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Over the past years I have attended my share of Games Day events all of them being at the Chicago location, but recently I stopped going due to cost and the enthusiasm to go. They had cut way back on having seminars for upcoming release information; no kind of bargain deals or any type of sales and the limited miniatures didn't impress me. I never attended for the Golden demons because my paint talent is nowhere close for even trying it. But then the first announcement for 2013 Games Day came this year saying that they moving it to Memphis, which is just a few hours from my home vs. about six hours for Chicago it got me interested again. Now in my area Memphis is known as a rough city and even with the Bunker located there I refused to even attempt a trip, maybe this would force me to travel there. Next they announced the price was now $50 and was limited to 1000 attendees. I wasn't sure what to think of this because with a new town, maybe they are looking to make a fresh start and try to make it special again. Convincing a few of my friends to go we all bought tickets, remembering if there was trouble, they had my back or at least someone I could leave behind to save myself..
When the tickets arrived they were in wax sealed envelope, this was exciting to me because I had never seen this and my hopes where coming true that they were trying something new and special. Only to find out they miss ordered the lanyard and the ticket sleeve was the wrong size, all would need to be fixed later. Leading up to the event, I started to see ads in the White dwarf for special event only items and they would only show the Games Day miniature the day of the event. Now I started to get worried, because they phrased it as “you can purchase special event items including the games day figure”... So that means now they increase the price and now I have to pay for the figure years before I got free?? Just about a week before the event I finally get the corrected sleeve and lanyard including a BBQ invitation asking me to RSVP by the 12 of July and the post mark on the envelope was the July 12th.

The day came and we headed out to Memphis arriving at the Cook Convention center it seemed a very aged building and not as nice as past years at the Rosemont convention center. We got there about an hour early and were in the first part of the line. They had staff handing out glossy pamphlets that covered the daily events and a few staffers trying to encourage the random wwwaaagghhh.
At 10 a.m. the doors opened and the crowds flooded in. The layout could have been a lot better for the simple fact that as soon as you enter the main hall you either went left into the store or right to the rest of the convention area. With a small entry area when you first hit the floor, there was gluttony of people trying to figure out where they wanted to go with more people pouring in by the minute. It was no time before the Forge World line was backed up and lined out the door causing the crowd cluster problem to get even worse.
As with every year the line for Forge World was crazy again, but it does seem that the FW group is learning from their experience try new things to handle the crowd. Years ago when they first started to attend Games day events it was all day just trying to get through the line, plus having to then pay for your stuff at the booth with only a hand full of people working it. Now they have a queue set up, people to direct you to a multi bays where ten plus people where working away to getting items for customers.

After that you took your items to the convention store checkout instead of paying at the Forge World booth. One of the nice things was if you preordered your stuff, they put you in a short line, this is beneficial to them because reduced pick time and they know those items brought would sale. The Forge World queue was a nonstop continuous flow of numerous people waiting in line all day long up to the store closing.
The limited edition items that I saw was the Games Day “Marko Columbo” figure, the T-shirts and posters, The Games day poster was of a Dark Angel marine and half the picture was covered with a giant games day logo..I would have considered buying one of them if they didn’t have a huge that logo took half the poster instead of putting a small one in the corner of the picture.
The T-shirts where actually nice this year and sold out very quickly, the XXX sizes seemed to go even faster, I am not sure if they under produced those sizes or they are not aware of the size of most gamers.
I was really taken back by the $30 price tag on the “Marco Columbo” figure; past years the figure came with the admission, now you pay extra. The figure was a nice sculpt for an empire player, but with no rules for the game and a very niche group that may be interested in it; I see why it didn’t sale well. It would been nice if they released pictures and some rules before the event, maybe allowing you take the model with any unit worth 500pts from any army book showing that he is a world traveling mercenary type. There were stacks of the figure left at the end of the day and I am sure the same results at the UK convention in a few months. One thing they could have done is learn from Forge world and just have a yearly event figure. Usually they have a 40k and a fantasy figure to choose from and this idea could be rolled in to the games day figure also. If we are going to have to pay, at least give us a choice.

The “build and take” events where crowded as they are every year, most had lines with an hour wait for each of the four events; the ork biker build was even longer. I would love to see them expand on this because it seems to be one of the more popular events. But one thing I have always disliked about this is with the limited seats you sometimes have small children that get in free, taking up the available seats, causing paying convention goers to miss out, that doesn’t seem fair.
I was not able to attend any of the seminars, I know they were located on the main convention floor behind a curtain verses years past having a private conference room. Didn’t hear how they went but they had long lines waiting to get in.
They did have some type of Battle board painting event, didn’t look to close into it because I was told that you had to buy the battle board there and then they would teach you how to paint it.

2013 was the first year that I know of for Games Workshop to do a Swag Bag, It consisted of a Plastic cup, Plastic water bottle, 3 buttons, ink pen and a blue canvas bag to put it all in. All brazened with "Games Day 2013" Everything was cheap quality material and seems not very durable. Again it was a great idea but poorly executed. Instead of spending a bunch of money and time on trinkets, what I would love to see instead take that money put a bunch of random OOP / old sprues, bases and items that haven’t sold and place them in a shopping bag from your retail store and call that a swag bag. It clears out old inventory and goes a long way verses something that can be picked up from the dollar store. Having attended Adepticon this year, they also had a swag bag and it was miles ahead of Games Workshops plus giving out about 2000 of them, remember this is double the amount that was even allowed to attend Games Day. The Adepticon Swag bag had tons of stuff that I am sure is worth a few hundred dollars including free miniatures from various dealers and even a starter battle box from war machine.

As for the BBQ event on Friday night, I was not able to attend, but the people I talked to say the food was good and they had a $5 sprue sale for the people attending. I would rather seen them take the money spent on the BBQ event and bring it to the con. I know they cannot afford to feed 1000 + people at the con for free but using the money you spent on Friday night to reduce the cost of food at the con and allow people to try the local BBQ for what Memphis is known for(Besides Elvis and Violence).
Plus I would have loved to be part of the $5 sprue deal and I think that would have got as much attention as the Forge world stuff.

My recommendation to the 2014 is to buy a big dry eraser board and write down the items needed, the cost, date required and delivery date, and then update it every day. To me a lot of plans seem to fall short or just poorly executed before the event. Do not spend a lot of money on trash items, like fancy glossy pamphlets and crappy giveaways. Also having the convention in the same town as your main plant location tells to me very little cost to move big display items to the convention center, because you are literally just moving the stuff across town, not trying to ship it to the other side of the country. The glossy pamphlet seems like a wasted cost that was not needed, you could easily direct people with printed signs that would be a quarter of the cost. We are there for the games. Hence the name of your con “Games Day”

Thank you for the write up!

These Games Day reviews all seem to be really similar thematically, which is both sad (cause they seem to suck) and relieving (because now I don't feel like I'm missing anything worthwhile).

Reading these reviews, I'm not really sure what Games Day really is. If it is GW's way of showing off their product they are failing miserably. It seems like its just a way for Forgeworld to make money. Who cares about a crappy BBQ and a speed assembling competition. Knowing that there are staff members actively encouraging the people to yell Waagh seals the casket for me in regards to attending this 'event'.

Thanks for the post, I have to agree with Ouze on the feelings of disappointment and relief

They had a barbecue?

Well I guess they had to do something with the $2000 grills the old HR manager Ben bought besides letting them sit outside rusting.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
They had a barbecue?

Well I guess they had to do something with the $2000 grills the old HR manager Ben bought besides letting them sit outside rusting.

They outsourced it .. local BBQ joint did it my understanding..

Honestly after the convention.. I wasn't sad about going...or happy either..just Meh.. I want them to realize this is a national convention and a great stage for bringing attention to things. I don't want to see "Games Day" go away.. but it drives me crazy to see glaring problems that you would think people would notice..
Plus Memphis is not as dangerous as the locals kept telling me.. but it did seem like a dead city.. very little traffic down town.. very few people walking around and ton of businesses closed in the area of the convention center..

This is why GW moved there. Cheapest taxes, huge city tax subsidies and cheap labor.

I went myself, and while I had fun and don't regret going, I certainly won't be going next year. It was an alright time, but most certainly not worth the hassle unless you actually live in Memphis. I travelled about 9 hours from VA, and it wasn't worth the drive/ hotel room.

So in summary, fun, but not THAT fun.

I haven't attended a Gamesday since the 1990s, but I'm afraid this review fits in completely with my experience.

The year I went, Gamesday US was in Baltimore, which at the time was just barely better than an abandoned ruin. Outside of one block next to the convention center food, or even an open store of any kind, could not be found in the downtown area. The hotel we stayed in featured a double-door security airlock to keep locals from getting in.

The actual event could just be described as overcrowded, and... not much else. It's really what I remember best. There were some D-Day beach landing scenario boards, and a Golden Demon, but getting to any of them required wading through a solid mass of 7 to 14 year olds. This was the year the 3rd war for Armageddon released, and their method of making it available was to hold it up, yell through a megaphone to come and get it, and let the children riot. And I mean riot - they would literally climb over the sales table to get at the person handing them out, screaming and clawing at each other. It was one of the most dispiriting things I've seen in this hobby.

After that experience, I went to just one more, the first Gamesday in Chicago. And... somehow it was ten times worse. Crowding was to the level that you just couldn't move any longer. I spent three or four hours chest-to-back in a mob at the Forgeworld high capacity lot before being slowly pushed through the registers like a sausage grinder into an equally crowded mess that spread across the width of the main hall. It took another two hours to attempt to leave, forcing my way through my sweaty, bored, frustrated kin.

After that, never again.

It sounds like, even with restricted ticket sales, they've not begun to understand how to make room for their attendees.

I went to most Games Days from 1996 to 2001. They were all excellent. The entire bits ranges were available for sale, they had old out of production stock for sale (anyone else remember the pallets of $5 Imperator titans?), bring n' battles where every point or kill you got netted you a free random blister pack, giant massive games with beautiful terrain, Armorcast there with giant Titan battles (anyone remember the Nurgle vs Khorne 40k titan setup?!) ,GW celebrities wondering around having one on one conversations with people, hell my friend even got a Norse blood bowl team given to him because they were just giving things out at the very end of the shows!

Sigh.

I went once. To Chicago, 2000 or 2001 I forget which. It was miserable. You couldn't talk because of the constant rounds of Waaaaaughs led by the staff. You couldn't move because there was a line for everything from looking at the cases to ordering Forgeworld. Even if you got to look at something it was a second or two because people were pushing the line forward. I was ready to leave after two hours (all spent in the FW line only to find the only thing they had left were some bunkers and some BFG ships).

Never again.

Worst gaming convention I've ever been to. To top it off, my friend John (an outrider) was told his services were no longer necessary when he made a post discussing the things that could be improved. We stopped playing GW games for six years after that because he was bitter and I lost my opponent.

Masterminis,net had a nice writeup on their GD experience as well. Was interesting to see the view of those from Europe.

http://masterminis.blogspot.com/2013/08/games-day-us-part-2-pre-gd-party.html

http://masterminis.blogspot.com/2013/08/GD-US-2013-Part-1.html

Part 2 is really part 1 since it talks about arriving to the con.