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IDG and Gen Con To Merge Events?
Gamespot reports that convention companies IDG and Gen Con LLC are talking about an event merge. IDG has already gotten the nod from the ESA for their 'GamePro Expo', and expects to attract no less than 25,000 gamers in October of next year. If Gen Con joins the fray, that will add table-top roleplaying, board games, and the like into the mix for some sort of nerdapalooza. From the article: "If the two events co-locate at the LACC, the current plan is to see Gen Con base its exhibits in the convention center's West Hall, with the IDG game event placing its exhibitors in both South Hall and the lower-level Kentia Hall. One impediment to the two groups linking up could be due to the current success IDG is having selling its upcoming game event into the industry. If it can sell out the LACC's nearly 550,000 square feet of expo space on its own, there may be no need nor reason to bring Gen Con into the mix." If this goes through, there would be no need for the Gen Con Indy event, which would only be held a few months before. I knew E3's demise was no good.
I've always wanted to dress up as a moogle and a dwarf at the same time. Now if I could only add in my bat'letH I'll be all set!
Isnt Gen-Con have a 10 year hitch in Indy?
or will this take the place of the winter event?
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
Reading the /. part of the teaser, I was all worried. But the actual article doesn't mention bupkis about Gen Con Indy. In fact, it specifically mentions So Cal:
/. editors as my favored enemy.
"Gen Con So Cal, a video game, fantasy, and science-fiction-oriented event completed its 2006 run at the Anaheim Convention Center earlier this month. If a deal were inked, Gen Con would join forces with the upcoming IDG show, a morphed version of E3 that will now cater to general consumers. The IDG event expects to attract no less than 25,000 attendees next October, according to its organizers.
If the two events colocate at the LACC..."
While they don't continue to specifically say So Cal in the remainder of the article, context seems to be that all references to "Gen Con" are Gen Con So Cal, since they state, "Sources say Gen Con still has a tentative agreement with the City of Los Angeles to hold its 2007 event at the LACC in early November" while there is certainly still going to be a Gen Con Indy.
Thanks for the heart attack. I'm taking a level of ranger, with
I too, would not go to California.
If this goes through, there would be no need for the Indy event, which would only be held a few months before.
Q: Why did GenCon and WotC spread their events geographically?
A: To reach different audiences.
How in the name of all that is hyped and marketed would the merger of one LA event with another LA event affect the "need for" events in other parts of the country?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Somehow I doubt it. Maybe GenCon should consider merging with with the Texas Soapmakers Association Annual Convention instead. Lake Conroe is nice in July.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
From experience as a member of the game industry, E3 was getting just about impossible to get a booth at.
Even on the attendee side, it was supposed to be a game industry members event only, and they kept having to increase requirements to demonstrate said membership in order to keep hordes (yes, fine, the alliance too!) of consumers from trying to get in.
Considering these factors, I really don't see the event needing to add RPG and boardgames to fill up the space, as much as I also enjoy those...
~Patrick
Plug: Want a new WoW key without leaving the computer? http://www.gamersloot.net/ !
Put the Gen back in Gen Con. Bring it back to Lake Geneva, where it belongs!
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
While there is definite synergy between the E3 and Gen Con audience (I play tabletop and video games and I'm not alone), mixing the two events together at the same time could be counter productive. On the one hand I'd want to walk the video game side of the event and see everything in every booth. On the other hand this means I'd have less time to sit down and game. It would cause people to really weigh their priorities as to what they want over the course of those days, and one side would eventually loose out as the other trends better with traffic, etc. End result could be that one half, or the other is just there as an afterthought -- which won't sit well with the hardcore fans (of either).
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/
_/\ - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
Verging on being off-topic here but does anyone know of any conventions similar to the ones mentioned in the article that are based in Australia (More specifically Western Australia)? In fact are there any conventions in Australia all together? The closest thing I can think of in WA are the huge LAN party events such as Red Flag LAN.