q-check-out=2017-08-21&q-rooms=1&q-room-0-adults=2&q-room-0-children=0

Rooms available for $60 a night and up, and comparable ones within 6 miles.

So - you get no benefit from using the portal for these hotels.  You don't save money.  You don't get closer.  What you do get is locked into a room with penalties for cancelation.  No thanks!

The housing portal is only useful for getting in block rooms in downtown Indy for cheap.  Otherwise you're better off without it.  

There were plenty of rooms of a similar distance and price last year as well at this time.

Posted by jimmythesaint
#59

Yeah, that's a good point. Your hotels.com link even had rooms at the Alexander and Staybridge when I clicked just now. Exorbitant prices, but still, downtown rooms.

So then again - if there are so many rooms still available, combined with less rooms in Indianapolis overall compared to years previous, the attendance cap they have in place must be lower than what I would have expected. 

Trying to piece together these random data points is interesting, but probably a futile exercise.

Posted by monkeyknifefight mhayward1978
#60

mhayward1978 wrote:
jimmythesaint wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed by this announcement. We hear that badge sales might be capped if trends continue, but as of writing this, there are 25 hotels available (!!!) in the housing portal. Granted, none are downtown, but there was a post just yesterday of someone snagging a JW Marriott through the portal.
Combine this with the posts about overall a smaller quantity of hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area compared to 5 years ago, and I'm curious.
Is attendance really that high if so many outlying rooms are still available? Or have that many more hotels joined the portal than before, increasing the number of rooms that appear?
I suspect it's the latter, but the numbers nerd in me would pay an extra amount on my badge price to see the internal projections and planning spreadsheets. I won't talk, I swear!
Allow me to solve for you "The Mystery of There Being Lots of Hotels in the Housing Portal":
* Closet hotel in the portal as of writing - 6.7 miles away, $149-179 a night for Wednesday - Monday
* Cheapest hotel in the portal as of writing - $118 a night, 10.4 miles away for Wednesday - Monday
Now look at what's available on, say, Hotels.com (similar results available on other hotel booking services):
https://www.hotels.com/search/searchmap.html?resolved-location=CITY%3A1432803%3AUNKNOWN%3AUNKNOWN&destination-id=1432803&q-destination=Indianapolis,%20Indiana,%20United%20States%20of%20America&q-check-in=2017-08-16&q-check-out=2017-08-21&q-rooms=1&q-room-0-adults=2&q-room-0-children=0
Rooms available for $60 a night and up, and comparable ones within 6 miles.
So - you get no benefit from using the portal for these hotels.  You don't save money.  You don't get closer.  What you do get is locked into a room with penalties for cancelation.  No thanks!
The housing portal is only useful for getting in block rooms in downtown Indy for cheap.  Otherwise you're better off without it.  
There were plenty of rooms of a similar distance and price last year as well at this time.
Spot on. This is the first piece of advice I give anyone looking at going to GenCon. Only use the block for downtown rooms. If you are driving in every day a couple miles doesn't make a big difference. Get a room outside the block for much cheaper.

Posted by braewe
#61

The exception to this is if you are expecting a reimbursement...if so you MUST use an in block hotel.

Posted by mikeboozer
#62

I'm going to echo my colleagues post:

This is a heads up to attendees so they aren't surprised should we be unable to sell more badges, which is a very real possibility, as stated in the newsletter. 

No stunt, no game, just the facts. 

Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Posted by nascragman mikeboozer
#63

mikeboozer wrote:
I'm going to echo my colleagues post:
This is a heads up to attendees so they aren't surprised should we be unable to sell more badges, which is a very real possibility, as stated in the newsletter. 
No stunt, no game, just the facts. 
Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Mike, can you share the cap number?  Just curious.

Posted by loon mikeboozer
#64

mikeboozer wrote:
I'm going to echo my colleagues post:
This is a heads up to attendees so they aren't surprised should we be unable to sell more badges, which is a very real possibility, as stated in the newsletter. 
No stunt, no game, just the facts. 
Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

This phrasing caused my heart to skip a beat.

Posted by rhone1
#65

Just got an email that 4 Day badges are now sold out.

Wow!  I wonder what the number was?

Posted by david campbell
#66

I'm betting we won't know until the Con after when they share the headcount and turnstile.
 

Posted by knuteski
#67

Wow.  Well, I'm here to eat my crow when I said it was a marketing stunt.  I never thought they'd sell out but they did.  Incredible work.

Posted by brumcg
#68

I hope the number is released to help set attendees expectations.  If it's 65k, not much difference from the last two years.  75k?  Okay...  More than 75k?  Yikes.

Posted by ytuni
#69

Wow, just checked and it's been updated on the website. I have an hour and a half to 2 hour drive from home and keep thinking about how early we should leave. That time just gets earlier and earlier....

Posted by gencon322198 david campbell
#70

david campbell wrote:
I'm betting we won't know until the Con after when they share the headcount and turnstile.
 
I wonder, is there any way we could figure it out by looking at our badge numbers and seeing who has the highest 4day badge number?  Or do numbers get mixed together between 4day and 1days?

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