GenCon Hotel Registration Starts Today

[Snoring Rock]

This is both a dreaded as well as an exciting happy day. At noon eastern time, 40,000 gamers will all get on line at the same time, and log onto a portal meant for 3000, all at once, to make hotel reservations.

Year one for me, I got a room at the Hyatt Regency a week after rooms opened up. Year two, same hotel but I got it the opening day of registration. Year three, not so much. It was booked full, 5 minutes into the opening. I tried others but as fast as I clicked, they disappeared. I ended up in the Embassy Suites, or some such, which later about July, kicked me out and sent me to another hotel; it was overbooked. It was one of those with the free breakfast each morning. I thought that would be ok. Ever wake up to get breakfast in the lobby to find geeks had been up all night gaming in it and sleeping in it? No one cleans up overnight and then all the geeks that did not sleep in the lobby, have not showered; head to the breakfast bar and well, I ended up going elsewhere. When breakfast began, some of them were still sitting or lying there! Uhg....

So year four rolls around and I am ready. I log on and type with furry, and bingo, I get a room at the Hyatt! We get there for GenCon and the room is not ready. We check back, still not ready. Again this checking back to check in goes on and on. Finally at 7 pm they tell me my room will not be ready and move us from a two-bed room to a single-bed room. I lived through it.

So in September Hyatt sends me an email to apologize and asks what they can so to fix it. Seriously? So year five (last year) rolls around and I am in the same place again, at the ready to register for a room at the Hyatt. Ding, the bell goes off and the gates open. 1 minute in; Hyatt, booked, 1.5 minutes in; Omni, booked; Crown-booked, Hilton-book, book, booked, booked.

Every single down town hotel booked in minutes! I checked back every hour and got lucky and one single bed opened up at the Omni. I took it. Then I remembered the email I received from the Hyatt. "What can we do to make this up to you?

I also see that platinum members at the Hyatt can book a room at any Hyatt up to 48 hours prior and get a room. I am no platinum member, but they do have rooms for platinum members reserved. So I returned the email with what I thought was the right thing that the Hyatt could to do to "fix" it. I got a room!! I got a room!

So it is now 5:45am and I am prepping for the room grab once again. Oh the joy!

[Buttmonkey]

Ugh. Good luck! Makes me glad I go to Gary Con every year instead of Gen Con.

[Snoring Rock]

Oh it was fantastic. It crashed and then came up again and there as a 20 minute wait, you choose a hotel then it will not process unless everything is perfect. Then you hit "buy" and it kicks you out. Then it all starts again. I have a room. It is not the one I wanted but I have it.

It is so much trouble but so worth it!

[Omote]

I am also in at GenCon. Got my room at my favorite hotel in Indy, so I am happy. I'll be there from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday. Now, all we have to do is wait seven... more.... months.

~O

[Litzen Tallister]

My first year booking for Gen Con, but after ample reading and nightmare story after nightmare story, I was there, ready to book at noon. Forty five minutes later, I managed to get the second choice hotel (listing of nine total for easy reference). I'm guessing it's always this crazy? Going all in for a first time, staying from Wednesday to Sunday, which also turned out to be hiccup as off the bat most of the hotels seemed to have Friday booked entirely. But wow, I can't think of a more stressful hotel booking in recent memory. Although, I also can't remember competing with around 40K people for rooms.

[Omote]

It's been like this for the past 5 years or so. When they opened a new hotel 3 years ago, there was one year of reprieve. But yeah, it's going to be like this as every year GenCon get's more and more popular.

~O

[Ancalagon]

My group was able to snag a room in our first hotel of choice. Buuuut it was not as easy as all that. Four of us were trying to make it happen to increase our odds. Two of us were unable to even log in to the Gen Con site. It took TWENTY minutes after the hotel went live before I cold even log in. Luckily one of the other guys was able to snag a room, but even then the site "hiccupped" on him and nearly dropped his attempt. Whew!

[ArgoForg]

All's I can say is thank god I live in Indy. I feel really bad for all of yas that have to undergo the rigmarole of preregistration for hotel rooms. Seeing how messed up event registration is, it's hard to believe that hotels could be worse, but there you go.

[Snoring Rock]

So, I ended up with a room by the airport. I really hate that. The good part is that the room is $77 less per night and the parking is free. Parking at the Hyatt was $30 additional daily, so I save $107 a day. But....

I am faced with the use of an untried shuttle system. Let me tell you how well I think that will work. The red route that passes my hotel, passes 4-5 others. The shuttle will use coach style busses or so the picture would lead you to believe. They have say 90 seats on them. My hotel has 80 rooms. With 3-4 geeks per room that is 280 geeks per hotel and that means it takes 3 busses each. There are 4-5 hotels like mine, but larger, on the route. So the first hourly shuttle service on my route alone should consist of 15 busses minimum. It runs every hour. Uh.... and there are 3 other routes.

Ok, so I booked reservations for my car 5 blocks from the convention center. I will drive in from the airport each morning and park and walk. I can live with that. Trusting that shuttle filled with un-washed geeks is just ruining my day.

Anyway I think I can go and heal from the trauma of reservations on the GenCon housing bureau portal. Facing demons, meh; facing hordes of unclean monsters, meh; taking on great red wyrms bare handed and naked, meh; but the GenCon shuttle......oooh, I fold.

[Litzen Tallister]

I've never experienced anything on the likely scale of the GenCon shuttle system, but when I've done conferences with shuttles, what I found was that I was typically pretty exhausted at the end of the day, as the reliance on the fixed shuttle schedule meant having to do the entire day, without the ability to say 'I'm tired, I need to head back to the hotel and sleep.' Hourly buses might make that more bearable though. But, the unwashed masses funk though might not be quelled by anything.

One day past the booking system, I think I'm getting over being traumatized and actually looking forward to GenCon though. Of course, I have the thoughts of the stories people have wrote about showing up and not having their reservation honored dancing in my head.

[Treebore]

I used the Shuttle system from the airport area and back, I had no problems with it, except late at night when it quit running, so I just took a Taxi back those nights.

[Ancalagon]

With the PITA the GC housing system is... its making me give some thought to Gary Con down the road...

[Snoring Rock]

Tree, there are 13% more than last year and the housing portal contained hotels normally not on the list, located further away. The shuttle is much more highly advertised this year. I will drive and park, rather than trust this shuttle business.

[Omote]

I know a few people who live in and work near downtown Indianapolis. The city council realized the importance of the GenCon convention to the city. The council made a remark last year that they felt they didn't need anymore hotel space downtown. This is a coverup in a sense, because Indianapolis would certainly grant the ability for another big hotel to come to the downtown, or surrounding area. In fact, the city is trying, but there are not too many that want to put the risk of adding another hotel when more there are so many rooms in that city already, and any new hotel would be barren for a large part of the rest of the year. The city of Indianapolis and GenCon is sort of in a catch-22. They can't really get anymore big hotels down there, and GenCon keeps growing. One, with so many people having a problem getting a hotel room, it may turn off some people and GenCon will lose money. If GenCon loses money, so will Indianapolis. This year, Indianapolis did whatever they could to get the outlying hotels more involved. That is why there is such a push on the city shuttle service. What Indianapolis doesn't want to happen is GenCon to outgrow their city. That means GenCon would probably have to move to Chicago, the nearest city with more hotels and convention space. There is some serious pulling and pushing going on to keep GenCon where it is, and all parties are doing what they can to make it work.

Couple all of that with one new wrinkle that every hotel in Indianapolis has learned over the past few years: More money for the hotels. In years past, GenCon would essentially buy up all available hotel space in the city. The benefit to the hotels was that if GenCon buys up all of the room space, the hotels have zero risk involved. They will get paid even if occupancy wasn't 100%. Since that isn't a problem, and looks like it won't be for some time, the hotels got smarter. Now, the bigger hotels do not sell out all or most of their rooms to GenCon during that weekend any more. The hotels are holding more rooms back from GenCon. This is because that the hotels now know they can charge a premium on that weekend, well above and beyond what GenCon can offer them in guarentees. For example, I looked at most of the big, and boutique hotels in Indianapolis every year. I check prices and compare. In years past, all of the rooms were already booked by GenCon. This year, if you shop these same rooms directly through hotel websites and 3rd party hotel booking agencies, there are plenty of rooms available (at least there were on the 28th AFTER GenCon housing went live). The prices of these rooms have skyrocketed. So, looking at The Omni Severin Hotel yesterday, there were still rooms available on their website, but for $399 per night! Demand is so high, you know that there are going to be people willing to pay such a premium to stay at a downtown, local hotel.

Is GenCon worth $399 per night? To some people yes. And as long as the hotels keep selling out like this, the more and more we are all going to pay to stay in that city for GenCon.

My advice to those who are willing to pay the premium, go to the individual hotel websites, or 3rd party booking sites, and reserve a room. Particularly if you want a room closer to the action.

Also, if you check GenCon forums there are already people looking to pay for places to stay. One thing that has been happening over the past 3 years or so is that people get so desperate to stay in the city, people are booking these rooms and subleting out the hotel rooms for astronomical prices. I admit, I was one of those types of people for a few years. That is why I have been paying attention to this phenomena, which is new for Indianapolis, but is something that has been going on for a decade in places like San Diego (Comic-Con).

Unless Indianapolis can find more ways to add hotel rooms, and as long as GenCon keeps staying as popular as it is, be prepared for this to issue to continue, and get worse.

Good luck all.

~O

[Snoring Rock]

Well Mr. Omote, it seems you are at least partially correct on the hotels holding back rooms. That could backfire for those doing that however. There are gamers who would like those rooms but not at those prices.

I just checked a few:

Omni has rooms but you have to ask twice. First they tell me I must use the portal but then they open up and offer $299 first night and $399 for Thursday though Saturday.

Hilton - Close unless you are a rewards member

Hyatt - Closed unless you are a platinum member

Conrad has rooms starting $574 a night

The housing portal states that you must email them and then wait. They will contact you when they have something. I am betting the hotels will hold until a certain date at which time they will release more rooms. They do not want empty rooms the day of the event. I assume they will release a few here and there and hold some for club members and the like.

I think the housing portal folks will contact those waiting as they get them.

Folks have spoken about Chicago. I have been to Chicago for the IMTS show. It is held at the McCormick Center and they shuttle everyone since there are no hotels on top of it. The McCormick Center is much larger than Indy Convention Center. Much larger! There were 30 companies turned away from GenCon this year over no floor space in the hall. GenCon has outgrown the convention center, unless they open the rest of it up for the trade floor. Chicago has more hotel rooms.

They are not on top of the center, but Chicago moves IMTS with ease. Passkey and this GenCon portal sucks. Ok if I get beat out by someone in font of me in line. But not so much when I get bumped for someone behind me in line.

I have been following some forums and it seems people coming in from other countries had no problem getting on and getting rooms. Are there different housing codes given with badges? Maybe just luck of the draw huh?

This can be done better than it has been is all.