Just a quick note to all you who plan on going to gencon for the launch: badge pre-reg is currently open, and if you get your badge now, you will be entered into the housing lotto, which starts sunday. If you want to get a discounted hotel room, and have a chance at the ones adjacent to the venue, you should get your badge before sunday before Midnight EST Friday 2/10! They'll be sending out emails some time saturday notifying you of when your housing window is. You'll also be able to log in to see your window. They put more info up here: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2f77d2f8c77398c0b064223ba&id=17678fcad1

Today is the LAST DAY to get a badge that qualifies you for a slot in the housing lotto before sunday!

Yep, just to clarify as Jude's first post is a little misleading: if you want to get a position in the queue when it opens on Sunday, you must purchase your badge before MIDNIGHT EASTERN TONIGHT (GMT -5 for our European friends), not Sunday! Anyone who buys a badge after that deadline, even if it's before the Housing Portal opens, goes to the back of the queue.

17 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

Yep, just to clarify as Jude's first post is a little misleading: if you want to get a position in the queue when it opens on Sunday, you must purchase your badge before MIDNIGHT EASTERN TONIGHT (GMT -5 for our European friends), not Sunday! Anyone who buys a badge after that deadline, even if it's before the Housing Portal opens, goes to the back of the queue.

Good point! i'll edit the initial post to clarify!

If this does not go in here tell me and I erase the post.

I'm at the housing registration of GenCon and all the hotels near the convention center are quite expensive (which is understandable, of course), but the other ones are like really far away and I know nothing about US public transport, are there any buses or subway to go to the convention center from the hotels that appear in the housing web to the convention center? Which area is the best regarding this?

Thanks for the help.

When I went three years ago they had started a shuttle, but it would be worth looking into more. Not sure what they have now, but I won't be there this year.

It's probably too late now as all the downtown rooms will have gone, but if you can find people to share with, those rooms aren't too expensive, and the convenience of not having to travel in and out of the city more than makes up for a little extra expense.

I have to say, compared to last year, this year's method was better. i mean, its all a stressful mess, but spreading people out across the entire day seems to have made their system way more stable. i had no hiccups getting into the portal or getting my room. it still feels like their site is about 5 years out of date in terms of design and technology, but at least it was stable. a kick in one shin is better than two, i guess? theres no way to make everyone happy, theres just not enough rooms, so at least making sure that the experience such as it is is not buggy is probably as much as we can hope for.

The lotto might be the fairest way, but there's still room for improvement. For instance I bought badges for my entire family of 4 but only received 1 entry into the lotto. Had I gamed the system and bought each one in a seperate transaction we would have received 4 entries. As is we got 10:29 PM and there were literally only 2 hotels 14 miles away at outrageous prices available. The whole experience has left a decidedly disgusting taste in my mouth.

5 hours ago, Ragudaddy said:

The lotto might be the fairest way, but there's still room for improvement. For instance I bought badges for my entire family of 4 but only received 1 entry into the lotto. Had I gamed the system and bought each one in a seperate transaction we would have received 4 entries. As is we got 10:29 PM and there were literally only 2 hotels 14 miles away at outrageous prices available. The whole experience has left a decidedly disgusting taste in my mouth.

the problem gencon has is that demand vastly outstrips supply, so they literally have no way to avoid this experience. you just can't NOT have people get screwed by bad slots. the best they can do is make the website experience as painless as possible (anyone else remember 2015's meltdown debacle?) and fair as possible. Since they're locked into indy through 2020, we've got at least till then dealing with this stuff. after that, who knows. maybe indy figures out a way to open up more hotels by then? maybe the con moves.

the number of badges but only 1 slot thing i'll grant is lame. seems like you could have gotten at least two slots, and they been assigned the best maybe? 14 miles isn't bad compared to my first year. 22 miles. i effectively spent an entire extra night's stay just on taxi/ubers. i was tempted just to game through the night to save money.

I've never had to go this far out to find a hotel before.

We have a decent-sized group, and booking for GenCon has been honed over many years for us. It's definitely something you can't go into unprepared and expect to get a decent room with.

A couple of quick tips: firstly, although there are only rooms on the outskirts still available through the Housing Portal, there ARE still hotels in or around Indy that aren't part of the Housing Block that are certainly worth looking into - we've stayed a couple of times at the Sleep Inn, which is around two miles outside city center. Give Hotels.com a try, or look things up with Tripadvisor and try the hotel websites quickly. Secondly, and this isn't a lot of use to you now Ragudaddy, but having four badges in one account does come with a small benefit - you can book two rooms if you hold 3-4 badges. It's not massively useful unless you have a large group, but it is an option.

1 hour ago, Kolat_Informant said:

I've never had to go this far out to find a hotel before.

Sorry to hear that, man. Have you tried hitting Ling up and seeing if he can hook you up at the Hilton?

Our experience this year was actually really good - we ended up with four rooms at the Marriott, but we already have close to too many people for that!

12 hours ago, Ragudaddy said:

The lotto might be the fairest way, but there's still room for improvement. For instance I bought badges for my entire family of 4 but only received 1 entry into the lotto. Had I gamed the system and bought each one in a seperate transaction we would have received 4 entries. As is we got 10:29 PM and there were literally only 2 hotels 14 miles away at outrageous prices available. The whole experience has left a decidedly disgusting taste in my mouth.

It isn't even for separate transactions, you would need to have had an account for each member of your family - my group of five had the same problem, mostly because we didn't research how it would play out until after we purchased the badges. After spending some time on their forums, everyone recommends gaming the system, and having separate accounts also helps with event registration/ticket purchases (individual wishlists).

Like Hinomura suggested you may still be able to get housing downtown, but I'd suggest also calling the hotels directly. We had a time-slot for 7:05pm but when it became evident that the DT block would be sold out by 3pm, we gave one Mariott a call and they checked all their others locations to find a room for the five of us in one of their SpringHill Suites. We even have a backup reservation at the airport La Quinta in case that one falls through over the next few months.

On 2/12/2017 at 2:04 PM, Bayushi Shiori said:

If this does not go in here tell me and I erase the post.

I'm at the housing registration of GenCon and all the hotels near the convention center are quite expensive (which is understandable, of course), but the other ones are like really far away and I know nothing about US public transport, are there any buses or subway to go to the convention center from the hotels that appear in the housing web to the convention center? Which area is the best regarding this?

Thanks for the help.

There's no subway or tram, but there is an airport shuttle and IndyGo has busses that run through the downtown core. You might be better served by renting a car and getting a parking pass for the weekend - having a vehicle will give you a place to store anything you bring with you, or buy at the Con, which you may not want to lug around all day. Barring that, Uber is another option. While more expensive than public transport, it is much more convenient. The ICC site has some information about all this.