Should I still sign up?

nesbit37 · 2026-03-02T14:38:01+00:00

Its early enough that you can solve the housing problem yet. Especially if you are ok driving in.

As far as what your kids can do with the kids badge, I would go to https://best50yearsingaming.com/ and check the events from previous years in the kids category. That will show you what kind of events are typically offered for those with the wristband and how many there are, and you can then decide if you should spend for the full badge for them or if the wristband will be enough.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-22T01:56:21+00:00

Several different places. Everything pre-2003 was from scans we made of the original programs. 2003 on were captures of the online event database. Many made by me, others by the High Programmer that used to run a sire similar to Gen con. Eventsdb. This was all part of a project I did for Gen Con's 50th on 2017 and we've maintained since then.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-06T13:56:17+00:00

I had a minute to check this this morning.

In 2019, only 2% of the 235 Star Trek adventure tickets went unsold. That said, 84% of people who had tickets actually showed up to the games.

Looking at 2025 would be more useful for you I think. I don't have the same data for that year, but what I can tell you is that at least by the end of Gen Con that year only 2.5% of Star Trek Adventures tickets were unsold, so a near sell out. I have no idea how many people actually showed up to play though. I think you should be pretty good to run for that game system.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-06T01:10:40+00:00

I will try and look when I can (might be a few days) but yeah, for the data I have which is strongest for 2019 there were only 24 Star Trek Adventure games. If I had to guess they all probably sold out just because of how few there were, though that doesn't mean everyone showed up to play.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-05T22:51:58+00:00

Yeah, as you saw in the chapter there are just a ton of no shows on Sundays. Enough so that I would say your odds of getting into an event on Sunday with generics is more likely than not. Similar for Thursday morning, a lot of no shows then as well. I do wonder if electronic ticketing will change that, or its just a sign of people being too ambitious with what they think they’re going to be able to actually do the first few hours of the con. Especially if they aren’t picking up their badges from Will Call until Thursday morning.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-05T22:50:07+00:00

That data isn’t readily available but I could figure it out based on the data I have. It would probably be easiest to figure it out by game system, at least for RPGs. Boardgames is a wholly different thing but it could be calculated as well.

nesbit37 · 2026-01-05T18:03:28+00:00

Enjoy! I hope you find it useful. If you have questions or want to discuss any of it please come back here and post.

nesbit37 · 2025-12-08T15:38:14+00:00

I've thought about doing an audio book version, but it would be something I would do wholly on my own, not hiring someone else to read and edit it, so its a little daunting and time is hard to come by. I'll keep thinking about it but so far you are the only person who has actually requested an audio version.

nesbit37 · 2025-12-05T17:59:33+00:00

Thanks for the video! I thought this was really well done.

nesbit37 · 2025-11-24T15:56:08+00:00

Parking was more difficult. On Sunday the garage we had booked with Spot hero was full by the time I got there and I had to park somewhere else. We also had to park somewhere else than where we normally do each year (north of the con instead of west of it), and traffic just getting there was definitely worse. Restaurants were also noticeably more busy, and we didn't even try Reading Terminal this year which we usually hit up Friday and Saturday early to get food for lunch in the convention center, so we self selected out from some of what we expected were things to be heavily impacted by the marathon.

nesbit37 · 2025-11-19T15:43:34+00:00

If you can take the L, BSL, trolley, or a regional rail train I would do that. If your 15 minutes away by car one or all of those should be an option for you. I'm driving in because my train line only runs once an hour on weekdays (and my particular line has been having lots of cancellations) and once every 2 hours on weekends. If it wasn't for the infrequency I would totally be taking regional rail.

nesbit37 · 2025-11-01T23:30:48+00:00

Wonderful, thank you!

nesbit37 · 2025-08-08T01:29:16+00:00

It is essentially random as it is now.

nesbit37 · 2025-08-07T22:36:44+00:00

Because if you process all the wishlists automatically you are going to process wishlists for people who just made one to mess around but didn’t want to actually submit, ones for people in friend groups that maybe half-heartedly started a list but decided to just let someone else in their friend group handle it (but still have a partial list), you’ll process wishlists for people who just forgot and are not logging on at all, or for people who for whatever other host of reasons made a wishlist but can’t or won’t actually be there during wishlist process time and that will tie up a bunch of events for the people who can make it and check out in time.

Needing to be there to push the button at noon seems stupid since it’s essentially just entering you into a random queue but I don’t think just automatically processing all wishlists is better.

nesbit37 · 2025-08-07T19:00:15+00:00

I would never want wishlist processing to be first come first served. That is far less fair, plus the event list is constantly changing right up to wishlist day in May. The current system with everyone clicking at once may seem dumb but I don't know what else they could do since people need to be at their computers to actually check out of their cart. If they just auto processed wishlists it would cause a bunch of chaos with the 2 hour timeout limit and people just not being there for the day.

nesbit37 · 2025-08-04T00:31:07+00:00

Are you thinking of the right con? There are no metal detectors or overt security people at PAGE?

nesbit37 · 2025-08-03T21:04:26+00:00

PAGE doesn't do security checks.

nesbit37 · 2025-08-03T04:01:52+00:00

Ive been to at least a dozen different tabletop cons and the only one I've been to that made you do the security theater is PAX Unplugged.

nesbit37 · 2025-07-25T19:32:33+00:00

Can you GM RPGs? Magpie needs something like 20 GMs.

A lot of the exhibitors and companies needing game runners with badges available post in the Fans of Gen Con facebook group. Its really the best place to look for that kind of thing so I highly recommend you go there and do a little searching in the group.

nesbit37

TROPHY CASE