Your favorite cons?

What're your favorite cons to attend Veeky Forums, how have your experiences been?

I've never been to one myself but I've always been curious on attending one, any good cons in Southern California/Nevada/Arizona?

Don't know about USA, Poland here. I go to Pyrkon every year, since it's one of the largest ones here and relatively close to me and I love it. Great atmosphere, lots of cool things to do and interesting people to meet. There is also a yearly convent where I live, but it's kind of small and shitty with not much to do, so I usually don't bother

I find cons are a good way to lose a good few dozen neurons.

> going to conventions

To play in tourneys and have a nice little mini vacation.

I go to a handfull of the big ones in the US. Gen Con, Adepticon and the Nova Open are an every year thing.

>not going to conventions

I deeply miss Atomic Lollipop. Not too small, not too big, good clean geeky fun with a chance of getting laid and of making friends.

Gencon, for all the massive bloated mess it is, s fantastic, you never run out of stuff to do unless you try.

Not asking to be argumentative, I’m genuinely curious: With information so readily accessible and being able to get a lot of convention exclusive content online (significant markup for sure, but probably still less expensive than getting to the show), what do cons really do for people?

Obviously there’s the competitive element, being able to play in a tournament with a wider pool of talent than you usually do, but that’s the only real selling point I see people being able to take from them anymore.

they fulfill a sense of tribal belonging.

M:tG secondary market

I treat them like a vacation. I work a booth part time at North Star Games during GenCon so get my ticket for free. Then I just spend the rest of the time I have free walking around with my sister, trying games I've never heard of, and buying the occasional good deal. After show hours are over we spend the evening hanging out with the North Star Games gang and generally having fun. The con itself is just an excuse to get away for 4 days with friends. Plus I love Indy.

Couldn't you make the same argument about going to a concert vs. buying a bootleg? Or going to a Renaissance Fair vs. just dressing up at home and eating steak on a stick?

Social interaction in such a manner where most people you see will carry similar points of interest on a wider scale.

Ever wanted to meet the people who make your favorite games? They're pretty universally cool. Even SKR isn't as awful in person as he is online. Webcomic artists are all trash though.

I used to demo in my hometown of Ottawa. There were two gaming cons that I knew of that were relevant to me: Cangames and Games summit. I got my start at Cangames, and actually liked it a lot more though it was lower budget since it was more volunteer-run and non-profit. There was always a pretty broad representation of games there. Game Summit was alright, but between the corporate atmosphere and the hard time they gave me for trying to get tablespace to run a game, I can't say it was the best experience.

I did help out at Origins a couple of times for the demo team before I left the continent. I've got to say that having that many demo guys with that many cars and equipment, as well as the devs actually having a booth there to support you makes a big difference in the experience, but I imagine it would have been even better as a player.

Having come from the smaller, local cons ( ) I find that the biggest appeals I found was that it brought people out of the woodwork that don't normally put an effort to get their names out, it lets you sample games that you'd otherwise probably be the forever GM of, and also lets you sample things that otherwise would have had a cost-of-entry, whether the cost be financial or just the time required to learn the rules.

Before going to cons, I thought I was the lone guy in my province who liked Battletech, but was happy to find that there were tons of players, though stretched a bit thin.

It also gave me a chance to try some games that I otherwise wouldn't have, like Gamma World, Heavy Gear, and an older edition of Shogun. I was also hoping to try some of the other RPGs that interested me like Shadowrun and Traveller, but they filled up pretty quickly. I'd also seen guys running stuff like Ogre, which would have been nice to try had I not already been volunteering to run my own table.

The other venue I was talking about through, they were more profit driven, so they put a big emphasis on charging people to play games with a prepaid token system, and they really only let me in to demo because someone else bailed meaning I could fill an opening. They were better about it my second year there, though. With the heavy emphasis they had on meeple-type boardgaming, MtG/YGO and miniatures game tournaments for 40K, Warmahordes, and maybe Infinity, it felt way more corporate. Fewer beards, more faux-hawks.

It's pretty much just a weekend you spent focused and surrounded exclusively by your geeky hobbies, like the other user said, it's like vacation or going to a festival. Other than that, it's a fairly good place to buy stuff and lectures are often interesting.
Also it's fairly easy to pick up girls for one night stands on conventions. Thanks to all the slutty cosplayers it's pretty much your only chance of fucking all those imaginary chicks you've been fantasising about

Yeah, CanGames is a really comfy experience while Game Summit was usually jammed to the max with never-ending tournaments. And being downtown is nice as well.

It’s been a few years. They are neat but I didn’t fall in love with the experience. Worth going at least once in costume and once plainclothes just to see if you enjoy it

Why does it seem like there is such a dirth of gaming cons in southern california? Most are just side things at comicons and the Las Vegas Open for 40k

I prefer long cons. Like salting.