Everybody has something that he/she waits for all year. Some people wait for particular sport seasons, some for school activities like drama productions, and many just wait for summer vacation. I, like most of my friends, however, wait for GenCon, the gaming convention that is held every summer in Indianapolis.
      You can buy entrance passes by the day, or a four-day pass for the whole 'Con. The first year we went, we bought passes for the last two days, (it runs Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,) but found that we would have loved more time, so now we always buy four-day passes. I would estimate that about half the attendees stay for the whole time, but some can't take work off during the first two days, so the last half is always more crowded.
      The first year we went, there were only three of us, and it was being held in Milwaukee, which is in our home state of Wisconsin and only about four or five hours away by car. Now the location has moved to Indianapolis, so we have to add an extra day to the trip on either side for the twelve-hour car ride. It's long, but we discuss all the things we want to do or all the stuff we bought, depending on which way we're going, and we always bring Game Boys and books.
      In the past, we've had to work hard to keep the cost of the trip down. We all have limited amounts of money, and there are a lot of expenditures. Despite this, we all want tons of money for games, so we have to draw money from other areas. The badge cost is totally static, but we save on hotel money and food. While some gamers with good jobs can get rooms in hotels that are connected by skywalks to the 'Con, we pay about an eighth of the price and sleep about a half hour away. We spend about $1.50 a day on food by eating hotel food for breakfast, peanut-butter sandwiches at the 'Con for lunch, and cooking ramen noodles for supper.
      All types of games are played at GenCon, but some kinds are given far more attention than others. Dungeons and Dragons was the game that started GenCon, so it and other role-playing games (which mix acting, storytelling, and strategy) are the central focus. Trading card games and strategy board games are also very important. "Cult" games, which have a small but enthusiastic player group, are frequently played as well, since for many players of such games, GenCon is the only venue in which they encounter other players. Since video games get so much attention in other, more mainstream gatherings and shops, they generally play a minor role at GenCon.
      The main attraction is the dealer's room. This room houses hundreds of booths of different sizes selling all sorts of different things. Games of every type, of course, are the main commodity, but many other things are sold as well. Dice are as essential to gamers as hammers are to construction workers, so they and other gaming tools are sold in large numbers. GenCon attendees have many symbols and in-jokes in common, so clothing with gamer-specific slogans and designs are quite popular. Games played at GenCon are in a wide variety of settings, but two of the main groups are Tolkien-esqe medieval fantasy and futuristic sci-fi. Because of this, many different works of art are sold, from prints to sculptures to decorated gaming tools to trading cards. These are sold both in the dealer's room and in the art show room, where the artists are available to sign their work. Because there is a heavy overlap between the American "gamer" and "otaku" cultures, anime and manga are also sold in many different booths in the dealer's room. The prices are high, but online prices are even higher, so for many like me, this is the best opportunity to obtain Japanese fiction.
      The culture-crossover also explains a particular GenCon favorite of my friends and me: the anime room. Here you can check out a number of different anime movies and TV series. Some of the more extreme anime fans don't leave the room save to eat and go to the bathroom. For the more casual viewer, it's a great place to learn about different series or simply to relax from many hours of mentally taxing gaming.
      Both the dealer's room and the anime room are well-known and popular, but another of my favorite GenCon locations is neither of these. There is a small room in one hallway, which is labeled on the map as the "open gaming room." This room just contains a few tables, and is completely unmonitored and unorganized. It's usually empty or near-empty. Despite this, I think this is one of the greatest rooms at the 'Con. It symbolizes the true meaning of GenCon: games. No prices, organization, or social rules exist there. My group usually starts each day in the open gaming room and continues to use it throughout the day as a sort of base of operations.
      The 'Con takes up many, many more rooms than this. Most of the other rooms contain organized games. When you first enter the 'Con, you get a booklet with a listing of the hundreds of games planned for each hour of each day. You can either buy specific tickets, which give you priority but mean planning ahead, or generic tickets, which are good for any event but are accepted after specific tickets. Due to the happy-go-lucky feel of GenCon, most people only buy generics, even of they know the events that they are interested in. Games require many different levels of knowledge, experience, and/or equipment. In some, the rules are taught as the game is played. On the other extreme are tournaments, where players are expected not only to be completely familiar with the rules, but also fully aware of the various strategies often used in the game. For trading card games or miniatures games, players must often bring their own pre-created decks or armies. These requirements are listed next to each event.
      Also requiring tickets are the various seminars that are held. Seminars typically feature either an author of fantasy fiction discussing the thought processes and various inside quirks of the creation of their books, or people from inside the game industry, discussing history or theory of games or how to break into the industry yourself. In past years, my friends and I have listened twice to an author discussing his ideas for better storytelling and role-playing, and once to a member of the first Dungeons and Dragons group, describing the way the game evolved. The speakers always provide valuable insight and make us look at our gaming in different ways.
      Demons and fairies, or at least people dressed like them, are a very common sight at GenCon. Costumes range from cheap and mostly store-bought to ultra-expensive and painstakingly hand-crafted by the wearer. Some costumes are generic, giving only the appearance of a particular fantasy or sci-fi race or group, but many others are made to imitate a particular book or anime character. For example, last year my group encountered a man with a very large costume of No-Face from Spirited Away. After our group and he had stared at each other for a while, he swooped down and "ate" each of us! On the third day, there is a costume contest. It's so popular that we've never been able to get into it to watch!
      As much as I love the different events at GenCon, my favorite part is the people. My circle of friends is largely composed of gamers, but that still only makes ten or fifteen of us. Games are a minority interest. At GenCon, though, we get to live in our world. About twenty-five thousand gamers attend. After a whole year of struggling to organize gamer parties on weekends and/or begging parents and family to play games with us, going to GenCon, where everyone wants to play a game with you, is a drastic and very welcome change. At least twice, I have been playing a game with my friends in the hallway or the open gaming room and soon have added a random passerby to the game without much thought. These people are all so interesting to meet, and you're bound to have many similarities.
      It is true that "gamer" means "one who plays games," or "a gaming enthusiast," but gamers have much more in common than their hobby. People at GenCon have a noticeable similarity in the way they think. It's more logical, more friendly, and more happy-go-lucky than any other group I know. "Nerds" who feel out of place in their schools and workplaces fit right in at GenCon. So, games aside, simply being around so many people similar to oneself is a very interesting experience.
      Aside from a small number of restrictions for those under twelve years of age to make sure that games contain players of similar maturity and comprehension levels, there is little judgment or separation due to age. The bulk of GenCon attendees are about forty or fifty years old, but an average game includes people close to both ends of the spectrum. My first year there, I was amazed at the lack of ageism. I found myself competing against those thirty years my superior, and I felt sure that I would encounter people who would act superior, bossy, or more intelligent. I couldn't have been more wrong. All the attendees treated my friends and me as complete equals, regardless of our young age and (at that time) relatively low level of experience with the gaming culture. Any time I had a question about anything pertaining to rules, differences between games, specifics about the 'Con itself, requirements for games, experiences, or any such thing, I found myself surrounded by extremely knowledgeable people who were more than happy to help me.
      I spend about half the year saving money for GenCon. During this time, it's almost a daily conversation topic between my friends and me. It's so hard to wait to go back.