I'm not sure if it would be worse for GenCon. I used to just book hotels outside of the block. About a decade ago, I could get non-con hotels in downtown for $180ish (with free/cheap parking). Once the non-block hotels got over $220, I couldn't afford to do that anymore. Now that in block rooms downtown run over $275/night (room+parking+tax), it's just gotten ridiculous.

I'm at a hotel this year on the outer belt for $90 / night with free parking and free wifi. I park downtown for about $10 a day.

As for moving it, I'm not sure I could see Chicago, Orlando, Vegas, etc. being any cheaper for hotels and you'd have the added cost to fly for many people.

I too miss the Safe House and George Webb diner, the only place open at 2am and no matter what you do you'd get crappy service that took hours.

I don't think that's a problem. I did a search of hotels near the convention centers for GenCon weekend and found Orlando from $63/night and Vegas from $57/night. Chicago, on the other hand, was $150/night with most being $200/night+.

The other advantage to Las Vegas or Orlando is that there are cheap flights there from almost everywhere in the US (no idea about Canada or elsewhere).

Another advantage is that it puts it further away from Origins geographically. I still think a large reason GenCon chose Indy was to try killing Origins (which annoys me because I've always liked Origins better).

Hmm I forgot about the "cheap" flights to Orlando and Vegas. Of course speaking as a Southerner you do realize that Orlando in August will be a bit hotter than Indianapolis? August is pretty much a rotten month across the South. Air conditioning helps but you gotta go out sometimes. Still I like the Orlando idea.

Just for the heck of it I played around in Expedia with some flights from either Cincy or Columbus and I must not be good at getting the cheap fares, because most everything I could find was $250 and up for a round trip. Not what I would call cheap. But hey maybe I'm wrong.

Apparently you haven't tried flying in at least a few years. $250 round trip is very cheap (for anything over a regional puddle jumper at least). From Minnesota, the cheapest I could find was $340 to Orlando but there's Vegas flights as low as $177 round trip. MSP is expensive because Delta still has a near-monopoly.

Then I guess I won't be flying anywhere then... Based on my last experience it sure wasn't worth the cost. If the flight were more comfortable I could justify it, but not the way things are going.

Convention hotels always raise prices when a convention is in town, so comparing them may not be accurate. You also need to take into consideration costs of parking, local eateries, and other costs. I did a quick search for flights in August and from Columbus, the cheapest were around $280 round trip to Orlando. Flights to Las Vegas are around $480.

John

That didn't used to be the case (and still isn't for Origins at least). Con hotels are rack rate with a discount. For instance, the Drury in Columbus for 2016 is $20/night cheaper for Origins than normal rack. A search for a few weeks later in 2016 does show that the web discount rate is about $15/night cheaper than normal rack (so there is still a discount - just not much of one).

However, I completely believe Indy hotels raise prices for GenCon - I can't believe Indy supports $300+/night when a big con isn't in town. A quick search of looks like the JW is actually discounted slightly but the other Marriott chain hotels and Hilton chain hotels are jacked up for GenCon.