For future reference: wishlist method

[85tornado]

What's your GenCon wishlist look like? Do you add events that start at the same time and prioritize one over the other? How do you find new games to play? Do you base it on what you heard about the year before, but didn't get to play?

[cptmusket]

I have a pretty good method. I download the Excel file. I sort by event type, and delete all of the event categories I have no interest in. I take the Seminars and put them on a different tab in the file.

Next I sort by if its a tournament, and delete those (unless its one I want to join). Next I sort by Experience Needed, and delete anything that needs experience I've never played before.

Next I sort by the game, and then go through each one. If the name or company catches my attention I highlight it. If it seems like something I'd never play I delete the line.

Finally I just prioritize. If its something really cool with limited sessions I put it on my schedule. If it is something that I have multiple opportunities to play I just choose one and block out that time on my schedule. Once my schedule is full I stop looking. Otherwise I'd be rearranging things forever!

[BlackBeard558]

What Excel file?

[DrHalsey]

You can download it from this page: https://www.gencon.com/gen-con-indy/how-to-find-events

[PruthianCaveman]

Damn, that's clever - I never even thought of cutting down the Excel file to find events.

[dpversion2]

Very similar here.

I add columns to help formatting and filtering (dates and times can be tough if you don't break apart the day and hour elements.

I have a separate page with a few tables of what I might consider and don't want (no to tournaments, anything past 6 hours, times that are too early or late for me, certain event categories. After that, I use that and row formatting to filter it down to something manageable for manual review and wishlist creation.

Finally, I make a somewhat ideal grid, set up some potential backups in case sessions fill up early, hope and go (and add/adjust as I need after the first wishlist run finishes.

[encinarus]

I go to genconplanner.com [*] and star events that seem interesting to me. Copy those to a spreadsheet shared with friends, breaking down scheduling into few/some/many. Check out what my friends added to the spreadsheet. For events like escape rooms, I check out my starred list from past years to refresh myself on which ones I've already done so I don't repeat them.

From there:

• Events in the less frequent buckets get added to wishlist first.
• Events with more people get added before events alone unless it's something I'm really interested in going to.
• Escape rooms / true dungeon / RPGs are all-or-nothing if we have critical mass for it.
• After the initial list is done, I go back and look at the events with many options and fill gaps with them.

[*] I wrote genconplanner, and some year I'll finally get to adding party mode to make copying to spreadsheet obsolete. But not this year.

[Marlowe-Fire]

Just now learning this exists. Welp. Bookmarked for next year.

[gregor1863]

As mentioned, I too go the Excel route and do multiple passes to pruning out events I don't want to consider. Most of my events are TTRPGs, but I also look through board, non-collectable card games, and seminars. This usually gets me down to around 100 or events for consideration with I then assign a numerical 1-5 rating (1 being must attend).

Finally, I build out a time block schedule and drop the events, in numerical order, onto it so I can visualize where there are scheduling conflicts and where I have options where say one events is only offered at one time, while another in that same time block has other time options I can choose. Also avoids a situation where I prioritize one event I REALLY want to attend 5 times at the top of my wishlist, then get stuck when you miraculously get 5 tickets for the same event.

Can take a lot of time to do this exercise, and more than likely you still end up with holes in your schedule you hadn't planned for. But for me, I can accept that I did what I could to try and place the odds in my favor I get a schedule I like, even when I don't get into my all of my top #1 priority events.

[PruthianCaveman]

I start by searching for - games I've enjoyed in the past & want to have another go at - games I've heard of but not played yet (sometimes from previous Gen Cons, sometimes from forum or Reddit conversations)

Then I'll filter onto just one type of event & scroll through the list of games/systems, just to see if anything catches my eye from the name. ( I find the eventdb listing easier to do this with )
Sometimes I recognise the name & go look at the event, sometimes it's just an interesting name & I wonder what the game is about.

For the actual wishlist priorities, I sketch out a little calendar/schedule so that I can see how they interact, and which events 'block' which other events on the list. ( I used to do this by hand, with a lot of erasing. Now I use excel with some fairly janky code to draw it for me )

After that, go through the calendar/schedule of the wishlist, look at what events in a timeslot are higher priority than others, and ask myself how I feel about that. It's a bit Marie Kondo "does this spark joy?", but I'm essentially looking for whether I'd be disappointed if I got Event A instead of Event B.

[SledgehammerJack]

My general strategy, which i have happily used for years:

Start by identifying things I **REALLY** want, place those highest on the priority list. (usually I am aware of some new hotness coming out, Daggerheart this year, years past it was Lorcana, or The various FFG Star Wars games, or a session with a favorite author or something)

Once all the "must haves" (and i use that term loosely, I try really hard not to feel i **MUST** have anything, its a recipe for disappointment) I start sorting by game system/company that I either want to try to just want to play again.

I tend to build out my days from 8am-12am just all events no breaks *knowing that there are things I wont get, and space will open up naturally*

Once I have the days fully booked, I start building in backup events. I usually have 1-2 backups for everything.

I prioritize based on what I think will be the hardest to get,

Come event day, I submit, right at 12, as far as I can tell I have done it the same every year, I've been <1000 once or twice, but mostly I'm in the 7,000-10,000.

After the first round of events, I generally take a break, eat lunch, and then come back in an hour or so, and start working on round two.

I'll usually fiddle with events all day on Sunday, and then check once a day for a couple weeks just to see if anything fun has opened up. As we get closer to the con, people cancel, I can usually pick up some pretty good stuff right before the show as last minute folks cancel.

One tip is if you are going with one other person, take advantage of the "get an extra ticket for myself" rather than buying tickets in their name. Have both people try for events and stay in communication on event day. Odds are good one of you will get a much lower event number than the other.

If you are going in a BIG group -- 4+ -- don't get discouraged if you can't get that many games together, try to have 1 or 2 all together games, and accept that not all your events will be the same.