We haven’t been to GenCon in some time, so we expected some difference in the process of getting booked and into hotels… but we didn’t expect it could be as bad as people were making it out to be. Well… as it turns out…
Have thoughts? Let us know . (And we’re at the airport, for what it’s worth.)
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There are two separate issues. The first is the surging demand for downtown hotel space. Last year set records at 49K attendees, and most estimates are between 55-60K for 2014. There isn’t much that can be done about that.
What can be done is making the process less painful even if you fail to get a room you want. A counter indicating your place in line in the “Wait Room.” A timer that tells you how much time you have to complete your transaction, like Ticketmaster. And then having a Passkey system that didn’t boot you out when trying to complete your order would be nice, too.
I thought I had a horror story but it turned out I was one of the lucky ones. Despite the Gen Con portal page crashing and getting kicked out of Passkey once, I was still able to get my 3rd choice of downtown hotel. I know now that others fared much worse.
I think this is definitely a situation where as much information as you can give out is good. Though it’s not the end of the world, getting a room does spike anxiety for some people. And bad user experience is always frustrating. ^n