I have been attending Gencon for over 15 years, and conventions in general for about 40 years. A lot of people come to Gencon as their first convention experience and do not understand convention culture and traditions. This can lead to having an experience that is less than ideal. Gencon is over 50 years old, and started like other conventions as a bunch of people saying "lets rent a space and host an event so we can do our thing". In this case the thing was gaming. The "standard convention" was more science fiction oriented, but it was the same sort of traditions. The most important part of that being that a bunch of nerds said "lets have some fun", and then other people decided to do something within the convention. "I have this game I like, can I run some sessions?" "I am an artist, can I display some stuff?" "I like getting drunk in hotel rooms, can I throw a party?" Ok, that last one isn't an official event, but it did happen and does still. Then people started to add in "I own a hobby store, can I set up a booth and sell stuff?" and the dealers room was born. People who know something that other attendees are interested in would get together to host panel discussions.

What I am leading up to is this, it was not a corporate thing. Gencon had to get corporate to scale up to what it is now, but the mindset is still the same. Gaming companies started to show up and do stuff to promote their products, but that is mostly selling stuff. In recent years some bigger vendors have started getting rooms outside the dealers room, which is nice. A few of them even host games outside their rooms, thank you to them. However, most of the gaming events are organized and run by enthusiasts. You can still sign up to run a session of your favorite game. If you are knowledgeable and enjoy public speaking you could host a seminar. That game you signed up for might be run by someone working for Your Favorite Game Company, but more likely it's run by someone who joined a Random Group Of GameMasters which is really just a few people trying to pool their contributions to get free badges. It's also possible it's just some person who can't get their friends to play their favorite game at home, so they run it at gencon.

If you look at gencon like an amusement park, where everything is professional and curated to maximize profit and at the same time provide a carefully curated experience for the customer, you may be disappointed. Some important aspects of the event are organized and run by volunteers who don't know what they are doing. Some things are run professionally, and some things are someone's passion project. Most of it has improved over the years, will call is tightly organized and runs about as smoothly as possible. Other things, less so. Maybe the person who signed up to run your favorite game got covid and decided to stay home and not share his germs (good call) and didn't notify anyone that his 2pm tuesday session won't be happening. Gencon doesn't have staff waiting around to fill in for him. If you have a copy of the game, with you, it would be in keeping with the spirit of gencon to just run your own session of the game. Asking to speak to a manager would not be in keeping with that spirit.

Gencon is also not the same for popular bloggers as it is for us non-celebrities. You won't get to spend an hour talking to game designers. You may get to say hello.

I would strongly suggest that before gencon 2025 you try attending a more local convention. You can play games. You can cosplay. You can attend seminars. You can go to a dance. You can spend time with people who share your passions. You can do all that for less cost, less hassle, and with more personal involvement. Then when you come back you can appreciate how gencon is similar, but scaled up to insanity.