I’m currently sitting here in the Crossroads Corridor at the Indiana Convention Center, Doomslug hanging out by my side, waiting to see if any more folks from the Fans of Gen Con group want to come grab badge ribbons, and soaking in the last couple of hours of the Best Four Days in Gaming.

… yes, I made Doomslug her own badge, I know I’m ridiculous

I needed this. The past four days have been a lot, especially since I haven’t been to Gen Con since 2019, but I missed this so much that I’m actually on the verge of getting weepy right here in the middle of the convention center. (That’s probably due to a mix of exhaustion, overwhelm, and not getting enough food to fuel the 15k+ steps I’ve been walking per day since Wednesday, heh.)

I was a little nervous about coming back to Gen Con after not attending in person in so long. The past few years have not been great on my mental health, and I get overwhelmed a lot more easily than I used to – and I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to handle being around approximately 70,000 other gamers, especially considering the largest event I’d been to before this was the Statewide IT Conference at work this year. (There were around 900 attendees there, if I remember right.)

Photo by Indy Mavens. Look who’s doing a tiny photobomb in the lower left corner!

Thankfully, the Gen Con community – or at least the people I interacted with personally here – is still as awesome as ever. I feel like this year more than ever, I’ve seen so many people out there taking care of their fellow con-goers. I saw folks posting in the Fans of Gen Con Facebook group that they found someone’s badge or other lost items and brought them to lost and found, con clerics wandering around to help with costume issues and basic first aid needs, and helping people find where to go for specific items they were looking for. I even did what I could to help by sharing hand sanitizing wipes, telling folks where they could find things like locking pin backs and fancy hand fans (I sent so much business towards the Geeky Endeavors booth during the con!) and even giving a spare mask to Liby of Bloomington Stitchery while they held down the fort at the Different Drummer Belly Dancing booth. (And tried not to go into awkward fangirl mode when I saw them there, haha. 😅 )

This was a weird Gen Con for me. It’s the first year I’ve flown solo for the most part, and my first Gen Con without Rana since we met in 2013. I ended up doing things differently this year – I didn’t take as many cosplay pictures as I’ve done in the past, and I didn’t sign up for a lot of events. I did, however, finally hand out some Crafty Nerd badge ribbons I bought in 2019 to hand out in 2020 – and that resulted in me talking to a lot more people than I normally would at Gen Con. (If you found your way here after snagging a badge ribbon from me, welcome!)

In general, going to Gen Con this year felt like coming home again after a long, exhausting adventure. Things are different, of course, and I’m a very different person than I was when I last attended, but it was still so good to be here. I’ll be posting in detail about my Gen Con experience over the coming days, so if you want to hear more about my Gen Con 2024 adventure, stay tuned!

Yes, I’m headed back to Gen Con this year! I bought a four-day badge, got lucky and got one of the mythical attached hotels, and waited patiently for my wish list of events to process yesterday and got into almost every event on my list.  

I know, it’s a little weird that I haven’t posted about it all until now, but up until event registration happened, it didn’t quite feel real. I didn’t think about what events I wanted to go to until last week. Heck, I still haven’t entirely decided on what cosplays I’m going to do, and y’all know how excited I get about cosplay. (I’m currently waffling between a couple of ideas that I’ll probably write about here soon.)  

A weird Gen Con 

This year’s Gen Con is going to be a weird one for me for several reasons. It’s the first year I haven’t gone as press since 2013 – which feels weird, but given that I haven’t regularly updated the blog in about four years, I didn’t even bother applying for a press pass this year. Maybe next year, if I can get back into the habit of posting regularly enough.  

It’s also going to be the first Gen Con without Rana since the year we met at the convention. In 2020 and 2021, we spent some time talking about how we were still going to go to Gen Con together even though we’d split up, and even talked about what cosplays we might do. It’ll be weird, being at Gen Con without her, especially since Gen Con was such a big part of our lives and was the reason we met. It’s going to be weird, going without her.  

In addition, this is going to be the largest event I’ve gone to since Gen Con 2019. A lot’s happened in the five years since then, and the first convention I’ve gone to since Indiana Toy and Comic Expo back in late 2019. I’ve been to a few work conferences since then, and went to the Kate Mulgrew talk in 2022 back when she came to visit the Captain Janeway statue, so it’s not like I’ve been a hermit the entire time. The largest of those events topped out at 900 people, though, and it was exhausting for me to be around so many people. Being around large groups of people wears me out way more than it used to pre-pandemic, and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to handle Gen Con as a result. I’m not letting it scare me away from going, though.  

A good Gen Con 

Despite all the weirdness, though, I think it’s also going to be a good Gen Con. I got into almost all the events I had in my Wish List (sadly, the Mistborn CCG and Star Trek CCG demos I had on my wish list sold out before my list got processed), including two cross stitch classes hosted by Craftigurumi that I’m really looking forward to. (I mean, come on, this is me – did you expect me to go to Gen Con and not sign up for some sort of crafting class?) And speaking of Gen Con crafting, I’m even considering bringing the Sailor Moon quilt I worked on at Gen Con 2020 to the Craft Hackers booth so I can show Toni of Quiltoni the finished project, since I’m pretty damn proud of how it turned out and want to show it to her.  

I’m also approaching Gen Con with the understanding that I probably will get overwhelmed as heck, and won’t necessarily be running around everywhere as much as I used to, and that’s okay. Lots of my friends are going to Gen Con this year, so if I need someone to help me figure out food because I can’t brain, or just want someone to sit with me someplace quiet in the ICC while I take some time to wind down, I know someone’ll be able to help me out there.  

Also: it’s been too dang long since I did any cosplay, and I’m starting to get excited about exploring different cosplay ideas that have been bouncing around in my head. (And if I can’t really make any of them work, there’s always the old fallback of wandering around Gen Con as Ëlinyr – especially now that I’ve got better costuming pieces for her! But that’s a topic for yet another post.) 

Counting down the days 

As I’m writing this post, it’s 73 days until Gen Con – about two and a half months until the best four days in gaming happens. I’m hoping going back to Gen Con will get me back into the swing of things with the blog here. It’s been way too long since I posted regularly, and I miss being able to say “yeah, I have a blog, it’s The Crafty Nerd” without being embarrassed by how quiet it’s been over here over the past few years. Maybe Gen Con 2024 will help me get past that. 😊