GottaCon 2014

[Carson Upton]

Panels of GottaCon 2014 on Sunday

The Future of Gaming
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Making Kickass RPG Adventures
Time: 10:30am to 12:30pm

Storytelling in Video Games: Telling Tales Around the Digital Campfire
Time: 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Memorable Characters in Literature and Games
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

The Art of Gaming
Time: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm

PC vs Console, Digital vs Physical, Cable vs Netflix
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm


Complete panel and guest information can be found here.

For full details on Sunday events and on the panelists and performers visit our website

[Carson Upton]

GottaCon 2014 is happy to announce due to high demand we will be extending tickets sales until 11:59pm Feb 16.

Buy early, save money.

[Carson Upton]

Saturday, March 1, at GottaCon will be a great day for costume lovers.

GottaCon 2014 Costume Contest
Registration: 10:00am to 4:30pm at the Northwest Fan Fest Booth, located next to the GottaCon Photo Booth
Deliberation: 5:00pm to 6:00pm in the main theatre – closed to the public
Awards Presentation: 6:00pm to 7:00pm in the main theatre – open to the public

Whether you’re a beginner or a veteran, you’re welcome to strut your stuff at the GottaCon Costume Contest, sponsored by Dragon Impact and Northwest Fan Fest. Compete with others to win a prize in one of several categories. Judging will be based on individual costumes. Skits will not be performed (sorry)

For full details on categories and prizes please visit our website.

Costume Themed Party
Time: 8:00pm to Midnight
Location:The Tectoria Gamer Lounge

This year we will be hosting our first ever costume themed party in our new Gamer Lounge! Come out and show off your costume of choice (please adhere to our costume policies) and mix and mingle with other convention attendees. The party will have a live DJ, comfortable atmosphere, cash bar, and fun events Like a Karaoke challenge and fan favorites costume voting. Plus, we will ask all our costume contest finalists to show off their hard work for all to see! Join us Saturday night in the Tectoria Gamer Lounge

Please note this is a 19+ only event. Valid convention pass required to enter, entry to the event is free. Capacity is limited.

Please consult our costume and weapons policy on our POLICIES PAGE.

[Carson Upton]

For all of you who will be searching for parking downtown.

We just announced the special parking rates we have got from Robins.

[Carson Upton]

Today we announce our role playing games line-up planned for GottaCon 2014 which will be held February 28 to March 2, 2014 at The Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria BC (720 Douglas Street).

Normally we would provide you with a whole bunch of highlights but this year, there are just too many events to shine a light on! There are over 100 RPG sessions in over 30 game systems scheduled and numerous special events and celebrity sessions including:

Live Improv Double-Header – Two Shows For The Price Of One, Plus Short Film in the Theatre

Walk & Talk with Jonathan Tweet

An entire room dedicated to Pathfinder and Pathfinder Society

Midnight Madness is back with “Descent into Midnight’s Madness”

Celebrity Game Master Events including:
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1E – The Kaadwalader Affair By: Steven Saunders of Black Goat Games
Pathfinder – To Hell and Back: A Standard Action Adventure – Part 1 By Joanna Gaskell of Standard Action
Pathfinder – To Hell and Back: A Standard Action Adventure – Part 2 By Rob Hunt of Standard Action
Sypcraft Third Edition – Spycraft Third Edition Playtest: “Full House” By Alex Flagg of Crafty Games
D&D Next – Upcoming Adventure Playtest By Chris Tulach, D&D Program Manager of Wizards of the Coast

Massive Werewolf event is back and brought to you by Knoll Stevenson

Something for the little ones! Faery’s Tale Deluxe – Faery’s Tale Adventure By Courtney Raines

Discussion panels including:
Standard Action Live Action D&D
Game Master’s Dirty Tricks: Troubleshooting Tabletop Tribulations
Standard Action Screening
Making Kickass RPG Adventures
Memorable Characters in Literature and Games

For a complete look at our RPG line up please visit our website and take a look at our program.

We hope you find a few games above to your liking and will come out to GottaCon 2014!

[Carson Upton]

Today we announce our Board games line-up planned for GottaCon 2014 which will be held February 28 to March 2, 2014 at The Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria BC (720 Douglas Street).

There are a lot of exciting things happening in the board game area of GottaCon this year. GottaCon is hosting over a 120 BG sessions, supported by numerous communities, numerous tournaments, including two important qualifiers, and an ever growing board game library:

Tournaments:
Settlers of Catan Tournament – Western Canadian Catan Championship Pre-Pre-Qualifier
Lords of Waterdeep Tournament
Race for the Galaxy Tournament
North American Ticket to Ride Championship – Western Canada Regional Qualifier
Dominion Tournament
Great Canadian Board Game Blitz

Communities running tables all weekend:
VCon
M3 Gamers
Interactivity Board Game Café
Tradecraft

GottaCon’s Board Game Library has grown to over 250 games.

For a complete look at our BG line up please visit our website and take a look at our program.

We hope you find a few games above to your liking and will come out to GottaCon 2014!

[Carson Upton]

Hello all. So GottaCon has come and gone for another year and as always we would love to get your feedback. What worked? What didn't? What was missing? Did you have fun?

[Joseph]

We had a blast this time around and everything went really well on our end. I read the followup posted on the main site and can add that you guys were hard to locate sometimes. Not just for us but I lost track of how many people came by and asked us if they had seen you. Maybe one of the visitor info centres close to where we were located, it seemed like a good question spot.

[Carson Upton]

GottaCon 2014 saw explosive growth from over last year, with approximately 3000 individuals coming through the doors. 2013 saw 1600, meaning our attendance growth was a staggering 88%! Our new venue and hosts (The Victoria Conference Centre, Fairmont Empress and the City of Victoria) were exceptional and their support and assistance with delivery made it a very positive and memorable experience. We can’t even count how many times attendees, exhibitors, guests, sponsors, etc came up to us and commented how great the new venue turned out to be.

Summary of Successes:

Continued increase in attendance (88% increase)

Our volunteer team of over 65 “Wardens” did a fantastic job given the unexpected attendance

Record number of individual events by record number of event coordinators delivered

Video Gaming LAN was hugely successful and will see another increase next year to 250+ BYOC seats. Introduction of our new tournament systems and upgraded stream coverage was well received. LAN functioned at 100% for the entire event.

RPG growth in Pathfinder as well as various other systems was significant

Huge Magic: the Gathering events continue to be an attraction and saw record attendance

GottaCon continues to host the largest miniature based event in western Canada…likely in Canada with 170+ competitive players playing at one time

Board games area saw huge growth and was consistently busy, BG library saw another large increase in use (nearly 300 sign outs) and more freeplay space is once again need to accommodate demand.

Introduction of second track of panels and nearly 3x as many panels was well attended

GottaCon Attendee Ticket and Event (GATE) System continued to successful speed up attendee registration in the face of near double attendee numbers.

Student day was a huge success with over 400 secondary students attending our video game industry panel and unveiling of the student work experience opportunities project through the local video game studios.

GottaCon and VIATeC held the first pre-show media event Friday with the focus on our fantastic local video game studio sponsors.

Expanded management team helped to deliver a smooth event in our most challenging year ever.

Summary of Challenges:

Despite a space increase of nearly 100%, space continues to be a major concern given growth. 2015 will see the addition of 18,000sqft as we take over Crystal Gardens as well. Ticket sale limits will once again be implemented for our 2015 show as we are expecting 4000 to 5000 attendees. We continue to encourage advance ticket purchases.

Opening night lineups were looong but we keep it moving thanks to our fantastic volunteers. 2015 will see a 100% increase in badge registration check-in kiosks will include designated advance ticket holder check-in location in a different area to provide additional benefit for advance ticket holders. We are also going to do our best to open will call for a period of time the Thursday night before the convention opens.

Announcement system was reported to be disruptive and annoying. We are exploring options for 2015 such as an announcement app that attendees can choose to receive and a scheduled convention wide announcement track for major content and emergencies only.

The new venue has a confusing layout and despite our large floor plan posters, attendees had a hard time finding events. We are looking to implement “Ask Me” stations at various locations on the convention floor with signage and volunteers to direct and answer questions. We will also have more area specific floor banners created to help identify key areas from a distance.

Freeplay board game tables were in short supply despite significant expansion. We will be increasing space allocation in 2015.

“Puke-achu”…enough said

BYOC attendees had a long haul with their gear. In 2015 we will implement a “porter” system where volunteers will help transport gear with dollies. Also we are considering early check-in and PC setup for BYOC attendees on Friday.

The auction was hugely successful again but the structure of how it is operated needs to be modified to deal with the volume of items and the processing time of sellers and buyers. We are exploring options for 2015.

The food court was hard to find. Unfortunately the space used was the closest available space that was available for use by the Empress for 2014. 2015 will see the food court move to a more accessible and visible location.

Outside food brought in by all levels of stakeholders was noted by GottaCon and venue staff alike. As per our policies and the policies of the venue, outside food is not permitted. We understand this is a change from previous GottaCon events but we have new event partners and we would like everyone to respect the policies in place.

Alcohol brought in by attendees was out of control. As a result 2015 will see mandatory bag checks. Any alcohol found on a person that is unopened will need to be immediately removed from the facility or left at coat check. Any open alcohol will be confiscated, the attendee in possession of it will have their badge revoked and will be removed from the venue for the remainder of the event.

Theft was an issue this year with numerous items going missing from the tournament system area. If by chance you accidently took home one of our Logitech G35 headsets and/or G400s mice we sure would appreciate their safe return…no questions asked.
GottaCon would like to thank all the fantastic volunteers and event coordinators who came out and made the event awesome as well as the amazing sponsors that helped us deliver events with excellent prizes.

Another big thanks to our area managers; BC Gamer, Sol Kauffman, Chris Gensey, Jules Sherred, Lee Guille, Mike Gruber, Glenn Morgan, Paul Puhallo, Kellan Johnson and Wilf Rondeau.

If you have any feedback please send a email to Carson Upton: cupton@gottacon.com.

Look for more information on GottaCon 2015, Feb 27 to Mar 1, 2015 coming soon to our website!

[RoyT]

This is a couple months late (since I just rejoined),

But as one of the people who handled the food court in the Ivy ballroom, what was the feedback on the quality of the food? assuming of course you peeps were hungry and ate at the food court =P

We (the staff) talked about the location of the food court this year and came to the same conclusion in terms of how it might have been difficult to find it and am glad we are moving it to another location specially with the addition of the crystal garden

[Joseph]

I went to the ballroom for a snack and thought the food was great My son and I found the environment to be one of the more humorously memorable situations of the convention. The disparity between the convention attendees, dressed up in costumes, casual and pop culture reference apparel contrasted with the staff in bow ties and vest, in such an elegant room with CCR playing in the background was pretty delightful.