[wylie]

After talking with my fellow GMs, I am wondering if other GMs are seeing the same trend:

Are any of the rest of the GMs on this board notice the drop in attendance to gaming conventions? We made our tables, most of the time, but I did not have the number of players I normally have. I know few games, other game systems that is, tables did not make

[aimlessfreak]

Last con i went to was about two years ago, and yeah on Saturday i only saw four games ever make.  It was just sad.

[TeOdio]

We just had Genghis Con here in Denver and it was about as busy as it usually is. I'm the only dude that does missions though. As far as Role Playing, most of it is LFR and Pathfinder, but I always get my 2 missions games full (or over full like this year ) With the economy as bad as it is though, It doesn't surprise me that games are harder to fill with Con fees, travel, and hotel, etc.

[aimlessfreak]

the only things that did really well were the warhammer tounys and the larp

[wylie]

Yeah,  I figured the economy is part of the problem
From talking to GMs and Con staff, seems somehow RoundCon suddenly got stuck between 3 other Cons. Could it be Cons are too close together effecting turn out?

Down here We got DragonCon, MACE (someone said there was a new MACE), SCARAB (new con), and RoundCon within a few weeks of each other

I think my biggest worry is if attendance goes down, so do the Cons, and I don't  get to go to many Cons as it is

[Teutonic Overlord]

Every table I ran was packed with ticket holders and generics back at GenCon and Origins in 2010.  We had enough people wanting to play with generics that we had to move them around to less packed tables....there was one table that had something like 10 players at it because of the demand.

[Bull]

Yeah, 2010 Attendance at Origins, Gen Con, and (I believe) Dragon*Con were all outstanding. 

Origins has started opening up gaming on Wednesday all day, and I had a Noon game on Wednesday, and I had a full table.  Several other tables I ran over the weekend had between 6 and 8 players.  The only game I had that wasn't full was effectivly a pick-up demo I ran for a couple guys because Origins screwed up the game I had scheduled, and got it mixed up with a mini's event, so we have no idea what happened to anyone who signed up.

Gen Con was reportedly packed, as Sinthlax said.  Several GMs I talked to were overburdened because we had far more players than we could adequately handle>  GMs took as many as they could, but this lead to a bit of overcrowding at times.

We're actually increasing the number of events run this year, and hopefully going to broaden our GM pool some more.  If you're looking to go to Gen Con, Origins, or Dragon*Con and are interested in GMing (It has it's benefits!), drop a line to srconvention@gmail.com

Bull

[wylie]

this is the first year I have seen a decrease
most years, I am running extra games, with packed tables. & yeah, I have ran up to 8 or 9 players.

this year was different.

Ok, being nosy, whats the benefits for running , say at Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA?

[Tenh]

I'd have to agree - at least with the smaller local cons, and when you are talking about non-LFR games.

Obviously Gencon, etc. were just as big as ever, but the ones I see around here are pretty low attendance compared to how it used to be.  Except for LFR games, which is kind of sad.

It's too bad since SRM is so much darn fun.........

That said, I'm shelling out the money to go to both Origins AND Gencon this year, as I need my SRM fix badly (playing, I run a couple rounds at the local con here but don't get to play (SynDCon - which is coming up April 1-3 by the way).  For whatever reason, I enjoy playing SRM at cons more than home games.

[wylie]

I'm down here in columbia, SC
due to money limits, I usually just go to the local Con, RoundCon

I started running SRM to help out other SR GMs

where is everyone else at, if I may ask?

[Wolfboy]

NW Florida here, fixing to do three games for Mobicon and while i'm not running SRM's I am running 3 variations of food fight including a real killer as the final one, my "Red" campaign starter

[Mystic]

Im lucky this year to be making Origins. I have never been to GenCon, but have heard the legends. That and its just easier to drive two hours to Columbus, not to mention getting the time off from work, etc etc.