Hi,

I'm looking for info about GenCon Paris. To those of you going or know Anup, please pm me.

Thank you for your attention.

Hallo,
Ik zoek info over GenCon Parijs. Aan die van u die of ken Anup gaan, tevreden p.m. me.
Dank u voor uw aandacht

Hallo,
Ich suche nach Info über GenCon Paris. Zu denen von Ihnen gehend oder kennen Sie Anup, bitte P.M. ich.
Danke für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit.

You do know that you're missing French in that list ;).

Anyway, they have a site up www.gencon.fr .

Hope that helps.

I am going to Gencon France, and i happen to know Anup :D (PM inbound)

I got the feeling he has lots of PM inbound......

as BM its not hard not knowing annup since he took over from Cyril.
Elite did you use Realms translation stuff (dutch didnt come out right really did it?)

Dear Corlan I think you meant Mechtran..... Do you think I need translation software for my Dutch.....Auch if you do....

And with knowing Anup both Brinxter and I met him in person and shared meals and something called beer with the guy.

lol whoops i misread the topic starter, ( should stop posting after midnight)
i thought it was weird comming from you heh, never mind

It's not sounding good for GenCon France. In Peter Adkison's open letter discussing ending GenCon SoCal, he mentions his new vision stating that in 4 years "with just one Gen Con show per year to focus on, plus, subject to Lucasfilm’s approval, the occasional Star Wars Celebration, we’ll finally have the bandwidth to do all the cool things we’ve wanted to do."

He also mentions GenCon Europe specifically, and its issues:

Typical Business mistake, It works in the US it should work in Europe.

American Cars....
EuroDisney....

No doubt the reverse is true as well.

However there will be a Gencon France 2007 you can get linked there from www.gencon.com.

If he doesnt want to use the gencon brandname that's fine. But I will assure you there will be European Cons as well......

Whatever they will be named, players will be there and isnt Essen Spiel is still the biggest of them all....

Having finished the article, I found I missed a reference to being committed to GenCon France (as well as GenCon Australia). It just seems the GenCon Europe idea isn't workable (remember, GenCon is a business). I'm not sure why he's convinced GenCon France is a better idea, but he seems to think it is (and it's not really the subject of the letter).

Errrrrr you should read my post more carefully then.......as I am reffering to Gencon as a brandname with all implications implied.

Gencon Europe might not work. To my knowledge there isnt any...

But a Convention where Europeans flock to, such as Essen Spiel will always exist.

Culteral differences in Europe are larger then the difference between a Texan and a New Yorker. As such creating a European brandname is tough as nails.

But I am a European and I have traveled througout Europe visiting Cons.....

I also think that in the coming 10 years a European Convention will have a better chance to come into existance than ever. Could be the difference in traveling through and living in said continent. As such I differ of opinion from Mr. Peter Adkison.

I can understand concern for the hobby in general. But till the Cons are canceled take it easy. The board is already riddled with doomsday scenario's for WK because they annouced a transitional year. The hobby lives and goes on even if Wizards and WK all close down.

I can remember when TSR was the Microsoft of gaming, they are now part of Wizards who is bought up by the company that gave us barbie.

Your message no doubt comes from good itentions but what do they serve, all it does is tell people to get scared. Unwise and way too soon.

This year there will be a Gencon France 25-27 of may and what ever there will be next year will be there next year. Different name maybe same players I assure you.

Regards
Elite130

huh, how typical, he obviously isnt focussing correctly on the MW events as GenCon France last year attracted playas from North, South, East and Western Europe - even a couple of British players turned up. FWIW we also have a GenCon UK later in the year. the problems with GenCon UK 2005 was timing (autumn /winter), the location on the south coast at a holiday camp. this year i understand that it is in Reading - much, much better UK and international links than Bognor Regis (though Bognor is really nice in summer!) :p :p

It is a bit unfair to expect Gencon to focus on MW events. It is a gaming brandname after all.

I think not that gaming as a general hobby is in danger in anyway.

And I think that gaming in europe is not in such a bad state.

Elite, you mean there is more to life than MW???? :surprised :surprised :classic: :classic: :p

It's interesting that he starts the letter talking about how he has such a great business mind, and then ends up concluding that GenCon SoCal couldn't work, just because he felt that the format wouldn't work there. Which is odd, because Southern California supports some rather similar format conventions every year: AnimeExpo and San Diego Comic-Con. Both mix exhibit halls with various other audience-participation events.

Mr. Adkison was also way too quick to dismiss the timing of the event for why it failed: even November is a bad time of year for conventions. After all, that's right when people are saving money for the holiday season, plus all the folks in school don't have the time to head out to a convention like they do during the summer months. Of course, it might not have worked in SoCal in the summer months, either, since the rather established cons of AX and SDCC already draw the crowds and their money.

Finally, Mr. Adkison writes in his open letter that he picked SoCal because it was far away from the Mid-West. It doesn't seem that he chose it because demand for the convention would be high there. That's a pretty big business blunder, if you ask me. Sure, there's some logic to the idea, but before you commit to something on that scale, some actual market research would seem to be in order. After all, what makes SoCal better for a gaming convention than NorCal, Portland, or Seattle? All of those locations are also far away from the Mid-West, and in the case of Seattle, at least, one would assume some level of support for gaming, given how many gaming companies are located there (kind of like having a tech convention in Silicon Valley...)

In short, Mr. Adkison, despite his supposed "business sense" didn't seem to actually do any market research before executing this idea. I can only hope he actually did, and just left such information out of the letter...