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Wowsers, was actually thinking of going this year... if this turns out to be true then its a big NO NO from me, its sounds awful! :( OH well, my saved means a FW order so thanks GW!

They didn't include a mini with price of entry last year either. I thought the Chicago GD was a let down , and I traveled from Massachusetts. I decided while I was there I wasn't going this year. I miss Baltimore!

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yep. £30 gets you access to the same miniatures you can buy anyway (with the added bonus of having to wait in line!!!), and no previews of any upcoming releases***.

GW sure knows how to run a trade show... into the ground...

Not that i'm disagreeing, as it has been pretty horrible to go to the past few years, but it seems to be bizarrely succesful to run it this way, at least in the UK.. You see kids dropping hundreds at the merch tables on models that aren't pre-release, new, limited, direct only, on sale or anything else that would preclude them from buying them any other day of the year in a GW store or online for discounted prices, and that's before you take into account the Forgeworld and Black Library sales. If you combine the three, they clearly turnover well over a million pounds at the event, and almost certainly quite a bit higher, with everything at full RRP. Doesn't make it right, or enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but I imagine there's not too much impetus for change at the higher levels at the moment.

Went to one GD about 15 years ago.

3 travelled up the M5 in my mates battered old Volvo, we nearly died in fog and drove around Birmingham for an hour in circles trying to find our way in (it was the NIA then, has it moved?) to a building we could see by the side of the road.

I'm not sure, but I think product was on offer at discount, or bundled or something, there were games on the go everywhere, GD, and, most amazing of all, the studio, where you got to see THINGS THAT WEREN'T OUT YET! This is pre-internet remember, so this was mind blowing.

To cap it all, while wondering round the studio at the end of the day (first opportunity to get in, it was essentially a side room I would guess was used for meetings etc) who should wonder in but Brian freakin May from Queen (being a teenage nerd in the 90s, this was similar to shaking God's hand)

I want that GW, give me that again and I will pay whatever you want, travel three hours by car using a small fortune in petrol and I will still go home smiling (with a boot full of minis)

I was going to go to gamesday.. but now I'm not sure if it's woth the money...

The only reason i was going to pick up a ticket was for the mini.

Queing up in the sales area to get a mini thats full of holes. Then queing to get a replacement, Most of the day will be gone by then. Forget that.

£30 for the opportunity to buy the miniature? How much will the figure be then? If it's like many single Finecast, it'll be anything around £10-15.

Stupidly I was actually considering going because I really liked the figure and thought I could do a Gamesday just as a one off. But frankly this is a sad joke. Don't know why I even considered it to be honest. Silly me. 6500 people being allowed in sounds horrible anyway, they never used to be that big.

There will probably be a shortage of well cast figures anyway. Give it a bit and I'll pick up a quality recast.

To be fair you used to have to buy the figure at the Games Days during the nineties, although a ticket didn't put you back £30.

Although this doesn't really effect me eitherway, I only go to Games Day if Aurelia is entering Golden Daemon, otherwise its not worth the hassle, and no limited Games Day figure, awesome or no would change that.

Dez wrote:They didn't include a mini with price of entry last year either. I thought the Chicago GD was a let down , and I traveled from Massachusetts. I decided while I was there I wasn't going this year. I miss Baltimore!

Same here. I'm giving GDUS a pass this year, mainly because I don't want to travel out to Chicago again. Back when it was in Baltimore, I didn't miss a year.
GDUS is worth it for the ability to go see BL and FW stuff, as we do not get all the special events that UK does.

My First GD was the 2007 one. Went there with my cousin, spent 5 hours on the train from Brighton, and we had an amazing time. We saw people cosplaying, previews and before-release sales of the (then) new SM Codex, they even had a discount stall (I remember you could get one of those large boxes of 20 Guardians for about £6). Golden Daemon was wonderful to look at, and DoW II was previewed very nicely. We both went home with easily a few hundreds worth of products between us.

Now, I have to pay £30 just for the privelege of entry into the NEC, no Ltd miniature accompanying the ticket price, so that I can spend 3 hours (yes, at GD2010 I spent 3 hours in the queue for Forge World) trying to buy stuff that I can just order from the comfort of my own home. I even remember last year I was refused access to the demo of the new Space Marine game, as they decided that 2:00 was too close to closing time to let anyone else in.

Well done GW *slow claps*

im from canada...so GDUS is the closest i can get to one, and i dont think im going to pay airfare plus hotel, a weekends food etc just to pay an insane amount for a door ticket, only to get crammed into line after line for a possibility at playing at a tourney. - wich would be my only real reason for going. and if i want tourneys i can just save 50% and go to toronoto or calgary for those.

If you can come up with some reason to visit Chicago, then go and add Gamesday to your itinary. Otherwise, it really isn't worth the airfare.

I'm hoping to attend something in England this year (if possible) but that's contingent on a few factors here at home and I also plan to do more touristy type stuff than whatever GW event I wind up attending.

I wanted to go in and check out the golden demon but not for 30 quid. I will pass and invest more on other much more interesting events for the hobby like for example salute.

johnstewartjohn wrote:The only reason i was going to pick up a ticket was for the mini.

Same...

I'll probably still go to get the mini, if I wait for ebay it'll be more expensive than the mini and the ticket combined anyway! It's typical that the first time i actually consider the mini to be worth getting in 6 years and they pull this... w@^k!

I've only been to two Games Days - the forst was 2010, and it was awesome, although, I admit that this may have been because it was the first one and I had nothing to compare it to. The Dark Eldar were on preview and there was a definite buzz about the place. I regretted my decision not to enter Golden Demon, but there you go, lesson learned.

Last year was disasterous. The sales area was just awful, and that coloured my day somewhat, as did my Golden Demon entry disintigrating before my eyes (I'm actually quite proud that I didn't cry). There wasn't really anything else to look at - as amazing as the Forgeworld stand was, it doesn't take all day to have a look at it.

So, do I go this year? I've been working on my Demon entries, and I'm still fired up for that, but £30 + transport just to enter a competition, I don't know... I'll probably end up going, but I'm somewhat reluctant to. Not all that bothered about the miniature...

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Apparently GW decide the ticket price and offer on a event by event basis. So with the increase in size of the event and other factors have taken the decision to keep the ticket price the same as last year but not offering the GD model as part of this.

"We can charge whatever we want - $1000 a day, $10000 a day - and people will pay it!" - Donald Generro, Jurassic Park.

We'll have a coupon day or something.

I'll be honest if I was in the USA I would be spending my dollar going to Adepticon or GAMA etc

I have been having a great time going to Games Days since 2007 and then back in 2004.

I can't remember 2004, but the last five years the price of admission, $25, did not ever include the miniature.

The mini was always available on a first come first serve basis to attendees first for $15.

I bought my ticket early for $2012 for $25 so whopping extra $5, may be a late admission fee or just a small price increase.

Or for those who love the media or just like to be outraged, it is a shameful 17% increase for nothing.

I think you get out of Games Day what you expect. If you expect to be constantly wowed, or expect free or extremely discounted merchandise, then you will probably be disappointed.

If, like me, you expect to have great conversation with designers, or like to mingle with other hobby enthusiasts at a special big event only for us, then you will probably have a great time.

How much that experience is worth in dollars is up to you.

£30 is a completely mental sum with or without a miniature.

I'll give you a tenner, GW, tops.

It would be very cool to speak to some of the design team, but is is £30 plus travel cool?

I'm over in America, and frankly I'd much rather spend the money to go to GenCon in Indiana, rather than a Games Day. I went there for the first time last year, and I can't imagine Games Day would compare.

hmmm last GD i went to i was still drunk from the night before...... guys with 8inch high mohawks and smelling of booze tend to get to the front of ques .....

i highly recommend this tactic it makes the whole experience vastly more entertaining

Wish i stood behind you then.It would've made a welcome change from the usual smell of people with b.o, you seem to get at gamesday.

A good 10-15% of people who go, don't seem to know what soap is.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:To be fair you used to have to buy the figure at the Games Days during the nineties, although a ticket didn't put you back £30.

I thought this was the case, too, glad to see memory isn't playing tricks on me! I remember queueing for a long time to buy them.

Last time I went it was still in Derby! Had a blast, went last year, not half as much fun.

One thing I will say, Brian (He who is in charge of Games Day) was genuinly devestated over the sales issues, I've never seen him actually distressed and angry before! He was not planning to do another one, but is so determined to improve the event he attended just about EVERY GD world wide last year to learn from and is running this years again despite his better judgement

Genuinly nice guy trying really hard to make things better

Valkyrie wrote:hey even had a discount stall (I remember you could get one of those large boxes of 20 Guardians for about £6).

GW have never had a discount stall at GDUK as recently as 2007, you are sadly mistaken there. They began doing random grab-bag 2 years ago IIRC, but nothing as concrete as you'll know exactly what you're getting.

Grimtuff wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:hey even had a discount stall (I remember you could get one of those large boxes of 20 Guardians for about £6).

GW have never had a discount stall at GDUK as recently as 2007, you are sadly mistaken there. They began doing random grab-bag 2 years ago IIRC, but nothing as concrete as you'll know exactly what you're getting.

I used to do GD regularly in the 90s, and I too remember the discount stalls.

The Decapitator wrote: I believe this is the first time that you won't get a model included in the ticket price, and that you have to buy separately. This won't be a popular decision. Don't know if you will be limited to 1 per person or not, and have no info on the price of the model as yet.

This is completely wrong. This always used to be the case, where you would be able to buy the model at the games day and it didn't come with the ticket. They changed it IIRC because people used to give backhanders to the GW staff so they could buy more than 1 model (which was all they were allowed). Now I guess they are changing it back.

And I also don't understand why people got to gamesday to stand in ques waiting to buy stuff they can easily buy online or order in store (I understand why you do it in the US, not in the UK). I remember two years ago the forge world order counter was rammed yet if you wanted to go and speak to John Blanche you could do it pretty much instantly. Absurd.

I remember picking up boxes of GorkaMorka in Spanish for £10 when the game was £35-40 new, I thought that was brilliant!

This must have been around 2004 or a bit earlier.

I entered Golden Demon too, because it got you in earlier.

ive not been attending GWGD for a very long time. Ive seen it as an expensive day out. £30 ticket, fuel (1 tank £60), parking £5-10, or a £15 coach subsidy. I would rather take that money and use it on the hobby or for something completely different.

When you work out what you could buy instead of the cost of going, your not far off the cost of half a brand new army and a codex!

£30 quid once a year to go and see design studio sculpts, talk to sculptors, artists, designers etc, see GD entries yada yada yada. That's not expensive. My local football club is in the third flight and they charge 18 quid for a terrace ticket, 25 if I want to sit down. That's to watch 90 minutes of Carlisle United vs. Nots County.

No 30 quid is not expensive in 2012.