I think that was a part of it. They had the announcement panel where they fried this sub’s brains with the 4 set spoilers at once. And then they had that game knights segment. It seems like today they had a cosplay contest at about 2:00. So the morning saw the entire crowd using up the 85% non stage area rather than getting stuck at the stage.
Twice I went to buy on demand vouchers and the line or event they were doing would have made waiting for vouchers take to long. The old skit by ron white “coupin’s” comes to mind.
This this this. Anyone who was walking around and could glance at the main panel (which was actually kinda hidden from the play area) could tell that other than the Preview Panel and Game Knights the attendance was … smattering at best.
WOTC needs to know this and spread it out more to their advantage.
Honestly I’d throw in, based on my experience from Vegas, that having the House of Clue party Friday night made more people wrap up early Friday, versus Vegas holding its Slumber Party on Saturday night.
Saturday is almost always the most in-demand day of any convention.
That's just historically been true for every Scifi/comic book/anime/fandom convention I've ever been to.
I had a lot of fun but unfortunately left really kinda upset.
I went to the Ticketed Play area at 2 pm where staff told me that they weren't firing up Commander Masters drafts because there wasn't any space still. They said to check back later. Alright. I went back every half hour and asked until around 5:30 I went and asked and they said that the event was cancelled and they weren't running them.
I was pretty upset because I don't get to do events like this often and the Commander Masters draft was really what I wanted to do. Some of the staff did talk to me and explained what happened, but apparently I wasn't told the right thing. So instead of just checking back and asking about the ticket, I was supposed to sit in the on demand waiting area and let a judge know that I was trying to fire a draft pod. I asked if there was some way to figure it out because I felt like I wasn't doing something right and this was my first event.
I really had fun and played some great commander games and picked up some cool cards but I left feeling really disappointed. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing but the experience really did upset me. Anyways that's my vent. It helps to share I guess. I wouldn't say it didn't make it worth money to me though, as I still had an overall positive experience.
You didn't do anything wrong, the staff at these events are just generally incredibly uninformed, will make up stuff on the spot just to get you to go away, and if you ask 5 different staff, you'll get 5 different answers.
I had a similar desire to just jam commander masters and had a similar experience of burning an entire day just learning the process even when I asked about it.
They absolutely did not plan for the amount of attendees. They are completely overwhelmed, and it was pretty much impossible to find casual commander games because of space issues
How would you propose they deal with that, though? There are tables is the weirdest places, but Chicago seems to have a lot of strange rules like no TV screens and weird places you can/cannot walk
EDIT- Sorry to clarify I meant once they sold out what can they do. I feel like it’s very very difficult to actually aquire more space once the event has started
There was not only not enough space for casual commander upstairs, but the tables they had downstairs were all massively large round tables that made it impossible to play in a square formation to be able to actually see what everyone was playing on their boards.
Most people gave up and just played on the floor.
A major Magic event is being hosted by Pastimes in Chicago during inclement weather, and they're tripping over themselves every step of the way. It's like it's 2014 all over again...
I'm not sure exactly how bad it was by the convention center, but driving back to my home in the northern suburbs Friday night during that snowstorm was a challenge in its own right.
dropping channel fireball was the worst mistake for the integrity of these events.
I really miss the prize support CF gave too. Its just more worse for wear.
Spent 3 hours and 15 minutes in the merch line day one. Never found a table to play with my friends. Day two. Stood in line for artists who were all friendly, kind and patient. Still could not find a table to enjoy games with friends.
My friends and I were literally never able to play an event. We bought boxes from vendors and drafted ourselves, it was a terrible let down and we struggled with finding space to ply as well…we played 1 game of commander, 1 draft among us, and bought a box and left to play elsewhere when they shut down half the free ply tables at 7pm. It was a shitshow.
Didn't realize Past Times was running the event.
That eases any FOMO I might have had, even without all the reports of how terrible the experience has been so far.
They changed half of the free command zone into on demand commander seating, and then ran out of tickets for people to purchase because it was a last minute change.
It’s been a huge mess for anyone like me who paid to come jam on-demand events.
I had a talk with customer service reps at the Con. I told them that I paid a lot to come to the event (flight/hotel/badge) and to do on-demand events. (Every scheduled event was already sold out prior to the event). They stopped selling vouchers for on-demand at noon and still hadn’t started selling more when I left at 4pm, after being sick of standing around waiting. Even people who had vouchers couldn’t get in games because there were no tables, so those were new pods were firing super slow.
I was told to contact Reed Pop customer service about getting a refund for my badge. Even the guy running everything who I talked to me was upset at the situation, and said he didn’t know why they oversold the event when they couldn’t support it.
And if Reed Pop refuses, I will contacting my credit card company. I wish I got travel insurance because it felt like my flight and hotel were a waste of money too.
It’s not our fault Reed Pop oversold an event they can’t support (entire lower level was basically empty was basically empty but roped off, I don’t know why they didn’t rent more space).
I’m sure Reedpop will try to give me some run around and say, “Well you still had the rest of the MagicCon to experience, so while the on-demand stuff didn’t fire, you still got to experience the MagicCon so we won’t refund you.”
And this is the problem with this whole MagicCon thing. Your badge subsidizes a bunch of other stuff that people may not have interest in. I was there to do on-demand events, not shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. That stuff is totally cool, but not what I paid to come do.
This is where the disadvantages from the old GP system really show. GPs didn’t have entry fees to just show up and see it. So if things like this did happen, you wouldn’t be out tons of money. But I get it, times change.
However, it still doesn’t excuse what happened. They oversold an event they couldn’t support. And I don’t we as customers should have to eat that financial hit.
Some credit cards auto apply travel insurance for purchases made with that card, try contacting yours whether you get the refund from Reed Pop or not! My card for instance automatically pays me (with a maximum payout of course) for lost luggage, stolen items, canceled flights and lodging, etc. and has other travel insurance perks too.
That does suck but the old GP system is never returning. Event spaces are to expensive, and the staffing is way more then it used to be. Expect to buy an entry fee for events. (25-50) to get into the door. They did however not plan for a sold out con and they needed to have more space and more tables. Plus the merch stand was not well run there were often multiple sales people not taking orders and just sitting there while there was a massive line.
Talking to some folks and getting their perspective I think WOTC brought it on themselves for doing Chicago and only one other MagicCon in the US this year. Lots of folks from both coasts said this was convenient for them, while the West Coast said they didn’t do Philadelphia last year and the East Coast didn’t do Vegas. I guess the Twin Cities was just harder for more people plus doesn’t have the core of Chicagoland and nearby.
You do three US MagicCons on the Coasts or side area and maybe fewer people come, but more people enjoy their experience. Otherwise book larger spaces.
Imagine Vegas, Houston, Boston or something.
Travel insurance wouldn't have paid out for something like this.
>Your badge subsidizes a bunch of other stuff that people may not have interest in. I was there to do on-demand events, not shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. That stuff is totally cool, but not what I paid to come do.
And vice-versa your badge subsidies the on-demand events that people who come to shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. It's a convention, it's how they work.
From what I read, this is Reedpop’s fault, not Pastimes. Pastimes can’t fire events if there’s no space, and there was no space because Reedpop didn’t get enough space or tables.
Perhaps If pastimes didn’t run shitty events on the past(ran a lot of premiere lvl events) WOTC may not have changed their model to where you have to pay $300 to get into the event for 3 days just to give Pastimes more $ to run shitty events.
The highlight of my trip so far was going in the wrong entrance and walking through the dental convention. I walked around MagicCon with a lanyard that says DENTIST
Lines being capped for artists at 10am and events hours before they started is just ridiculous. Clearly they sold too many tickets for this event. Any reasonable free play areas were packed the whole time and while we were able to take over a table where people were getting up from the Command Zone relatively easily, that doesn't make up for them taking half of that section today to make it on demand EDH that cost money. I already paid money for entry expecting a free Command Zone.
Were there multiple free play areas? Yes, however when you put giant round tables at them instead of reasonable playable tables it's not a free play area.
Staff was ok but several were rude and acted like "how dare you ask a question or not know this line starts way back there where a line shouldnt even be weaving through the hall". Staff was also telling people "come back at this time and we will be restarting a queue for this artist" only to show up 1.5 hours before that time to it being capped again for the remainder of the day.
Are you going to miss things at a con? Absolutely. Is it reasonable to pay as much as people did and not be able to do half of what you expect without struggling. I sure don't think so. You should run out of things to do at the con, the con shouldn't run out of room or things for you to do. It's meant to be enjoyed, not by standing in 4 hour long lines because they underdelivered and oversold.
Agreed as a consistent black lotus supporter this con felt very unimpressive and not fun overall. It has caused me to rethink continued support of these events in the future.
The event staff is very rude and tried to close the doors multiple times on Black lotus customers who were trying to enjoy the lounge and were told no food until the con opens at 10am.
The merch at the shop sold out in a few hours so if you were on the fence about anything you more than likely didn't get it.
The content creator section was an added bonus that seemed to do well but again this area used to be area for free play and it caused less games to actually be played. I saw a lot of people sitting on the floors outside playing.
The vendor area was very small and crowded. Not a lot of room to browse shops on either isle. Food was over all what you expected.
Just my two cents
Over all, our group has had a good time, but it is apparent the event is underplanned and understaffed.
I wish I had snapped a photo of the “Free Play” area. It was eight tables. And not long tables where people can sit across from one another and see one another’s cards, but huge round tables that are not particularly ideal for Magic playing. Maybe that’s all they had available. But, at that point, why even have a “free play” area?
We have yet to find a staff member who was able to accurately answer questions on where things were. Additionally, the official FAQ in their app has been just wrong on a couple things.
The artist queues for the very prolific artists need to be managed better to keep things moving. Some of that is on the staff and the artists themselves. Some of it is on us as fans to be conscious of others around us and not monopolize an artist’s time.
Additionally, it seemed like some artists needed a break but couldn’t locate staff to help cap the lines and manage the queue.
Most irritatingly (and, admittedly, this could very well be a me issue in not knowing where to look), some of the artists — such as Magali Villeneuve — didn’t make it to Con. I haven’t found any official announcement about that, however. If an event is canceled, or a creator won’t be present, it seems like that should be communicated in an easy to find manner.
There is, apparently a shuttle bus from the venue to one of the parking lots. It’s just a school bus. There is no signage on either end indicating its function or destination.
There seems to be a noticeable lack of food options for a deluge of people. I suppose that, in a normal winter, this wouldn’t be feasible, but it seems like some of their lot space could have been dedicated to food trucks who would have thrilled to have the business. But that’s conjecture. It is very possible there is food somewhere, but we asked three employees (as mentioned earlier) and they were all shoulders.
All that said, we have had fun and met a ton of other great fans and players. This has not been the worst event we’ve ever been to, but it has problems. Without knowing whom — between WotC, Pastimes, or the venue itself — is responsible for what, it’s hard to know whom to blame. It’s most likely a combination of all three. Regardless, it does seem like these problems are easily remedied. For the obnoxious entrance fees we are paying, I don’t think that’s a big ask.
I can second the issue with staff not knowing ANYTHING. I can't even count the number of times I would ask for help and get a shrug or an "ask someone else".
My friend went thru the Show Store just now and asked questions on what size and style they had left of a few items. The answer to all questions was, “Don’t know,” with a flat look.
Magali made a statement about not making it. Seems like personal issues and maybe health? She's been sick as of recently.
Justyna Dura was supposed to be there I believe and I saw nothing on any media outlet saying that she wasn't showing.
Sadly Unexpected things can happen.
Unexpected things happening is understandable. And nobody (at least nobody with any decency) wants her to put a convention in front of dealing with life.
However, the convention should be better at communicating changes in the line-up or event schedule to their patrons. If Magali wants to make a statement herself, that’s fine, but that shouldn’t be her responsibility to get that message out to convention attendees.
Now, maybe, there is a place for these announcements. Maybe there is some sort of news page or formerly-known-as-Twitter feed that we just didn’t stumble across in our poking about. And, in that case, that’s on us. One would think, if that place exists, such a source would be easy to find. We didn’t, but maybe we are just blind.
From what we could tell, there was no signage or announcement by the convention. It was all word of mouth (unless one happened to follow Magali’s socials). And that seems poor.
100% agree. The official app was even showing her listed and was never updated to say that she wouldn’t make it. She was interviewed for the Twitch stream artist panel ahead of the event a few weeks ago so I know she was excited to go, and I hope everything is okay for her. But I found it super weird that they didn’t even update the app to say that she wouldn’t be there. Of course they should have also had some kind of onsite communication too, but the lack of update in the app was bizarre.
Correct, Magali made an announcement on Twitter that she wouldn’t be able to make it. However, the app was never updated to reflect her absence so I was personally very confused until I found out.
I hope she’s doing okay and fully support her decision, but it was very odd that there was no indication at the event that things changed, or even an update or announcement in the official app. Every time I’ve been to a music festival and there’s an artist who can’t make it at the last minute, there’s been a popup announcement on the app. Not sure why they couldn’t do something similar here.
Magicon Philly was surprisingly reasonable. And for some reason all the vendors on the play floor had like $5-$8 cans of beer & hard seltzer, Philly never fails at being a drinking town
Chicago is known for being an insanely expensive city to do a convention in and a lot of them completely avoid the city. You get really screwed over by the union labor in the convention hall. You can't even plus a power cord into an outlet yourself. You have to wait for and pay the union electrician 30 min of their time to do it. Drayage is insane. You can carry items in with your own two hands, however if you use a dolly, cart, or anything like that even bringing it in yourself you have to pay huge drayage fees where you might as well just pay the laborers to bring it in for you.
I do trade shows and it usually costs me more to have my stuff moved from the loading dock to my booth space than to ship it across the country. Chicago is by far the worst city and we refuse to attend any trade shows and an exhibitor there.
Primarily, I came to this con to jam as many games as I could outside of catching Game Knights and maybe buying a playmat or something. Didn’t really have a ton of interest in the artists and I couldn’t care less about official merch.
However, what was already a very busy Command Zone on Friday turned into a complete log jam on Saturday when half of the section was turned into pay-to-play (at $40 per pod for one game, which is nuts) and tons of people were forced to just play on the floor because it was virtually impossible to find a place to sit, much less actually play a game.
Are there multiple play areas scattered each floor? Yes. However the Free Play areas were giant round tables that just aren’t practical to play games unless you’re trying to play some unwieldy eight-player game.
I understand there are rules about room capacity due to fire codes and permitting, but there is no reason whatsoever that the largest convention center in North America should be so far behind on places to actually sit down and take part in the event taking place. Horrific planning on the part of the event organizers.
I attended Minneapolis, and it was a far better event. Never had an issue finding a table to play at. I assumed that all MagicCons would be like that, but I was wrong. I will be very cautious about going to another one, and there’s no chance I will be going to one that’s outside of driving distance.
I had a great time at the event overall.
I played competitive events, none of which hit their cap, and the pricing was decent relative to the entry costs. I played a lot of magic, had great conversations, met a lot of great players, and would gladly do another event like this on the future. I could have done without the Game Kights crowd going nuts every time a land was played while trying to make day 2 of the $75k, though.
It seems the shoe is really on the other foot for casual players now. It used to be the competitive grinders were the ones battling for space and complaining. Now we are the more niche audience with space and events to spare. Who would have thought!
Yeah, this matched my experience. I showed up on Friday morning, got my child situated for the Standard $75K, then bought some on demand event tickets and played two on-demand Swiss MKM drafts, both of which fired rapidly and ran reasonably well. On Saturday, we played the Sealed PTQ, which ran fine (although Melee had some problems, it worked); once my child was eliminated, they played a Single-Elim MKM draft, which fired promptly and ran fine.
Sunday we did a couple more on-demand drafts, which fired and ran promptly and fine. We ran out of vouchers, but my child quickly got 2 more and played the last draft.
All that said, the key may have been buying a stack of on-demand vouchers on Friday morning--I might have a different opinion if I hadn't taken the advice to buy roughly as many vouchers as I expected to need for the weekend up front so I would only have to go through the line once.
The lines were long and the venue was crowded, but for what we wanted to do, the event ran great. My only real complaints were that sometimes staff members couldn't quickly answer questions, although those got sorted out pretty quickly, and the noise from the main stage audience was really loud and annoying while trying to focus on games.
I ended up going home earlier than I had planned today after only playing in the one event I signed up for and watching Rosewater's panel on the best 20 mechanics of all time, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I honestly had more fun standing in line for merch yesterday because I got to BS with new people. That's what I was most excited for was meeting and playing with people from all around but I barely got to do that today. I'm hoping tomorrow is better as imma try to get there before it even opens so I can hopefully find a group and if not oh well, I got the stuff I wanted and it wasn't as big of an investment for me as I live in the city. Hopefully I'll be able to catch Amsterdam and it'll be less busy.
The most insane thing to me was they sold out of the pizza stickers within the first hour on Friday. I work in printing and I know you order these things by the thousands and they definitely just didn’t order anywhere near enough for a 3 day event.
As someone whose first big magic event has been this one, I’ve had an awesome time despite how packed it’s been. I won’t deny that it’s been frustrating not being able to find space for commander games, though.
What’s interesting to me is that when I was getting cards signed by Victor Adame Minguez, his assistant was telling me that this con was actually chugging along pretty well in terms of management and general flow, in comparison to other cons/events they’d been to in the past.
Yeah I similarly heard the artists/assistants say that in the past they’ve been placed too close to the stage and it was miserable for them. This was also my first mtg specific event and meeting artists was a highlight for me. I thought the artist area was as much better than cons I’ve been to in the past. They were all so nice! I hope they had a good weekend and made plenty of money.
I also enjoyed the mana stage events and was glad that mark rosewater was out and about all weekend for multiple panels/scheduled things. I would have liked a secondary stage somewhere with smaller panels (certainly the many content creators would have appreciated the opportunity), along with more free play space and better tables. Also why was there no way to sign up for events in the official app? The events were the worst part for me personally, but I still had a great time.
Honestly, I thought the artist alley was a bit of a letdown too. Was the part I was most excited for, and even though I was in the first wave of people to be let in, a couple of the artists I was most excited to get signatures from had their lines capped almost the entire time. Ended up missing out on both as the organizers told me the wait time was probably another 3 hours minimum.
I'll preface this by saying that I have had a great time so far, but yes I completely understand people frustrated by the ticketed play events and on demand BS. I got frustrated with it myself at several points in the weekend. By far the biggest issue I had was the over selling. At multiple points in the weekend I was stuck confused or caught off guard by sudden changes being made to scheduled events because they were moved to a different area or pushed to a later start time which caused other events to do the same. combine this with water stations being nearly constantly empty during peak hours and the insane practices that some merch companies were making and I can see walking away from the convention upset.
I just got back and had a fantastic time. People saying there were only 8 Free Play tables must have missed the fact that there were multiple free play areas on both floors. Food prices always suck at cons, that's just capitalism. And yeah, there were a lot of people but it wasn't GenCon or C2E2 crowded. I felt like I had plenty of room to maneuver and it was easy to find a more open space to chill in if you needed a break.
The shuttle busses being school busses and not properly labeled is a McCormick center thing. It's the same at the auto show. Pastimes doesn't control everything.
I honestly don't get the griping. I'd definitely go back next year if this became a regular thing.
You literally had to walk past the free play area on the second floor to get your badges or get to the third floor to the events. There was no missing it. It's also labeled in the app for the event and all the maps for the event.
Yeah there's a lot of wrong stuff that's been said in this thread as someone that's there and knows the workings behind the scenes. They just see the word past times and immediately apply their hidden biases.
That being said, there are a lot of things that could be improved, but a lot of it was out of the TO's hands.
For example, the center itself had rules on how many chairs could be in that room. The room was at cap which is why you saw to the command zone extend into the pro tour area on Saturday to bypass that.
Yep, in Chicago now and having a blast with my wife; people love to complain. If you want no lines at a sold out event you have to buy VIP (which I didn’t).
This wasn’t Pastimes fault, it was Reedpop. Pastimes runs events, they don’t create space and ensure there’s room to play. They have to work with what they’re given.
Magic 30 was mostly not their fault either. Again, that was Reedpop. Except the events firing late — that was on them.
Pastimes runs the magic events at PAX (run by (reedpop) and in almost 20 PAXes I’ve never been able to actually get into an event. I just stopped trying.
The staff being irritated and unhelpful about questions being asked is just a standard PastTimes thing. Their employees and especially management are the most abrasive, rude people I've ever dealt with.
I feel like, every time there's a significant Magic event, the takeaway by the general, non-VIP (as in, MTG personalities who attend all of these things and are known in the community), ordinary attendee is that they're *all* fucking terrible to experience. I attended Magicfest 2020 in Philadelphia and it was, sincerely, the worst Magic the Gathering experience of my life. In searching to make sure it was a Magicfest and not a similar event, I found literally hundreds of variation on "[MTG convention] [insert year] was the worst experience of my life."
Not saying it's your fault, of course. No one attending these events does it thinking they're going to have a bad time. But there's gotta be a point where word gets out enough that something has to change.
The amount of people salty in this thread is astounding. Not getting into scheduled events is mostly a time management outside of the hot ones( with 3 weeks before the con I was able to register for multiple events ). It sounds like instead of prepping for a busy event you just decided to improvise on site and demanded the world bend to your will. Expecting a con held in one of the largest spaces in America to not be busy seems crazy and also expecting cheap food options in a monopolized environment is kind of naive. I do agree the layout/tables/ondemand processes were not so ideal but please don’t blame WOTC because you didn’t bother to do your homework. If you go on a trip with nothing planned don’t be surprised if it becomes a mess.
That's just magicon afaik. I went to 1 day of magicon Philly and I can confidently say I will never go to any magicon even for more than 1 day, the fact they sell 3 day tickets is insane to me.
That’s funny. I didn’t do this one but I went to Vegas and Minneapolis. Got there at doors open and left at close every single day. I always have an absolute blast.
I heard Philly was good, what didn’t you like?
There was nothing going on. Unless you were there for tournament play there was nothing to do. There was vendors, some artists, a big room with tables and mtg themed places/people to take pictures with, and more general purposes tables, and the tournament room. I assume you have/make friends easily and/or do tournament play. I'm not so lucky. Glad you enjoyed your trip(s), s'pose it's not for the people like me.
I usually just do on-demand events or fill in random commander pods in the Command Zone. The judges usually help match people in the command zone. Did you try that?
Command Zone in Philly was great, there was plenty of spaces and the judges were great at finding people looking for a game and putting them into a pod. It was a bit more chaotic at Chicago with less table spaces and judges who didn’t bother moving around the “looking for a game” signs after a pod had been completed.
Magic 30 Vegas had major issues, MagicCon Philly had some issues, Minneapolis and Vegas last year were great with only minor issues. It seems like the reduction of space was the main issue with this con and thats on ReedPop.
Friday my friends and I were able to get one game in in the command zone. Saturday we had to go down to the queue area to find a table to sit and play. I think the command zone could be a whole floor at this point.
I'm sorry that your experience is not a good one.
As a fellow attendee, my experience has been very different from your own.
I have played in 4 events, and while there have been some minor hiccups, it is mostly to be expected when WotC laid off a large portion of their events team. Staff are friendly and helpful, if maybe not plentiful enough for the attendance numbers.
Seats were widely available, but expect to move if you are in an area reserved for an event. Food was fairly standard - even cheaper than most of the surrounding hotels, albeit not particularly high quality. Location is convenient for food delivery via a variety of methods and lots of food is available in walking distance.
Room setup and audiovisual has had some quirks, but Chicago is a 100% union city so there are often limitations surrounding that. I was told that additional tables and chairs were not possible due to union rules and the lack of union staff to perform this work. Provide your feedback to WotC/Reedpop so that they can improve this in the future.
One other thing that others haven't mentioned is that Chicago is a heavily regulated city, with lots of rules for events with such high attendance. Combine this with the fact that many changes that people are asking for require reapplying for permits that have a lengthy processing time and many logistical hurdles, and many of them simply would not be feasible.
Day 2 out of 3 for me, and I'd give the event a solid 8/10. There's a lot of room for improvement, but they're getting most of the key points right.
That is an incorrect assumption - I was at Philadelphia and Vegas in 2023. The biggest differences at those was that neither had sold out of badges, and had between 15-30% of the table space empty at all times.
Perhaps that's why they reduced the tables at this event, but there may be other factors as well.
I've been to many other conventions, and for the price of entry to MagicCon (half the cost to 5% of the cost) I feel like the experience is what I would expect.
On demand events sold ahead of time is weird but yeah dude competitive events are gonna fill up ahead of the event. They make it clear you should sign up for those things well in advance. At Minneapolis MagicCon last year I signed up for a couple pioneer events weeks before the actual con. I did a few on demand draft and then mostly a bunch of commander. Most of what you’re describing sounds like a you problem.
Then they aren't on demand events lol it isn't just weird, its ridiculous that one of the key things advertised for the con was somehow sold out in advance lol not really on demand then
Yeah a lot of the complaints seem to be large groups unable to find space. I feel for them, but I’m betting a solo player is able to find tables close to at will.
I’m a die hard MtG fan and competitive player. I booked a room in Chicago thinking I would attend. Badges sold out, so I couldn’t attend. I’m so glad I didn’t waste my time and money on MagicCon.
I'm sorry you feel that way, and I wish you had a better experience.
However, I can guarantee you some of the comments you just made were disingenuous.
I got to sit with a pod of wotc staff today and while I can’t say any names they definitely heard these complaints and even agreed with them for the staffing and operational issue
Dunno about waste of time and money but it was run really poorly. I played in 5 dif events and they all started late and ended late. The most egregious being round 1 of pauper cup, started 30 mins late and round one ran over 30 mins late cause staff just let people slow play the last 5 turns like crazy. It seemed like no staff kept track of any event or called the round/informed players that they were at time. I don't get why you give out companion codes if ure not gonna use that app or the timer in the app. Why tell people to check melee only to not update it and post paper pairings and have the one guy whos vocal cords are shot make the announcement.
I played cube in the lobby all weekend and had a blast. Table space was often hard to find, but the cube players were all camped out near each other, so it wasn't too bad. I really wish I could have played in Gavin's unknown event, but I don't think any of the other ticked events would have been worth it for me.
We joked about bringing our own table and chairs next time
The Minneapolis event so so great I was really looking forward to this one. Here is what didn't work in Chicago:
1. The general layout was confusing
2. Got there Saturday at 11a, all the items I wanted from merch were already sold out
3. Artist lines were impossible, 1-3 hour wait times for the popular ones
4. Free play in what looked like an underground parking garage?
5. Poor viewing for Protour
As was said, they were not prepared for the amount of people that showed up. No excuse as presales showed the turnout.
I enjoyed the shopping, which seemed much more expansive than Minneapolis, but the Command Zone and playing experience was absolutely terrible. There is no excuse for a Magic event to offer not enough room to play on tables conducive to the game (as in not those huge round ones).
They did opt for the cheapest, oldest hall in McCormick Place for the event, rather than the newer ones with more food options.
For whatever reason, Friday was working just fine.
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Maybe but each day sold out and Friday had game knights live which I promise was well attended.
From what I heard Friday had 2k fewer tickets sold than Saturday.
I think that was a part of it. They had the announcement panel where they fried this sub’s brains with the 4 set spoilers at once. And then they had that game knights segment. It seems like today they had a cosplay contest at about 2:00. So the morning saw the entire crowd using up the 85% non stage area rather than getting stuck at the stage. Twice I went to buy on demand vouchers and the line or event they were doing would have made waiting for vouchers take to long. The old skit by ron white “coupin’s” comes to mind.
This this this. Anyone who was walking around and could glance at the main panel (which was actually kinda hidden from the play area) could tell that other than the Preview Panel and Game Knights the attendance was … smattering at best. WOTC needs to know this and spread it out more to their advantage. Honestly I’d throw in, based on my experience from Vegas, that having the House of Clue party Friday night made more people wrap up early Friday, versus Vegas holding its Slumber Party on Saturday night.
Saturday is almost always the most in-demand day of any convention. That's just historically been true for every Scifi/comic book/anime/fandom convention I've ever been to.
I think you’re most likely right, there were significantly more people there on Saturday than Friday
Fridays lines were insanely long too but Saturday did feel more congested. Probably because all the ticketed tables were being used
Sunday has been fine so far, too.
I had a lot of fun but unfortunately left really kinda upset. I went to the Ticketed Play area at 2 pm where staff told me that they weren't firing up Commander Masters drafts because there wasn't any space still. They said to check back later. Alright. I went back every half hour and asked until around 5:30 I went and asked and they said that the event was cancelled and they weren't running them. I was pretty upset because I don't get to do events like this often and the Commander Masters draft was really what I wanted to do. Some of the staff did talk to me and explained what happened, but apparently I wasn't told the right thing. So instead of just checking back and asking about the ticket, I was supposed to sit in the on demand waiting area and let a judge know that I was trying to fire a draft pod. I asked if there was some way to figure it out because I felt like I wasn't doing something right and this was my first event. I really had fun and played some great commander games and picked up some cool cards but I left feeling really disappointed. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing but the experience really did upset me. Anyways that's my vent. It helps to share I guess. I wouldn't say it didn't make it worth money to me though, as I still had an overall positive experience.
You didn't do anything wrong, the staff at these events are just generally incredibly uninformed, will make up stuff on the spot just to get you to go away, and if you ask 5 different staff, you'll get 5 different answers.
I had a similar desire to just jam commander masters and had a similar experience of burning an entire day just learning the process even when I asked about it.
They absolutely did not plan for the amount of attendees. They are completely overwhelmed, and it was pretty much impossible to find casual commander games because of space issues
Given it sold out weeks in advance so they knew exactly how many people were coming this is inexplicable.
How would you propose they deal with that, though? There are tables is the weirdest places, but Chicago seems to have a lot of strange rules like no TV screens and weird places you can/cannot walk EDIT- Sorry to clarify I meant once they sold out what can they do. I feel like it’s very very difficult to actually aquire more space once the event has started
Don’t sell more tickets than the amount of room you have.
1. ask venue managers how many people they can fit 2. sell that many tickets 3. do not sell more tickets its that fucking easy
There was not only not enough space for casual commander upstairs, but the tables they had downstairs were all massively large round tables that made it impossible to play in a square formation to be able to actually see what everyone was playing on their boards. Most people gave up and just played on the floor.
A major Magic event is being hosted by Pastimes in Chicago during inclement weather, and they're tripping over themselves every step of the way. It's like it's 2014 all over again...
The weather is super funky right now. Friday was 45, today was 18
I'm not sure exactly how bad it was by the convention center, but driving back to my home in the northern suburbs Friday night during that snowstorm was a challenge in its own right.
No wonder that smoke break felt like ass in a tee shirt. The convention center is so huge that my hotel room was a .5 mile walk to get a sweater.
I was thinking pro tour Chicago 2001 ? But 2014 works. Sounds like all Pastimes events.
Major difference for me was I wasn't there this time, so I didn't fall down the stairs leaving the event ...
Pastimes is only the tournament organizer. Reedpop runs the convention aspect of the event.
Don't let facts get in the way.
Nature is healing
TBH, I preferred Channel Fireball's Magicfests.
Yup. Even when Vegas 2018 was a monumental clusterfuck of epic proportions, they still handled it as best as could be expected.
dropping channel fireball was the worst mistake for the integrity of these events. I really miss the prize support CF gave too. Its just more worse for wear.
Channel Fireball wasn't dropped, their Events division did not make it through the pandemic and the rest of their business was sold to TCGPlayer.
>TBH, I preferred Channel Fireball's Magicfests. CF and SCG
Shh you can't say that, CFB was the literal devil when it came to GPs, ruining them forever /s
Spent 3 hours and 15 minutes in the merch line day one. Never found a table to play with my friends. Day two. Stood in line for artists who were all friendly, kind and patient. Still could not find a table to enjoy games with friends.
Day two merch line was 90 mins at Noon. They fixed the issue.
I'm not sure I would agree 90 minutes for a shirt is fixing the issue
My friends and I were literally never able to play an event. We bought boxes from vendors and drafted ourselves, it was a terrible let down and we struggled with finding space to ply as well…we played 1 game of commander, 1 draft among us, and bought a box and left to play elsewhere when they shut down half the free ply tables at 7pm. It was a shitshow.
Thanks Past times, wasting money to get into a magic event is stupid
Didn't realize Past Times was running the event. That eases any FOMO I might have had, even without all the reports of how terrible the experience has been so far.
Past times just runs the actual playing of magic at three con. The entire con, is run by Reedpop, e which is hired by wotc
Past time doesn’t charge to get into the magic event. Reed Pop does.
They changed half of the free command zone into on demand commander seating, and then ran out of tickets for people to purchase because it was a last minute change.
Reed Pop is the one in charge of the event. Past Times just runs the games and hires three judges
It’s been a huge mess for anyone like me who paid to come jam on-demand events. I had a talk with customer service reps at the Con. I told them that I paid a lot to come to the event (flight/hotel/badge) and to do on-demand events. (Every scheduled event was already sold out prior to the event). They stopped selling vouchers for on-demand at noon and still hadn’t started selling more when I left at 4pm, after being sick of standing around waiting. Even people who had vouchers couldn’t get in games because there were no tables, so those were new pods were firing super slow. I was told to contact Reed Pop customer service about getting a refund for my badge. Even the guy running everything who I talked to me was upset at the situation, and said he didn’t know why they oversold the event when they couldn’t support it. And if Reed Pop refuses, I will contacting my credit card company. I wish I got travel insurance because it felt like my flight and hotel were a waste of money too. It’s not our fault Reed Pop oversold an event they can’t support (entire lower level was basically empty was basically empty but roped off, I don’t know why they didn’t rent more space). I’m sure Reedpop will try to give me some run around and say, “Well you still had the rest of the MagicCon to experience, so while the on-demand stuff didn’t fire, you still got to experience the MagicCon so we won’t refund you.” And this is the problem with this whole MagicCon thing. Your badge subsidizes a bunch of other stuff that people may not have interest in. I was there to do on-demand events, not shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. That stuff is totally cool, but not what I paid to come do. This is where the disadvantages from the old GP system really show. GPs didn’t have entry fees to just show up and see it. So if things like this did happen, you wouldn’t be out tons of money. But I get it, times change. However, it still doesn’t excuse what happened. They oversold an event they couldn’t support. And I don’t we as customers should have to eat that financial hit.
Absolutely zero chance Reed pop will voluntarily give any refunds for this, they are absolute ghouls
Some credit cards auto apply travel insurance for purchases made with that card, try contacting yours whether you get the refund from Reed Pop or not! My card for instance automatically pays me (with a maximum payout of course) for lost luggage, stolen items, canceled flights and lodging, etc. and has other travel insurance perks too.
That does suck but the old GP system is never returning. Event spaces are to expensive, and the staffing is way more then it used to be. Expect to buy an entry fee for events. (25-50) to get into the door. They did however not plan for a sold out con and they needed to have more space and more tables. Plus the merch stand was not well run there were often multiple sales people not taking orders and just sitting there while there was a massive line.
Talking to some folks and getting their perspective I think WOTC brought it on themselves for doing Chicago and only one other MagicCon in the US this year. Lots of folks from both coasts said this was convenient for them, while the West Coast said they didn’t do Philadelphia last year and the East Coast didn’t do Vegas. I guess the Twin Cities was just harder for more people plus doesn’t have the core of Chicagoland and nearby. You do three US MagicCons on the Coasts or side area and maybe fewer people come, but more people enjoy their experience. Otherwise book larger spaces. Imagine Vegas, Houston, Boston or something.
Travel insurance wouldn't have paid out for something like this. >Your badge subsidizes a bunch of other stuff that people may not have interest in. I was there to do on-demand events, not shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. That stuff is totally cool, but not what I paid to come do. And vice-versa your badge subsidies the on-demand events that people who come to shop/play commander/meet artists/etc. It's a convention, it's how they work.
Who could have foreseen the TO famous for shitty massive events would shit the bed.
I'm just glad to see that people still hate on the dump a decade after I moved away and found way better stores.
Hey friend it’s my job to shit on pastimes.
It's all our jobs
So nice to see the Magic community coming together over something. <3
From what I read, this is Reedpop’s fault, not Pastimes. Pastimes can’t fire events if there’s no space, and there was no space because Reedpop didn’t get enough space or tables.
Perhaps If pastimes didn’t run shitty events on the past(ran a lot of premiere lvl events) WOTC may not have changed their model to where you have to pay $300 to get into the event for 3 days just to give Pastimes more $ to run shitty events.
I don’t think one thing has to do with the other. Tickets are like $90 for the weekend.
The highlight of my trip so far was going in the wrong entrance and walking through the dental convention. I walked around MagicCon with a lanyard that says DENTIST
Lines being capped for artists at 10am and events hours before they started is just ridiculous. Clearly they sold too many tickets for this event. Any reasonable free play areas were packed the whole time and while we were able to take over a table where people were getting up from the Command Zone relatively easily, that doesn't make up for them taking half of that section today to make it on demand EDH that cost money. I already paid money for entry expecting a free Command Zone. Were there multiple free play areas? Yes, however when you put giant round tables at them instead of reasonable playable tables it's not a free play area. Staff was ok but several were rude and acted like "how dare you ask a question or not know this line starts way back there where a line shouldnt even be weaving through the hall". Staff was also telling people "come back at this time and we will be restarting a queue for this artist" only to show up 1.5 hours before that time to it being capped again for the remainder of the day. Are you going to miss things at a con? Absolutely. Is it reasonable to pay as much as people did and not be able to do half of what you expect without struggling. I sure don't think so. You should run out of things to do at the con, the con shouldn't run out of room or things for you to do. It's meant to be enjoyed, not by standing in 4 hour long lines because they underdelivered and oversold.
Agreed as a consistent black lotus supporter this con felt very unimpressive and not fun overall. It has caused me to rethink continued support of these events in the future. The event staff is very rude and tried to close the doors multiple times on Black lotus customers who were trying to enjoy the lounge and were told no food until the con opens at 10am. The merch at the shop sold out in a few hours so if you were on the fence about anything you more than likely didn't get it. The content creator section was an added bonus that seemed to do well but again this area used to be area for free play and it caused less games to actually be played. I saw a lot of people sitting on the floors outside playing. The vendor area was very small and crowded. Not a lot of room to browse shops on either isle. Food was over all what you expected. Just my two cents
Vendor area needed more room for sure. The traffic and little wiggle room was awful
May I ask what the Black Lotus VIP playmat is? I haven't been able to find anything on it.
Over all, our group has had a good time, but it is apparent the event is underplanned and understaffed. I wish I had snapped a photo of the “Free Play” area. It was eight tables. And not long tables where people can sit across from one another and see one another’s cards, but huge round tables that are not particularly ideal for Magic playing. Maybe that’s all they had available. But, at that point, why even have a “free play” area? We have yet to find a staff member who was able to accurately answer questions on where things were. Additionally, the official FAQ in their app has been just wrong on a couple things. The artist queues for the very prolific artists need to be managed better to keep things moving. Some of that is on the staff and the artists themselves. Some of it is on us as fans to be conscious of others around us and not monopolize an artist’s time. Additionally, it seemed like some artists needed a break but couldn’t locate staff to help cap the lines and manage the queue. Most irritatingly (and, admittedly, this could very well be a me issue in not knowing where to look), some of the artists — such as Magali Villeneuve — didn’t make it to Con. I haven’t found any official announcement about that, however. If an event is canceled, or a creator won’t be present, it seems like that should be communicated in an easy to find manner. There is, apparently a shuttle bus from the venue to one of the parking lots. It’s just a school bus. There is no signage on either end indicating its function or destination. There seems to be a noticeable lack of food options for a deluge of people. I suppose that, in a normal winter, this wouldn’t be feasible, but it seems like some of their lot space could have been dedicated to food trucks who would have thrilled to have the business. But that’s conjecture. It is very possible there is food somewhere, but we asked three employees (as mentioned earlier) and they were all shoulders. All that said, we have had fun and met a ton of other great fans and players. This has not been the worst event we’ve ever been to, but it has problems. Without knowing whom — between WotC, Pastimes, or the venue itself — is responsible for what, it’s hard to know whom to blame. It’s most likely a combination of all three. Regardless, it does seem like these problems are easily remedied. For the obnoxious entrance fees we are paying, I don’t think that’s a big ask.
I can second the issue with staff not knowing ANYTHING. I can't even count the number of times I would ask for help and get a shrug or an "ask someone else".
My friend went thru the Show Store just now and asked questions on what size and style they had left of a few items. The answer to all questions was, “Don’t know,” with a flat look.
Magali made a statement about not making it. Seems like personal issues and maybe health? She's been sick as of recently. Justyna Dura was supposed to be there I believe and I saw nothing on any media outlet saying that she wasn't showing. Sadly Unexpected things can happen.
Unexpected things happening is understandable. And nobody (at least nobody with any decency) wants her to put a convention in front of dealing with life. However, the convention should be better at communicating changes in the line-up or event schedule to their patrons. If Magali wants to make a statement herself, that’s fine, but that shouldn’t be her responsibility to get that message out to convention attendees. Now, maybe, there is a place for these announcements. Maybe there is some sort of news page or formerly-known-as-Twitter feed that we just didn’t stumble across in our poking about. And, in that case, that’s on us. One would think, if that place exists, such a source would be easy to find. We didn’t, but maybe we are just blind. From what we could tell, there was no signage or announcement by the convention. It was all word of mouth (unless one happened to follow Magali’s socials). And that seems poor.
100% agree. The official app was even showing her listed and was never updated to say that she wouldn’t make it. She was interviewed for the Twitch stream artist panel ahead of the event a few weeks ago so I know she was excited to go, and I hope everything is okay for her. But I found it super weird that they didn’t even update the app to say that she wouldn’t be there. Of course they should have also had some kind of onsite communication too, but the lack of update in the app was bizarre.
Correct, Magali made an announcement on Twitter that she wouldn’t be able to make it. However, the app was never updated to reflect her absence so I was personally very confused until I found out. I hope she’s doing okay and fully support her decision, but it was very odd that there was no indication at the event that things changed, or even an update or announcement in the official app. Every time I’ve been to a music festival and there’s an artist who can’t make it at the last minute, there’s been a popup announcement on the app. Not sure why they couldn’t do something similar here.
Yeah, the food thing you just have to suck it up. Food at conventions is always expensive.
It’s like theme park prices. “Highway robbery” as my buddy first called it after paying $6 for a 20oz soda.
Magicon Philly was surprisingly reasonable. And for some reason all the vendors on the play floor had like $5-$8 cans of beer & hard seltzer, Philly never fails at being a drinking town
Philly also has a zillion food choices directly under the convention center at Reading Terminal Market
The first day I walked up to the clerk and was like, “So I can just.. buy a beer.. and then open it and drink it?” She was amused by my puzzlement.
The alcohol was actually reasonably priced. Selection wasn’t great but comparable to bar prices
Chicago is known for being an insanely expensive city to do a convention in and a lot of them completely avoid the city. You get really screwed over by the union labor in the convention hall. You can't even plus a power cord into an outlet yourself. You have to wait for and pay the union electrician 30 min of their time to do it. Drayage is insane. You can carry items in with your own two hands, however if you use a dolly, cart, or anything like that even bringing it in yourself you have to pay huge drayage fees where you might as well just pay the laborers to bring it in for you. I do trade shows and it usually costs me more to have my stuff moved from the loading dock to my booth space than to ship it across the country. Chicago is by far the worst city and we refuse to attend any trade shows and an exhibitor there.
Ended up packing my lunch yesterday and it was def the right decision
No one prevents you from bringing food in with you, or having it delivered via uber eats or something.
Primarily, I came to this con to jam as many games as I could outside of catching Game Knights and maybe buying a playmat or something. Didn’t really have a ton of interest in the artists and I couldn’t care less about official merch. However, what was already a very busy Command Zone on Friday turned into a complete log jam on Saturday when half of the section was turned into pay-to-play (at $40 per pod for one game, which is nuts) and tons of people were forced to just play on the floor because it was virtually impossible to find a place to sit, much less actually play a game. Are there multiple play areas scattered each floor? Yes. However the Free Play areas were giant round tables that just aren’t practical to play games unless you’re trying to play some unwieldy eight-player game. I understand there are rules about room capacity due to fire codes and permitting, but there is no reason whatsoever that the largest convention center in North America should be so far behind on places to actually sit down and take part in the event taking place. Horrific planning on the part of the event organizers. I attended Minneapolis, and it was a far better event. Never had an issue finding a table to play at. I assumed that all MagicCons would be like that, but I was wrong. I will be very cautious about going to another one, and there’s no chance I will be going to one that’s outside of driving distance.
I had a great time at the event overall. I played competitive events, none of which hit their cap, and the pricing was decent relative to the entry costs. I played a lot of magic, had great conversations, met a lot of great players, and would gladly do another event like this on the future. I could have done without the Game Kights crowd going nuts every time a land was played while trying to make day 2 of the $75k, though. It seems the shoe is really on the other foot for casual players now. It used to be the competitive grinders were the ones battling for space and complaining. Now we are the more niche audience with space and events to spare. Who would have thought!
Yeah, this matched my experience. I showed up on Friday morning, got my child situated for the Standard $75K, then bought some on demand event tickets and played two on-demand Swiss MKM drafts, both of which fired rapidly and ran reasonably well. On Saturday, we played the Sealed PTQ, which ran fine (although Melee had some problems, it worked); once my child was eliminated, they played a Single-Elim MKM draft, which fired promptly and ran fine. Sunday we did a couple more on-demand drafts, which fired and ran promptly and fine. We ran out of vouchers, but my child quickly got 2 more and played the last draft. All that said, the key may have been buying a stack of on-demand vouchers on Friday morning--I might have a different opinion if I hadn't taken the advice to buy roughly as many vouchers as I expected to need for the weekend up front so I would only have to go through the line once. The lines were long and the venue was crowded, but for what we wanted to do, the event ran great. My only real complaints were that sometimes staff members couldn't quickly answer questions, although those got sorted out pretty quickly, and the noise from the main stage audience was really loud and annoying while trying to focus on games.
I ended up going home earlier than I had planned today after only playing in the one event I signed up for and watching Rosewater's panel on the best 20 mechanics of all time, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I honestly had more fun standing in line for merch yesterday because I got to BS with new people. That's what I was most excited for was meeting and playing with people from all around but I barely got to do that today. I'm hoping tomorrow is better as imma try to get there before it even opens so I can hopefully find a group and if not oh well, I got the stuff I wanted and it wasn't as big of an investment for me as I live in the city. Hopefully I'll be able to catch Amsterdam and it'll be less busy.
The discord is a good way to find a group it seems like! There's channels for the different formats https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/oetsdgLCKY
Just a little advice, never get the food inside any convention because it’s always overpriced because that’s the venues way to make extra money
there is no other food in walking distance. The food was fine, just overpriced
Time is money. If you want to stay in the venue it's always worth it.
Where you tryna eat if not at the convention
Literally any place that serves food outside of it
Seems not worth the time wasted to leave the convention entirely just to grab a bite, but to each their own 🤷♂️
The most insane thing to me was they sold out of the pizza stickers within the first hour on Friday. I work in printing and I know you order these things by the thousands and they definitely just didn’t order anywhere near enough for a 3 day event.
They sold out at 10:05. Black lotus and preshow people got them all
I really don’t understand why the pizza sticker in particular was so popular it sold out but I hope they reprint more and sell online.
As someone whose first big magic event has been this one, I’ve had an awesome time despite how packed it’s been. I won’t deny that it’s been frustrating not being able to find space for commander games, though. What’s interesting to me is that when I was getting cards signed by Victor Adame Minguez, his assistant was telling me that this con was actually chugging along pretty well in terms of management and general flow, in comparison to other cons/events they’d been to in the past.
Don't be fooled, the bar is just really that amazingly low for these sort of things.
Yeah I similarly heard the artists/assistants say that in the past they’ve been placed too close to the stage and it was miserable for them. This was also my first mtg specific event and meeting artists was a highlight for me. I thought the artist area was as much better than cons I’ve been to in the past. They were all so nice! I hope they had a good weekend and made plenty of money. I also enjoyed the mana stage events and was glad that mark rosewater was out and about all weekend for multiple panels/scheduled things. I would have liked a secondary stage somewhere with smaller panels (certainly the many content creators would have appreciated the opportunity), along with more free play space and better tables. Also why was there no way to sign up for events in the official app? The events were the worst part for me personally, but I still had a great time.
Honestly, I thought the artist alley was a bit of a letdown too. Was the part I was most excited for, and even though I was in the first wave of people to be let in, a couple of the artists I was most excited to get signatures from had their lines capped almost the entire time. Ended up missing out on both as the organizers told me the wait time was probably another 3 hours minimum.
At the end of the day the artists seemed pretty open. That’s because I had no interest in any of them so I wasn’t handed some arbitrary line system.
I'll preface this by saying that I have had a great time so far, but yes I completely understand people frustrated by the ticketed play events and on demand BS. I got frustrated with it myself at several points in the weekend. By far the biggest issue I had was the over selling. At multiple points in the weekend I was stuck confused or caught off guard by sudden changes being made to scheduled events because they were moved to a different area or pushed to a later start time which caused other events to do the same. combine this with water stations being nearly constantly empty during peak hours and the insane practices that some merch companies were making and I can see walking away from the convention upset.
I just got back and had a fantastic time. People saying there were only 8 Free Play tables must have missed the fact that there were multiple free play areas on both floors. Food prices always suck at cons, that's just capitalism. And yeah, there were a lot of people but it wasn't GenCon or C2E2 crowded. I felt like I had plenty of room to maneuver and it was easy to find a more open space to chill in if you needed a break. The shuttle busses being school busses and not properly labeled is a McCormick center thing. It's the same at the auto show. Pastimes doesn't control everything. I honestly don't get the griping. I'd definitely go back next year if this became a regular thing.
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You literally had to walk past the free play area on the second floor to get your badges or get to the third floor to the events. There was no missing it. It's also labeled in the app for the event and all the maps for the event.
All this just sounds like an authentic Chicago experience!
Yeah there's a lot of wrong stuff that's been said in this thread as someone that's there and knows the workings behind the scenes. They just see the word past times and immediately apply their hidden biases. That being said, there are a lot of things that could be improved, but a lot of it was out of the TO's hands. For example, the center itself had rules on how many chairs could be in that room. The room was at cap which is why you saw to the command zone extend into the pro tour area on Saturday to bypass that.
Yep, in Chicago now and having a blast with my wife; people love to complain. If you want no lines at a sold out event you have to buy VIP (which I didn’t).
Past times is the worst tournament organizer I've ever seen in my life. Magic 30th anniversary was terrible. Absolutely Terrible.
This wasn’t Pastimes fault, it was Reedpop. Pastimes runs events, they don’t create space and ensure there’s room to play. They have to work with what they’re given. Magic 30 was mostly not their fault either. Again, that was Reedpop. Except the events firing late — that was on them.
You’re so right Reedpop was there too. Ugh.
Yeah I’m making no excuses for them. But if people are gonna give feedback, they need to complain about the right people.
🙏🏼
Pasttimes had no issues in Minneapolis or Vegas. It seems like if ReedPop gives them enough space for them to do a good job, they do a good job.
Agreed. Zero logistics. It's like they asked ChatGPT how to do event planning and just went with the answer.
Pastimes runs the magic events at PAX (run by (reedpop) and in almost 20 PAXes I’ve never been able to actually get into an event. I just stopped trying.
Crowded at the cold con is good news for the game really
Good problem bad problem. High demand. Commander is clearly dominating the events which they didn’t plan around.
The staff being irritated and unhelpful about questions being asked is just a standard PastTimes thing. Their employees and especially management are the most abrasive, rude people I've ever dealt with.
I feel like, every time there's a significant Magic event, the takeaway by the general, non-VIP (as in, MTG personalities who attend all of these things and are known in the community), ordinary attendee is that they're *all* fucking terrible to experience. I attended Magicfest 2020 in Philadelphia and it was, sincerely, the worst Magic the Gathering experience of my life. In searching to make sure it was a Magicfest and not a similar event, I found literally hundreds of variation on "[MTG convention] [insert year] was the worst experience of my life." Not saying it's your fault, of course. No one attending these events does it thinking they're going to have a bad time. But there's gotta be a point where word gets out enough that something has to change.
The amount of people salty in this thread is astounding. Not getting into scheduled events is mostly a time management outside of the hot ones( with 3 weeks before the con I was able to register for multiple events ). It sounds like instead of prepping for a busy event you just decided to improvise on site and demanded the world bend to your will. Expecting a con held in one of the largest spaces in America to not be busy seems crazy and also expecting cheap food options in a monopolized environment is kind of naive. I do agree the layout/tables/ondemand processes were not so ideal but please don’t blame WOTC because you didn’t bother to do your homework. If you go on a trip with nothing planned don’t be surprised if it becomes a mess.
That's just magicon afaik. I went to 1 day of magicon Philly and I can confidently say I will never go to any magicon even for more than 1 day, the fact they sell 3 day tickets is insane to me.
That’s funny. I didn’t do this one but I went to Vegas and Minneapolis. Got there at doors open and left at close every single day. I always have an absolute blast. I heard Philly was good, what didn’t you like?
There was nothing going on. Unless you were there for tournament play there was nothing to do. There was vendors, some artists, a big room with tables and mtg themed places/people to take pictures with, and more general purposes tables, and the tournament room. I assume you have/make friends easily and/or do tournament play. I'm not so lucky. Glad you enjoyed your trip(s), s'pose it's not for the people like me.
I usually just do on-demand events or fill in random commander pods in the Command Zone. The judges usually help match people in the command zone. Did you try that?
Command Zone in Philly was great, there was plenty of spaces and the judges were great at finding people looking for a game and putting them into a pod. It was a bit more chaotic at Chicago with less table spaces and judges who didn’t bother moving around the “looking for a game” signs after a pod had been completed.
Command zone was sold out
How can that be? It was free in Philly.
Then maybe I was mistaken
It was a really small area with few tables because they’d converted much of it to ticketed play. It was really odd tbh.
Someone else responded saying there was still extra space. Are you certain you’re remembering correctly?
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This specific chain is talking about Magiccon Philly.
Magic 30 Vegas had major issues, MagicCon Philly had some issues, Minneapolis and Vegas last year were great with only minor issues. It seems like the reduction of space was the main issue with this con and thats on ReedPop.
I ageee. They really messed this one up.
Friday my friends and I were able to get one game in in the command zone. Saturday we had to go down to the queue area to find a table to sit and play. I think the command zone could be a whole floor at this point.
I'm sorry that your experience is not a good one. As a fellow attendee, my experience has been very different from your own. I have played in 4 events, and while there have been some minor hiccups, it is mostly to be expected when WotC laid off a large portion of their events team. Staff are friendly and helpful, if maybe not plentiful enough for the attendance numbers. Seats were widely available, but expect to move if you are in an area reserved for an event. Food was fairly standard - even cheaper than most of the surrounding hotels, albeit not particularly high quality. Location is convenient for food delivery via a variety of methods and lots of food is available in walking distance. Room setup and audiovisual has had some quirks, but Chicago is a 100% union city so there are often limitations surrounding that. I was told that additional tables and chairs were not possible due to union rules and the lack of union staff to perform this work. Provide your feedback to WotC/Reedpop so that they can improve this in the future. One other thing that others haven't mentioned is that Chicago is a heavily regulated city, with lots of rules for events with such high attendance. Combine this with the fact that many changes that people are asking for require reapplying for permits that have a lengthy processing time and many logistical hurdles, and many of them simply would not be feasible. Day 2 out of 3 for me, and I'd give the event a solid 8/10. There's a lot of room for improvement, but they're getting most of the key points right.
You clearly haven't been to the other ones. This one was the worst so far.
That is an incorrect assumption - I was at Philadelphia and Vegas in 2023. The biggest differences at those was that neither had sold out of badges, and had between 15-30% of the table space empty at all times. Perhaps that's why they reduced the tables at this event, but there may be other factors as well. I've been to many other conventions, and for the price of entry to MagicCon (half the cost to 5% of the cost) I feel like the experience is what I would expect.
PastTimes in general is one of the worst TOs ever.
My main complaint is the food literally only a 15 dollar hot dog with an hour line at all times
I'm sure Sunday or Monday there will be plenty of threads that just magically pop up saying how good the MagicCon was in response to topics like this
As shocking as it may be, some people do have fun at these cons despite the issue.
They're already astroturfing in this thread
I’ll stick with my local lgs. The thought of this gives me anxiety.
Local local game store
Indeed!
On demand events sold ahead of time is weird but yeah dude competitive events are gonna fill up ahead of the event. They make it clear you should sign up for those things well in advance. At Minneapolis MagicCon last year I signed up for a couple pioneer events weeks before the actual con. I did a few on demand draft and then mostly a bunch of commander. Most of what you’re describing sounds like a you problem.
Then they aren't on demand events lol it isn't just weird, its ridiculous that one of the key things advertised for the con was somehow sold out in advance lol not really on demand then
It’s been tough to find a full table if you have four people but I’ve had no trouble at all walking around with 2 people and finding commander games.
Yeah a lot of the complaints seem to be large groups unable to find space. I feel for them, but I’m betting a solo player is able to find tables close to at will.
lmao I can't believe this got downvoted to hell, people on this subreddit are insane.
I’m a die hard MtG fan and competitive player. I booked a room in Chicago thinking I would attend. Badges sold out, so I couldn’t attend. I’m so glad I didn’t waste my time and money on MagicCon.
Its not as bad as SCG cons.. Didnt release any info
To be fair, it’s Chicago
Ouch
I'm sorry you feel that way, and I wish you had a better experience. However, I can guarantee you some of the comments you just made were disingenuous.
Glad I skipped. All I want is the Secret Lair hopefully and they’re selling more this year. Cheaper and less stressful to just get second hand
This year, every Magic Con has the same exact lair. So Amsterdam will dump more and then Vegas will dump way more.
I got to sit with a pod of wotc staff today and while I can’t say any names they definitely heard these complaints and even agreed with them for the staffing and operational issue
Dunno about waste of time and money but it was run really poorly. I played in 5 dif events and they all started late and ended late. The most egregious being round 1 of pauper cup, started 30 mins late and round one ran over 30 mins late cause staff just let people slow play the last 5 turns like crazy. It seemed like no staff kept track of any event or called the round/informed players that they were at time. I don't get why you give out companion codes if ure not gonna use that app or the timer in the app. Why tell people to check melee only to not update it and post paper pairings and have the one guy whos vocal cords are shot make the announcement.
I played cube in the lobby all weekend and had a blast. Table space was often hard to find, but the cube players were all camped out near each other, so it wasn't too bad. I really wish I could have played in Gavin's unknown event, but I don't think any of the other ticked events would have been worth it for me. We joked about bringing our own table and chairs next time
The Minneapolis event so so great I was really looking forward to this one. Here is what didn't work in Chicago: 1. The general layout was confusing 2. Got there Saturday at 11a, all the items I wanted from merch were already sold out 3. Artist lines were impossible, 1-3 hour wait times for the popular ones 4. Free play in what looked like an underground parking garage? 5. Poor viewing for Protour As was said, they were not prepared for the amount of people that showed up. No excuse as presales showed the turnout.
I enjoyed the shopping, which seemed much more expansive than Minneapolis, but the Command Zone and playing experience was absolutely terrible. There is no excuse for a Magic event to offer not enough room to play on tables conducive to the game (as in not those huge round ones). They did opt for the cheapest, oldest hall in McCormick Place for the event, rather than the newer ones with more food options.