Paid Convention Games?


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Retreater

Legend
It's very common to pay for event tickets at conventions. Most events at cons I've attended over the past two decades charge. If nothing else, there are surcharges for purchasing tickets - I think in the past a minimum of $2.
Also, I'm part of the problem. I walk out of games regularly. It's a sunk cost fallacy to stick around in a bad time just because you paid.
A GM running a game just to have revenge on a girl back home who wouldn't date him.
A guy who wants to give you the narrative backstory of a campaign setting for the first hour of the game.
Creeps who put in blatantly offensive content.
GMs who turn the adventure into a PvP arena battle because they're too lazy to actually run the game.
When this stuff comes up (about half the games I play at Cons), I walk.
 

jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock
My good friend is the head organizer of SCALE (the Rocky Mountain D&D Adventurer's League organization). He and another good friend were at the Cheyenne Gaming Convention running games this weekend. I'm pretty sure they (the convention) sell tickets to specific games in addition to the con badges, though I believe they have some open play tables, as well. I'll have to ask my friends once they get home and have a chance to revitalize.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
I am in the NE of the US, and the two bigger cons I do has free event tickets and no additional cost events unless it is miniature painting or whatever.

I am okay with the idea of a premium event (like if it were in a private room rather than the hall, or there is a bunch of extras) but just charging 10 bucks because you can rankles me in all the wrong ways.
Dunno what to tell you! Most conventions I've been to there's been a nominal fee, even if just to discourage people from signing up for things they are unlikely to show up for. Like I said, standard practice, at least in my experience.
 


My good friend is the head organizer of SCALE (the Rocky Mountain D&D Adventurer's League organization). He and another good friend were at the Cheyenne Gaming Convention running games this weekend. I'm pretty sure they (the convention) sell tickets to specific games in addition to the con badges, though I believe they have some open play tables, as well. I'll have to ask my friends once they get home and have a chance to revitalize.
I ran games for SCALE at GenghisCon back in February. There were tickets for the games (I believe $2 each in addition to the badge cost) and my last table only had 1 out of 6 players show up still. And the regular people who ran games weren't surprised at all.
 


Reynard

Legend
Supporter
Dunno what to tell you! Most conventions I've been to there's been a nominal fee, even if just to discourage people from signing up for things they are unlikely to show up for. Like I said, standard practice, at least in my experience.
Just for clarity, I am not talking about all event tickets cost $5 or whatever. I am talking about individual games arbitrarily setting event ticket prices, unconnected to the con's baseline event ticket cost (which at Origins is $0). So I am talking about an individual GM deciding to charge the 6 people signing up for their event an extra $10 or whatever.
 

kenada

Legend
Supporter
Friends of mine and I are going to origins together this year and we have started looking for games to play as event registration approaches (May 4 FYI). I have noticed a bunch of paid events, and am a little shocked. it doesn't seem to be based on any particular quality of the game, just some GMs charge.
Events have always been paid at Origins for as long as I can remember. I usually spend most of my time hanging out in the Board Room though, which used to be an extra ribbon you had to buy but has been included in the badge price for the last few years.
 

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