Gen Con celebrates record 71,000 attendance after event sells out before start of show

North America’s giant tabletop gaming convention Gen Con has broken new ground again after a record 71,000 people flocked to Indianapolis for this year’s event.

The long-running convention’s biggest ever crowd also heralded the show being fully sold before the show even began, with no walk-up badges available across the four days of the event.

More than 540 exhibitors ran booths this year, down on the over 570 recorded in 2023. Gen Con did not respond to questions from BoardGameWire about whether this heralded a true shrinkage in exhibitors, or whether it was a factor of some publishers commanding larger booths than last year.

Publishers BoardGameWire spoke with after the event were universally positive about their sales performance and overall experience at Gen Con this year, but opinions were mixed on whether it was possible for the event to grow much larger – and whether the show was currently capable of handling the logistics of its existing numbers.

Roberto Di Meglio, director of production at Ares Games, said that although his overall impressions of the 2024 event were “great” and sales were “excellent”, he believed issues were apparent in logistics and organisational challenges at the convention.

He said Gen Con’s exclusive logistics supplier Fern Expo seemed “so overloaded with work that we had to wait many hours before we got our material for the booth, both when setting up and Sunday when dismantling”.

Di Meglio added, “On Sunday, we had to wait for more than three hours after the show closed to get our empties from the warehouse (pallets and cartons) and we finished work at 9.40pm – barely minutes before the hall closed, with the risk we had to resume work on Monday morning.

“I think there are definitely improvements possible – especially considering that these services do not come cheap at all.”

Anne-Marie DeWitt, the co-owner of Fireside Games, said, “Gen Con ran very smoothly for us this year. The online re-registration process reduced the time it took to reup, and not having the leave the booth to stand in line allowed me to attend to end of convention activities such as retailer sales and ad hoc meetings.

“…one challenge, though not new, was the short duration to bring booth materials in through the marshalling yard. Thirty minutes isn’t nearly long enough to get everything in. Having one hour load-in times would reduce the number of times we need to run back to the marshalling yard.”

Scott Morris, chief sales and marketing officer at Lucky Duck Games, was more positive about the logistics situation at this year’s event.

He said, “Gen Con was excellent this year! Obviously, with the numbers posted, it was the biggest attendance yet, and it could be felt everywhere, not just the exhibitor hall, but all the other locations where events and activities were being held.

“It was crowded and busy, in good ways. From a publisher’s perspective, I feel that the logistics were handled very well this year. We had no issues with receiving our products, the handling of our pallets, or the onsite construction and hanging of banners, etc.

“Everyone was helpful, informative, and handled the work well. When this part of a show goes well, it makes a publisher’s life much easier onsite.”

Morris highlighted that he would like health to be more of a priority at the show, however, given the huge numbers of people mingling and the post-show reality of diseases being spread among attendees.

He said, “Having more hand sanitizer available at stations around the ICC could be beneficial. With many industry people attending SDCC the week before, there were a lot of concerns about health.

“There have been several social media posts where attendees shared that they have tested positive for Covid, and others are not feeling well. With back to back shows with large crowds it is almost inevitable that someone will become sick.

“More options for safety in this area would be welcomed.”

Gen Con traces its history back to an event run at Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax’s Wisconsin home in 1967, with the first official Gen Con event held for less than 100 people the following year at Lake Geneva, WI’s Horticultural Hall.

The convention broke the 20,000 attendee barrier in 1993, and ranged between that number and about 30,000 until 2010, before more than doubling in size over the next five years. The show moved from Wisconsin to its current home in Indianapolis in 2003.

Attendance held steady just above the 60,000 mark until 2019, when the last Gen Con before a year’s hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic drew more than 70,000 people to the show.

Gen Con returned with more than 35,000 attendees in the first post-Covid show in 2021, but had quickly rebounded to more than 70,000 by last year.

Chad Elkins from 25th Century Games told BoardGameWire, “I think Gen Con can certainly get bigger with additional space. Creating more compartmentalization of shopping would be needed though.

“For example, putting all of the clothing vendors into a separate area or other niche segments. A bigger hall and more people with board games mixed with dice companies, RPGs, comics, clothing etc all being intermingled would just create more problems trying to navigate to get to all of the booths that interest you.

“Segmenting them together would certainly make traversing the crowds a bit easier I would think, from an attendee point of view.”

That approach has been successfully taken on by the world’s biggest board game fair, Spiel Essen, which last year remodelled all six halls, splitting the fair into separate segments for children’s, family and light-to-medium games, expert games, tabletop and miniature games, roleplaying games and trading card games, with a mix of small, medium and large booths in each zone.

Spiel hoped the new hall concept, coupled with much wider aisles, would help to better distribute the crowds in the halls, and make it easier to find smaller booths of lesser-known exhibitors.

BoardGameWire reported in June 2023 that the decision had not gone down universally well with all of the exhibitors, but the general response from booth organisers during the four-day event last October seemed to suggest the changes had led to an improvement at the actual show.

Gen Con president David Hoppe said following last weeks event, “Gen Con 2024 was a rousing success and we are once again humbled by the passion of our attendees and the hospitality of Indianapolis.

“We were proud to join with our attendees on the historic occasion of the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons to celebrate how much D&D and Gen Con have each grown in scale and cultural influence over the past five decades.”