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[Ghost0402]

Planning a day trip to Origins for Saturday the 24th.

Do you have to pay for parking?  The only thing i see for sure, 5 bucks to get in, and it costs additional money for the official events.

According to the website, doors open at 10 right?  That means vendors start at 10 I assume, first thing i want to do is hit up the CGL booth for stuff.

It closes at 6, unless you are in an official event, or something about adult something or other.  That wasn't real clear, can anyone shed light on that?

For official events, bring myself, Total Warfare, pencils, and dice.  Anything else?

And any helpful tips advice or comments, I'm open to ideas and suggestions.

Thanks folks!

[Death or Glory]

Answering your questions in order:

1.  There aren't any free parking lots near the convention center, so yes you will need to pay for parking.  Parking is generally $5-$10 per day depending on which lot you decide to park in.

2.  The convention itself is open from roughly noon on Wednesday until roughly 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.  The exhibition hall is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.  Basically the vendor area is only open from 10:00 to 6:00, but the con itself is open 24 hours a day.

3.  Bringing a copy of TacOps never hurts.

4.  The $5 day pass only allows you access to the exhibition hall.  If you want to participate in events, then you need to actually buy a badge for that day.  I don't know what their pricing scheme for a one day badge is this year, but I would expect it to be in the $20-$40 range.  I would expect to spend about $12-$20 on event tickets for a day of gaming.  Food at the convention center and attached hotel is both crappy and overpriced.  The convention center itself is located in the club district and there is a major counter culture music festival going on only a couple blocks away from the convention center at the same time as Origins, so expect to deal with a lot of traffic and drunk people if you attempt to leave the convention center around 10:00 p.m.-2:00 a.m. on Friday or Saturday.

[serrate]

Couple more questions:

Is there a swap-meet type of trade area, or only the Exhibitor/Vendor area? 

Is there a best day/time to wander through the exhibitor/vendor area, and how much time should a person set aside for it?  I guess that depends greatly on how much you enjoy shopping, but considering every vendor is likely to have game-related stuff available I can see myself wanting to spend quite a bit of time there looking for awesome deals.  Is GenCon better for this sort of activity?

[Juniantara]

Generally, you can't do any trading, etc. in the exhibit hall. Brent and I normally leave at least a couple of hours to wander through the exhibit hall - there are often board game demos and other booths where we want to spend some time.
Last year, Origins was pretty disappointing all around - if you are going to go to only one con, it should be GenCon.
That being said, the $5 day pass for the exhibit hall is a pretty good deal and can make for a fun day. If you are going on Saturday, plan to get there early because the lines can be vicious.

[Ghost0402]

Answering your questions in order:

1.  There aren't any free parking lots near the convention center, so yes you will need to pay for parking.  Parking is generally $5-$10 per day depending on which lot you decide to park in.

2.  The convention itself is open from roughly noon on Wednesday until roughly 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.  The exhibition hall is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.  Basically the vendor area is only open from 10:00 to 6:00, but the con itself is open 24 hours a day.

3.  Bringing a copy of TacOps never hurts.

4.  The $5 day pass only allows you access to the exhibition hall.  If you want to participate in events, then you need to actually buy a badge for that day.  I don't know what their pricing scheme for a one day badge is this year, but I would expect it to be in the $20-$40 range.  I would expect to spend about $12-$20 on event tickets for a day of gaming.  Food at the convention center and attached hotel is both crappy and overpriced.  The convention center itself is located in the club district and there is a major counter culture music festival going on only a couple blocks away from the convention center at the same time as Origins, so expect to deal with a lot of traffic and drunk people if you attempt to leave the convention center around 10:00 p.m.-2:00 a.m. on Friday or Saturday.

1.)  no big surprise there, the price looks reasonable enough
2.)  So i can get in earlier depending on traffic and such, excellent.
3.)  Good call
4.)  $35, and doing that as we speak.

thanks for the info.