Catalyst will be my first stop, as there are several new Shadowrun books I want to pick up. 

Dice at Chessex and Gamescience will probably be next. I need some weirdo dice for DCC and need to feed my addiction for character-specific dice.

I have a couple booths I need to hit to visit friends, and otherwise I don't have much in the dealer hall I need/want to do.

Fat Dragon Games was ALWAYS my first stop at the Expo Hall but it looks like he won't be there this year so... Mayfair or USAopoly... or whatever catches my eye when I step in... :)

Catalyst Game Labs. Stocking up on the new Battletech books so I don't have to wait for my FLGS to special order them... eventually! Then off to Iron Wind Metals to feed my metal addiction. Modiphius to say 'hi' to my old college roommate. And a quick stop over at Soda Pop/Ninja Division to say 'hi' to Marie-Claude. After that, it's all about drifting around aimlessly and enjoying the sights and sounds of the Dealer room... ;)

I like my FLGS - the staff is great and all.  One thing that bothers me (just a little) about my FLGS is that while they pretty much always have the new 5e and Pathfinder (and perhaps FFG Star Wars, too) releases, they carry little else for PnP RPGs.  So, unless I tell them specifically to order me, for example, the new TOR or Dark Eye release then I miss out on it and then they have to order after its release.  Sometimes, the distributor sells out of the first run and then I'm kind of stuck - I've asked them to order it for me so I'd feel guilty ordering it somewhere else while my FLGS is trying to get it.  So I wait. 

I think the biggest thing for me isn't this, though...it's stuff that comes out from non-major companies that I don't necessarily even know about.  I try to keep abreast of new releases, but sometimes things slip through the cracks. 

Going into the Exhibition Hall and picking up new stuff, recently released stuff that I hadn't seen yet or hadn't gotten around to asking the FLGS for yet, or just stuff I don't have to wait for is pretty neat.

1: CMON

2: Cubicle 7 for The One Ring

3: Green Ronin for any news on Fantasy Age/goodies.

4: Paizo... I haven't played Pathfinder in a few years regularly, but Starfinder sounds interesting.

I might be trying to Ninja-Shop for a couple friends at Privateer, so that might be an early stop as well.

It was going to be Starfinder for me, but then I learned it's got lots of magic in space, which was something of a turnoff. Then I learned that Paizo prints to expected demand and has extra space just to sell the book. I'll thumb through someones else's (clean hands, I promise!) before buying. 

My first stops will probably be Fantasy Flight to hopefully buy L5R and then Slugfest Games so I can help y'all demo Red Dragon Inn 6. 

This is my first GenCon, and I won't have much time for the exhibition hall (maybe 4-5 hours total over the 4 days) so I'd appreciate a little advice from some of the veterans out there. I'm not planning on getting much in the way of games - I've got a limited budget, and I can get most mass market stuff through my FLGS that's 2 blocks from my office. With that being said, I'd like to pick up a memento for the folks I work with who've never done a con. There are about 20 of them so I'd be looking for something relatively small and inexpensive - no more than about $2 each. Heck, they'd probably be tickled to get a couple of dice that aren't d6's; they've mostly never seen any other kind of dice.

Any suggestions on vendors to make an effort to get to or items to look for?

Thanks!

You could definitely get them each a few dice from Chessex for way less than $2 a person! :)

I don't think you're going to find much other than dice for less than $2 a person. There are usually a couple vendors selling coins, but one coin seems silly.  You might be able to get bulk meeples from Meeplesource. Or coins from one of the coin vendors like Campaign Coins. Dice is the obvious choice, and there are some weird ones. A couple years ago, I picked up a D7 with the days of the week on it. And there will likely be other nonstandard sided dice as well as other dice with nonstandard symbols on them.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. 
 - Arthur C. Clarke

Might look into the Starfinder deal, but my plans were Modiphius then Corvus Belli.  I didn't see where R. Talsorian had a booth, though I'm planning on attending a couple of their seminars.

Okay, my first stop this year will be Crystal Caste, to get the Gencon Dice set for the year. :)

Green Ronin to pick up my Tal Dorei Campaign Guide, then onto whatever I see. First Con Ever so going in with few expectations and most of Thursday free for the Hall!