Is volunteering at Gencon worth it?

[Mystic Muse]

Well, this year I want to go to Gencon for the four day period. The $72 price tag is scaring me off a little though. They have a program where they'll reimburse you for the ticket as long as you spend 16 hours setting stuff up for them.

Does anybody have any experience with this and would you suggest it?

[Thajocoth]

I've volunteered at I-CON for the free ticket long ago. That was worth it. I'm not familiar with Gencon, but I assume it's a similar sort of thing.

[BizzaroStormy]

Honestly, unless you plan to do nothing but work volunteer pool, its not worth it.

Last year, half my group tried it. Friday and Sunday out ride had to go in at 6 am, which meant we had to go as well. I ended up sleeping against a Battletech simulator pod.

Saturday sucked for me in a big way. Me and 3 others had gone cosplaying as TF2 characters (i was the red demoman) but while i was stuck checking badges at the door, I missed the f-ing costume walk.

Volunteer pool basically means you sit in a small area with a few tables and chairs which they call the "Volunteer Lounge" and wait for one of the staff to come looking for manual labor.

The worst part was getting some understandably irate patrons at the will call booth asking to get their passes with a coupon, then yelling(not really yelling) at me because they had to go wait in the ticket line which at that point was stretching around the corner outside.


Long story short, I don't reccommend it.

[Dr.Epic]

I'd do it. Out of all the places you could volunteer at Gencon has to be one of the coolest.

[Tirian]

The question you have to ask yourself is whether time spent on vacation at a convention is worth $4.50 an hour to you, because that's what they're offering to pay you for 16 hours of GenCon time. It seems to me that you could raise more money in less time with part time work before the con.

[Syka]

I have never volunteered at a convention before, but I have volunteered at a number of local events, usually related to film.

In my experience, it has been worth it. I don't know about cons, but all the volunteer work I've done has been compensated with free entry, the occasional special viewing, and- most importantly- food! I find that the events I've volunteered at I've had more fun than the events I did not. You get to meet a lot of cool people that way, and network. Networking is fun.

That said...you DO have to sacrifice some things. The first day of a local film festival we had too many people, so I ended up switching off with a few people doing the lighting inside the theater. Basically- I got free entry to watch all the shows.

The next day, though, I had to miss some really good shows because I was in the lobby taking ballots, or trying to get confusion sorted out (we were supposed to have a second theater, but whoops they scheduled an actual movie, omg where are we going to show it? type stuff). I don't regret it, especially since what I wanted to see had been done the previous day, but I had to hear it from my friends who paid. On the brightside, I did get in to the screening and dinner/cocktail party for free that was supposed to cost $75.

In another case, I really wanted to see this surf event since I had some friends I'd met the previous year competing. But since it was held at a different place this time around from where we were filming, I had to miss it.



Basically:

Pros: Free entry, possibly free food, networking, possibly special stuff regular attendees don't get to do, meet the bigwigs (sometimes).

Cons: May miss things you want to do, it can be tiring with looong hours (for the surf things, we'd get up there are 8am, stay on the beach ALL day until 4-5PM, then have to do the after parties from about 6-11PM; the film festival was about 7am-3PM and 4PM-whenever you leave from exhaustion), you are basically in customer service.

[The J Pizzel]

Don't do it. I'll spot you $20 bucks if you promise to take a crap-ton of pictures and send them all to me afterward. :smallbiggrin:

Edit - Cancel that. Wife says I can't give $20 bucks to a complete stranger on the internet. She just doesn't get it does she?

[Dallas-Dakota]

I'l keep you up on that for if when I go to Gen-con, ok?:smallbiggrin:

[Zeb The Troll]

Another important consideration is, if you don't volunteer, does that mean you can't go? Because going and volunteering is WAY better than not volunteering and not going.

[potatocubed]

If you can, get with an organisation like the Judges' Guild and run some games.

Volunteering through Gencon itself is probably one of the worst ideas you can have. The rewards you get (almost nothing) in exchange for the work that's expected of you (slave labour) are terrible.

Plus all the attendees hate the volunteers because the volunteers are almost universally grumpy asshats. I'm not sure if this is just everyday gamer-hate (and/or everyday gamer lack of social skills), the sleep deprivation that comes from both attending the con and working at it, a vicious-cycle response to the attendees' disdain, brought on by the sudden understanding of how much they have given up for how little, some combination, or what.

So yeah, either attend or work. Doing both is a bad idea.

[Lost Demiurge]

If you must volunteer, try to go for one of the companies displaying and running things. Contact them and ask. I've done volunteer work running games for the Shadowrun folks, and gotten a mostly free hotel room (Shared with three other people, mind,) and a free badge out of it whenever I went. Other people have pulled similar deals with WoTC, that I know of. Sure, you might have to pull some booth time if they get shorthanded, but that's rarely a big deal.

Working for convention staff is rarely as good, or so I've heard. A lot more stress, a lot more fuss, and you're dealing with angrier people when things go wrong. And you might not be getting as good a deal, if they're not going to throw in a hotel room to stay in...

[Marillion]

Volunteering is awesome, but you know what's even more awesome? Getting PAID to be there. Volunteers are not allowed to handle the money because of a legal issue, which means the convention staff must contract an outside organization to handle ticket sales, badge sales, and the like. I've worked event registration the past two years running. Two years ago, it was a staffing agency called LGC, but due to some issues the convention had with LGC, they switched to Talagy last year and it's looking like it'll be Talagy again. Both companies paid me $9 an hour, were flexible with the scheduling, and gave us a half-hour lunch break, AND I got a free badge. We chose to work the 6 AM to 2 PM shift every day except sunday, netting me and my girlfriend over $300 apiece. Dress code is nothing huge; White button-down, black slacks, and not-ratty shoes. And the vast majority of the con goers are friendly and easy-going, and the ones that aren't are not that bad.

Of course, I actually live in Indianapolis, so that may be an issue for you if you don't since the required training session takes place about a week before Gencon actually starts.

That said, the volunteers that I worked with were uniformly awesome people, and they get snazzy shirts, so it really is a great experience either way.

[Mystic Muse]

Okay, so that's a "no"

I do have the money to go, I'd just liked to have gotten it back.

[The Glyphstone]

If you do go, and you can manage to get a spot at the Terrorwerks event, definitely do it. It's a blast.

[Flame of Anor]

Don't do it. I'll spot you $20 bucks if you promise to take a crap-ton of pictures and send them all to me afterward. :smallbiggrin:

Edit - Cancel that. Wife says I can't give $20 bucks to a complete stranger on the internet. She just doesn't get it does she?

This is pretty hilarious.