Garycon XIV: A Tale of Two Cons

 So Garycon finished up a little over a week ago and I have thoughts.

TL;DR: Not my favorite year of attending. There were issues, not all of which were the convention's fault. But the con seems to be moving in directions I'm not a fan of.

The verbose version:

Due to some issues at the hotel, some rooms that were being renovated were not ready in time for the convention. As a result, several of us were bumped out of the main facility to alternate lodgings at Timber Ridge, the Grand's 2nd hotel on the property which is their waterpark location. The accommodations were fine, but it was not walking distance and one needed to drive or grab the shuttle. To be fair, the shuttle staff were prompt and polite, but it was an added hassle to get to and from one's room. As I said, this was not the event's fault, it was the hotel's. Nevertheless, instead of a room with two queen beds, we ended up with one king and a sofa-bed (guess which one was mine).

Day One (Thu): I started off with running a couple Traveller sessions to earn my GM badge. Both went well, but left me pretty wiped out. So much so I ended up bowing out of my evening game that I was going to play in. 

Day Two (Fri): My early game was canceled by the GM (who ended up unable to attend), later in the day I got to play the sci-fi horror game Mothership. I backed the new edition on Kickstarter so getting some actual at-table time in the system was nice. I spent a little while in the exhibit hall and picked up one or two little things for my kids. 

Something I noticed about myself at this con was that, being an early riser, I was running out of stamina by early evening. Some of that is no doubt due to being socially distant and virtual for the last couple of years. I had slept poorly on the sofa-bed the night before, so I bowed out of another game (minis wargame) as it was supposed to run until midnight. 

Day Three (Sat.): I played an early Cthulhu game run by the excellent "You Too Can Cthulhu" group. Seriously, if you are at a con where they are, sign up for one of their games. Top Notch! Because I really wanted to try the BBQ place at the Timber Ridge, I went back to the room and found Empire Strikes Back on TV to watch as I ate brisket.

Day Four (Sunday): I played a great little game of Star Frontiers. Afterwards, my friend I was rooming with and I had some lunch then headed back to Milwaukee and the airport and home.

So! The good? The games I played in were all pretty fun, both my GM-ing sessions went well, and I got to see some folks I almost never get a chance to talk to outside of Garycon.

The bad? I realized that I don't like playing all day and well into the evenings for multiple days in a row. And given the expense of flying, car rental, and hotel, it makes little sense for me to go for less than the full convention, which means it's harder to justify going. In past years, my reasoning had been that it's the only con I travel to in any given year, so the cost and effort were easier to accept.

This year? Well, that brings us to the "Two Cons" issue I alluded to in the title. 

Garycon has changed a lot over the last several years. It's grown significantly in size, resulting in the venue change, and become more tiered, with different level badges costing up to $1000 each! These features aren't really new, but have been affecting the experience for a while, so I felt they deserved mention. Higher tiered badges increase access and give priority for event registration. This seems fair enough, but it also leads the staff to focus a lot of their efforts on these VIP guests as opposed to the overall con experience for the majority of attendees.

Secondly, it seems that the pandemic has accelerated the rise of virtual gaming, whether it's Virtual Table Top platforms like Roll20 and Foundry, or people watching others stream their games via Twitch, etc. "Shows" like Critical Role and many others have become a big part of the current tabletop gaming scene. It would appear that the powers that be behind Garycon have decided to make an earnest effort to woo some of these groups to making Garycon a definite part of their own "brands." I don't have anything against streamers, whether it's a publisher using the platform to promote their games or gamers making their own content, it's all fine to me. An unfortunate effect of the convention focusing so much effort on currying favor with the streamers is that the original, old-school population of attendees seems to have been getting de-emphasized more and more. There's not something super-specific I can point to and "There! That's it!" but I was not alone in expressing feelings along these lines at the con.

All this being said, I have to say that while Garycon is still a fun time, I think I'll be bowing out of it for the foreseeable future for reasons that are as much my own issues as with how I feel the con is being presented nowadays.