Boycott GenCon?

[Wrath]

I have been attending Gen Con in Indy for years and intend on continuing to go, but I understand where both sides are coming from. I have several reasons why I am going and none of them are a statement of agreement with the law signed in Indy. I will state them here and maybe some of you will feel the same.

My main reason for going is that it's a great convention and I enjoy it. Gen Con has already stated and taken some action to state their disagreement with the law. I feel that not attending the convention is hurting the wrong party. I understand that tax dollars will go to the state of Indiana and that the state will benefit from this convention, but I also know that many game companies and retailers will also. People that had nothing to do with this law being signed and most of which aren't based in that state.

I would prefer to deal with individual businesses that use the law to discriminate or deny service to people of their specified choice. I'm a straight guy, but I have friends and family that are not. If I were to go to the convention and want to eat somewhere there in Indy (which will obviously occur because I'm in it for the four days) and any of those people are with me we will eat together. Any business that refuses service to anyone with me without proper reason will NOT be serving me either. Spending our money is our choice, not theirs. My friends of any other orientation have money that's just as green as mine and if their money isn't good at an establishment mine won't be either. It's that simple for me. If they want to hurt their own success of their business by making that choice I'll make my choice accordingly. Likewise, if I were to have the convention itself deny service to someone I'm with I would react the same way. Gen Con has stated that they are against this and I don't expect this to happen. So I don't plan to punish the con or any of the companies associated with the con when they're not associating themselves with that law.

I understand where people are coming from and respect how people are feeling, but I think people will just be hurting the wrong people and businesses by trying to make a statement against the law there. My protest will be at the capitol and with my dollars, but not at the expense of hurting the people and businesses that didn't make this decision and are stating that they are against this law.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Nothing holy about contracts. They were offered plenty of free legal expertise in the event that they did decide to break; an adverse change in local laws is just the sort of thing which can allow a contract to be broken without penalty.

However, this new law does not have an adverse effect on GenCon's ability to do gainful business. It grants increased opportunities to decline gainful business, which is not the same thing.

[alexondria]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

However, this new law does not have an adverse effect on GenCon's ability to do gainful business. It grants increased opportunities to decline gainful business, which is not the same thing.

I don't know if it would hold up, but they could make the argument that "a large portion of our customer base feels discriminated against as a result of this law and will not attend cutting our profits"

Now I don't know how large a percentage that would be and doubt they do either.

[Flyndaran]

I think the Music Industry's anti-pirating arguments show just how easily business can manipulate the facts to suit their own needs.

If lying about how much money is lost works for big businesses in regards to taxes, why not here too?

[Java]

I'm new around here, and I don't know if 2 weeks is too old to reply to a thread but.......
My kneejerk reaction is always to look at what's going to happen to the little guy. When, for instance, ML baseball players decide to stick it to the team owners by walking out, the players don't really get hurt. The owners don't get hurt, just annoyed. The ones who get hurt are the fan, and that guy who walks up and down selling hotdogs for minimum wage. In this case the people who might suffer are the "fans", and the small business guys that keep the industry alive. We're trying to "stick it to the government" by hurting everyone else. Can we not vote out the ones responsible, instead of cutting off our own toes?

[Andrew Hackard]

Mod reminder: Please keep the discussion to the specific question about Gen Con attendance. For discussions of larger political questions, use General Chatter. (And, as always, civility is key.)

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by alexondria

I don't know if it would hold up, but they could make the argument that "a large portion of our customer base feels discriminated against as a result of this law and will not attend cutting our profits"

Now I don't know how large a percentage that would be and doubt they do either.

I studied business law cases like Jimmy Stewart getting out of his acting contract after the war because it would impose an undue financial hardship, but that was a situation where it was relatively easy to show the difference between his pre-war rates and the going post-war rate for other leading men of his popularity, and it was easy to show that he'd been making army pay for the several years he was serving, compounding the hardship.

GEN-CON's claims that the law would hurt attendance would be speculation at this point; maybe if they could show other events in the state suffering similar decreases in attendance that might have a case that the change in law was unduly adverse. However, it would be just that, an arguable court case and not a speedy thing they could expect to resolve before the next couple of conventions had gone by, and how much of that free legal expertise could be counted on for that length of time?

It would give them the opportunity to buildup the attendance data though.

[felwred]

With the amendment to the law allowing municipalities to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, it nerfs the law in terms of impact on GenCon since Indy passed a discrimination ban. I wouldn't recommend boycotting GenCon this year because of it.

It should encourage GenCon to relocate when their lease is up, though.

Fred

[TheBigGeordieGeek]

Sometimes it takes the punters to show they are unwilling to attend events in regions where widespread discrimination in codified in local law.

I know EuroCon was very poorly attended this year as it was in St Petersberg, obviously the anti-LGBTQ laws were a major factor. I hear they actually made a huge loss on it.

Clearly no one wants GenCon to make a loss as they are contractually tied in until 2015, but you could always show your distaste by spending only the bare minimum in the city outside the con.