Thursday - price it so that someone who really wants it will snag it today, because it might be gone tomorrow
Friday - what I realistically think it will sell for given all the facts about it
Saturday - I really don't want to bring it home, this is a 'good deal' and you should buy it if you want it at all

Most of the things that ended up coming home this year were items that needed the 'right person' to see it (expansions for somewhat unusual situations/games, very random board games, etc) or something I brought too many of because I have too many (looking at you Confrontation starters..I mean, I sold some, but not all).

Thursday - was the highest, then drop each day after that. Tried to do research, but a couple games didn't sell. What can you do. lol

From the perspective of someone who demoed games (some for Z-Man, some for Plaid Hat, all under the Asmodee umbrella), I'd like to point out that each and every company had different ways for dealing with other exhibitors wanting to purchase items before the hall opened.

For instance, if you worked a booth for an Asmodee company, you were given access to their store about 10 minutes before the hall opened.  Other people with exhibitor badges had to wait in line until 10.  That said, the line was never more than 20 people when the hall opened, due mainly to the fact that the exhibitors had to be in their booths at 10 for the most part.

Other companies allowed exhibitors to just walk up as soon as the registers were open and buy what they wanted - for instance, I bought some Chessex dice at like 9:15 Thursday morning because they were set up and had Square running already.

There was no press or VIG early access and that *massively* reduced the number of items sold before 10.  I can't be sure because it's all anecdotal, but pretty much everyone I knew managed to get what they wanted, provided they were willing to go and stand on that line first.  I'm sure there were exceptions, but it seemed way better this year than in past years.

My run down.

Good, awesome weather, exhibitor hall not overwhelming packed. Didn't really run into any of the once a month bathers. 

Bad, Food, didn't really mater where we tried eating. Everyplace was just overwhelmed. 

Ugly. The Bird Scooters. Though fun and nice to ride. They are a hazard while riding them. Sidewalks are not where they are to be ridden. Plus too many people to do that. But the streets just lack a bike lane to safely ride them too. One of our buddies just about got taken out by a SUV in the street. And I was nearly hit by a ram truck who thought he had the right away.

G

Second floor gaming at tables outside of Starbucks.

3rd floor taking over a smallish dinning room ordering delivery pizza and stealing the hall way garbage can and dragging it into the room so we could clean up after, with the aid of their security.
 

All we had in Union Station was some class-A jerk named Roderick. He hassled us the whole Con.

"Hello, can I help you?"
"The bathrooms are past those doors to your left."
"Your game is actually across the street in the Crowne Plaza."
"Sure, we can help you with that."
"Hey buddy, good to see you again!"

Jeesh. What a piece of work. I was forced to steal a pad of paper from him on Friday night to teach him a lesson.

(He had minions too. Also horrible people.)

I haven't been to Gen Con in a couple of decades, and I really enjoyed myself.

The Good:
- Skyway!  I really enjoyed being able to run around downtown.
- Goodman Games HQ in 127 was a great fun place to play and sometimes to hang out.
- Got to Demo a few games in the Dealer's hall and had fun with them
- Food trucks!  Never had to wait for more than 10 minutes for food.  
- St. Elmo slider pre-order was tasty and well-run.
- A chair massage Sunday morning really recharged me.

The Bad:
- Good lord, that Will Call line.  It seemed to be well-managed, but it was huge!
- Food in the convention center was iffy.
- The hall is so random.  I know I missed stuff in there even though I went in multiple times.  
- Crowding in the dealer's room.
- Buses in Indianapolis never seem to be on time.

The Ugly:
- Probably that Will Call line

The Good - Wow! Did I have great tables this year for the four games I ran. I take absolutely no credit for this, but the players were attentive, entertaining, and clever. I couldn't ask for more.

Great to have Dave C. back. I love my friends in Evil Fleet and this is always a wonderful time to spend with them.

The Bad - Wow! I never forget stuff, but I forgot the actual scenario for my Thursday morning game.  Fortunately, I had just playtested it last week and had notes, so I was able to recreate 90% of it. I also forgot about half my stuff for Community Paranoia on Saturday at 10AM.  I went to bed at 1:30 on Friday and was up at 4:30 to put the game together before running.  This meant a lot of time that could have been spent having fun was spent working on games I had already written.

My Spinal Stenosis was not good. I have started physical therapy and it's been very good, but any walking over a block was a struggle.  Hopefully, by next Gen Con, I'll have more range.

Wound up spending about $2k on Gen Con housing.  That number needs to drop precipitously next year.

The Ugly - The lines on food are getting a bit ridiculous. We have the same number of restaurants we had when we were half the size.  

It was an awesome con for us this year.  Mostly...

The good:

• We played in 7 RPG's this year, five were outstanding and the other two were merely "excellent".  The GM's were uniformly great, and most of the players were highly engaged and good roleplayers.
  
• The temporary café on the second floor of the Marriott was excellent.  The prices were similar to the ICC but the food was decent, and we never had to deal with a line. 
  
• Found some cool stuff in the dealer hall but still ended under-budget!
  
• The "attention Gencon attendees" announcements in the dealer hall seemed less frequent this year.  And at a lower volume.
  

• Didn't make it all the way through the dealer hall.  That's really on us, with a limited budget we decided to game more and shop less.
  
• Also didn't get to the art show.
  
• Con funk is real!  Not that I didn't already know that...
  
• The usual sleep deprivation challenges.  It gets harder every year.  If I didn't know better, I'd think I was getting older.
  
• Road construction.  As locals, we know the back ways to get around, but it had to be a pain for visitors. 
  
• The will-call line seemed a lot longer a lot later into the con than normal. 
  

The Ugly:

• The enormous backpacks from gamingtables.com.  Seriously, if it doesn't pass as a carryon on a plane, it's too damned big to carry into the dealer hall.  Both I and my wife got smacked by these a couple times, and had to dodge them many dozens of times.
  
• The overzealous badge-checker in the Marriott.  They were checking badges in the second-floor lobby of the Marriott.  See this thread: https://www.gencon.com/forums/8-attendees-customers/topics/15749-overzealous-event-staff
  
• I saw a lot of cosplayers using the photo area, which was good, but they were standing at the front, near the yellow line.  This forced the photographers to stand ten feet back, blocking a lot of the hallway.  Sort of defeats the purpose.  Had the cosplayers stood near the wall it would have worked out a lot better.
  
• The wandering minstrels in the dealer hall were an annoyance.  Not only did they clog up traffic, but they were so loud it made conversation with the vendors difficult.
  
• It seems like there were more rolling carts in the dealer hall this year.  I saw several that looked more appropriate for a warehouse.  Do these people not have local hobby shops, or at least access to the internet, so they could buy games the rest of the year?
  
• The huge trash cans in the middle of intersections in the dealer hall.  I get that there needs to be trash cans, but could they at least use ones with a rounded top, so people don't use them like tables and gather around them?
  

Overall we had a great time.  See you all next year!

 jcfiala wrote:- St. Elmo slider pre-order was tasty and well-run.

I was also impressed with the St. Elmo's sliders. The meat was very high quality... it actually was pieces of filet! I devoured mine. The homemade potato chips were very nice too. Huge upgrade from the Ruth's Chris ones. 

ahh, out of block, that explains a lot.

GOOD - another great year with fun games and experiences all four days
            Amazing weather, Gate 10 parking and shuttles were awesome, we had to chuckle at someone who arrived at a stop just after us and after 2 minutes started complaining about wait times. We would have been happy to wait 10 minutes to spare the walk, but never had to wait more than 5

BAD - FFG loosing sight of standard events and games, and what happened to their booth? We expand our Descent collection every year, but this year they had Nothing but their Star Wars licensed games

UGLY - I've seen it mentioned plenty, but the backpacks were a lot worse this year than previous years. the wheeled luggage appearance has also increased by too much.  

The Good: Nascrag was a great success again.  Lots of fun was had by lots of people.  We raise dover $1300 for charity this year.  I got to GM for my niece and her friend Cherise and Japanime games became a new friend for Nascrag.

The Bad:  The Crowne Plaza cant be beat for location when most of your time will be spent in Lucas Oil.  But the rooms on the west side literally come with ear plugs on the nightstand for the train noise.  Nothing quite like being out late having a few adult beverages and being woken at 7 am by screeching train wheels.

The Ugly:  Once again I didn't manage to do anything but Nascrag this year.  And being sort of in charge has transformed my former fun into responsibility.  I managed to find my mojo with a couple of good teams, but the work/reward ratio is whacked.

Sounds rough, NASCRAGman! Hopefully next year you can find someone to help you shoulder the load and find the fun again. *hugs*