TOPIC: Another bad experience with Gen Con Housing

Last year the system was so bad it took me 8 minutes to get in and by then all the attached were booked.

This year was by far worse. I found a room, just barely, and put all my contact info, and hit the next for credit infomation and after about 2-3 minutes it reset me back to the begining to search for rooms. They really need to fix their broken system.

Where were you finally able to get into? My experience wasn't great either. I wasn't even able to get close to downtown.

I got in about 11:08 or so... and found the Hayatt hotel had all the nights we wanted, put all the contact info in hit next and then it bombed out on me and I was back at the begining with no cart of the hotel I'd reservered. So it really is starting to sour my experinece getting a hotel there. We have booked out of block for almost twice the going block rate, and will just deal with that, to have our privcy.

WORST GENCON HOUSING EVER!!!!!!
(and I've been going since '88)

Took forever to get in. Dropped multiple times, including on the final "book this room" with credit card info entered.

Finally had to book at the airport. What a waste of time.

If it's going to be that bad, they shouldn't even do housing. Just give us a gen con code for next year when we're at gen con this year, and let us book housing on our own...

Not sure if they have a different company running it this year, but their system is THE WORST YET!

Alvin Oliver wrote: I got in about 11:08 or so... and found the Hayatt hotel had all the nights we wanted, put all the contact info in hit next and then it bombed out on me and I was back at the begining with no cart of the hotel I'd reservered. So it really is starting to sour my experinece getting a hotel there. We have booked out of block for almost twice the going block rate, and will just deal with that, to have our privcy.

The lack of a cart, or any holding of what you were working on was disgusting.

Starting from scratch every time it crashed, and it crashed at least 7-8 times on me.

I had to book out by the airport as well.

I haven't been attending GenCon as long as some (This will only be my fourth year) but I agree the housing was pitifully handled. It seems Gencon has outgrown its own britches at this point, and the typical "first come first serve" system has broken down horribly because the hardware can't handle the requests.

Personally I'd like to see a system that rewards the regular attendees the same way the VIG program works (since nobody will get one of those until original VIG's start dying off). Those with 4 day badges should get housing block options a day earlier than other because the system horribly broke down this year thanks to 1 or 2 day attendees cherry-picking random days that made getting 4 consecutive days downtown a fairy tale.

My prediction is that this company they outsourced to handle the housing will NOT be getting a second chance next year, so guess what that means? We'll get to have all of these same headaches all over again with an entirely new housing provider next year!

Suddenly full time TD volunteer is looking a lot better than shuttling 24 miles each day...

Housing looks like it is handled by: www.passkey.com/

Weird. I would think they'd be used to handling even larger conventions. Maybe we're all super-duper-must-get-registered-within-the-first-ten-seconds, and corporate and trade meetings are more C'est la vie.

Any hospitality experts among us?

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Yep. It looks like that if you want to have a big convention in Indy, you're using passkey:

www.thefreelibrary.com/Indianapolis+Convention+%26+Visitors+Assn.+Picks+Passkey.com+for...-a058540097

Ugh yes it was horrible. I had my wife sitting at a computer next to me trying to help. Crash after crash pages not refreshing as they should eventually getting in only to crash out again. I think I got lucky because at 20min after I did manage to get a room.

I FULLY concur that folks booking all days should get priority over those day trippers. The one missing friday or one missing saturday was just annoying.

Pretty much the only thing I miss about being a vendor is the hotel room. I got spoiled by the ease of getting my prefered hotel and havn't managed to get it again since I stopped being a vendor.

But I suppose if it annoys me enough, I should just go Full Time Volenteer and get 3 other friends to do the same and let TD book my room

Kim Lindgren wrote: I had to book out by the airport as well.

We still got attached housing, but at 370 a night instead of 218 a night from the block. Now we are determining if we are just going to have a nice retreat place, or if we will be looking for roomates

From what I can tell GenCon suffers greatly on how they are doing Housing. Of the three of us on a Conference Call bridge I was the only one that got a Hotel near the convention center.

For some reason a huge number of "Friday Only" or "one day only"slots were grabbed up which destroyed full 4 or five day requests. It would also drop you in mid-payment/request mode back to the beginning.

Personally GenCon needs to give preference to 4day attendees over any other kind when it comes to Housing, but it seems everyone no matter the badge type has an equal shot at room nights. I use to run one of the largest Cons on the East Coast and we ALWAYS gave preference to our full weekend attendees.

Well look on the bright side next we have the "Wheel of Fortune" called event request to look forward too, and that always works OK.

I wonder if the number of people trying to grab rooms today was much, much higher than last year, or if the new hotel system is just so much worse than last years'. I remember last year being tricky, but it wasn't this bad.

I agree that 2 changes would help: 1. give people with 4-day badges first dibs on hotels, or even just an hour's head start. And 2. allow the system to hold a room long enough to finish the reservation before it kicks you out.

Personally, I was able to grab a connected hotel, and I'm feeling incredibly lucky about that. But there has to be a better way to do this.