The Good:
Being there! This year was the first time I attended since 2016, and the first time I stayed all days of the convention since 2014. I'd become a little burned out with Gen Con, and it was nice to be among my tribe again.
Kids events: The kids crafting room was great for my 5-year-old. Plenty of great kids games in the exhibit hall; my son won a copy of Stink Bug, a card game that's a lot like Memory. We've had lots of fun with the game since coming home.
Keeping the lines moving: When I finally got to the convention center to pick up my badges Wednesday afternoon, the will call line was out the door. Like, a few blocks long. But it was very well organized and it kept moving pretty quickly.
Seeing old friends: my first Gen Con was over 20 years ago. It was great to see old faces, whether it was planned or just out of the blue.
Star Trek LARP: I forget the name of the group that ran it, but there was a great DS9-based LARP. Lots of great players in that game, and the folks that ran the game were also great. The organizers obviously love Trek and paid a lot of attention to plot and details. I'm a diehard Trekkie, and one of my first Gen Con experiences was playing in a Star Trek LARP. I have a lot of fond memories of those events, and it was great to see so many other people having fun in the game.
The bad?
Not seeing a few other friends that I know were at Gen Con. It's a big convention, and there's only so much non-gaming time.
The meh:
Noise levels in the Shadowrun room: I played in a Shadowrun game on Saturday, and the room was quite loud. Made it difficult to hear even people right next to me. Not sure if there's anything Gen Con can do to fix it. There's a lot of people and a lot of noise. Just an observation.
Road closures: having 70 closed for most of the Con made driving more interesting than I would have liked. Again, something beyond Gen Con's control.
This year's Gen Con was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. Not sure if I'll make it back next year, but it's something I look forward to doing again sometime.
The Good - reusable cups at ICC. Friends old and new.
The Ugly - no lids for reusable cups at ICC. Understaffed and undersupplied food trucks.
The Ugly - event disruption by badge checkers in the middle of a game. Makes you think they are not trusted to only allow badged individuals into gaming area. If so, why are they trusted to disrupt a game?
Good: vendor hall crowd wasn’t as bad on Saturday (but it was worse on Sunday yikes!)
i played DnD for the first time and had a great GM.
bad: taking gate 10 shuttle then walking back to Lucas. Needs to be a back entrance to Lucas for early am events.
ended up getting souvenir cups and concession food because I didn’t want to spend time in line at food trucks
ugly: money spent on games b/c a lot of the swag was not my type/level
One event marked for beginners that was anything but and one event where the host didn’t know the game and I still don’t know how to play!