Gen Con Online 2021

Last year, we took part in an experiment with the Gen Con community in order to preserve the spirit of the event, even though we could not gather in person. That experiment brought in many people who wanted the Gen Con experience – both event regulars AND first-timers who had never had the opportunity before! After a weekend full of emoji, voice chat, and of course GAMES, Gen Con Online 2020 was a success.

This year, Gen Con Online is back, building on the experiences of the first event, and if you can’t make it to Indianapolis this September, it’s a great alternative! Badge registration for Gen Con Online is free, and slated to open on June 27th.

We’ll be attending the in-person Gen Con, and so we won’t be available to run streams, Discord channels, and so on. However, we will have a Gen Con Online page on our website, with a few specials running.

SlugCrew and Gen Con Online

If you’re in SlugCrew, and you have the weekend of September 16th free, you should absolutely consider running some events for Gen Con Online!

Gen Con Online events WILL count towards SlugCrew points!

What’s more, if you’re willing to try demoing something new, you can earn even more points; all Dungeon Decorators demos run over the Gen Con weekend (Online and in-person) will count double for points!

Gen Con Online Event submissions open on June 20th, and close on July 17th.

How to Run SlugCrew Events for Gen Con Online

If you’ve never run an event for Gen Con before, it can be a little intimidating, but Gen Con Online is a great, low-stakes way to give it a try. You’ll find everything you need to know on their website, and we highly recommend bookmarking the resources page that Gen Con has put together for Gen Con Online Event Organizers and Game Masters if you plan to participate.

Even if you have run an event for Gen Con before, you should read the Gen Con Online Event Host Policy! It contains more than just dry rules; there’s also some handy guidelines and advice for running online events. Understanding the Event Host Policy will help you stay on top of event submission, how to run your event, how to use Gen Con’s Event Messaging Tool, and more!

While Gen Con has provided a ton of advice and tutorial material to help folks have fun with Gen Con Online, we do have some specific tips for you that we’ve learned from experience;

We recommend making your demos free to play! You’ll need to email events@gencon.com after your event is submitted to request that the base price be removed. Make sure your email is polite, specific (include the event number), and brief!
We also recommend having a message for your event in the Event Messaging Tool about a week before your event, with instructions and expectation-setting on how you’ll get your players into your voice call and gaming room. ‘Week’ was not a typo – some antsy players want details VERY early.
- Example; “Hi there everyone! I’ll be checking this thread about 30 minutes before the event time, and will post the Zoom link and Tabletop Simulator server details about 20 minutes before the event. I’m looking forward to gaming with you all!”
Make sure to be patient – both with yourself and with others! Online events are a different animal from in-person demos, most people are still new to them, and often things will simply take more time. Try to assume that everyone is doing their best and handle problems in a generous and positive manner.

After the show, you should report your events in SlugCrew! For Gen Con Online, we have a few format details we’d like you to observe to make the approval process run smoothly.

In the Location field, please put ‘Gen Con Online’, followed by your event ID (Example: Gen Con Online, BGM12345678).
Go ahead and leave the Phone field blank.
Include the software you used for your event in the Crew Comments field, along with any notable things about your event.

If you have any questions about the Gen Con Online event submission process, Gen Con’s Event Messaging Tool, or Gen Con’s Event Host Policies, please email Gen Con at events@gencon.com

If you have any questions about SlugCrew, please email us at support@slugfestgames.com

Gen Con Online 2021