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Because jocks. Or something.

Ok, I'm sorry I singled out football fans but as I said, they were the most obvious group that purchased the one-day pass to kind of just hang out. And, if we weren't at (or possibly slightly over capacity), this would be great. All cons need new blood to survive.

Of course, you can't block football fans (or any other group) from attending. It just seemed to me that the football fans probably went to the games Saturday afternoon (not a fan at all, no idea when they were held), came back to non-host hotels that evening after hearing about the con and decided to buy a pass to have something fun and interesting to do that night; which, because of the crowds, they should have been turned away by that time. Sorry, if a die-hard sci-fi fan turned up at the same time, they too should've been turned away.

If the crowds could be dispersed more equally between the five hotels, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. And the con does do a good job at trying to do this by having many track parties at the Sheraton and Westin. Unfortunately, the Marriott and the Hyatt seem to have the largest open spaces for gathering and therefore attract more people. The Marriott did a great at keeping the areas around the escalators clear (in past years I was sure there would be a pile up of people around them) and, is it my memory failing, or did they remove some tables/chairs in the "sail" bar area that made for much more room?

Another possible idea... Before the skywalks, there were traffic cops that would often hold traffic so that large groups could cross mid-block. Do they still do this? Maybe this would help the congestion in the skywalks. Admittedly, I'm one that uses the skywalks the majority of the time.

I noticed a traffic cop on the street between the Marriott and Hyatt during the day. They were doing the same thing last year too. I'm not sure if that continued post-panels though.

I think a major factor at night is that you're allowed to carry drinks through the skywalk because it's "inside", whereas walking around outside with one is illegal.

What I think may be helpful would be to at least move the hotel skywalk badge checks away from the doors and back into a more open space. It would be a more casual check and harder for them to notice someone without one, but it looks like the badge-check method is working rather well at this point. Even only checking people when they come in from a non-hotel area should be sufficient. I'm not really worried about someone staying at one of the three main hotels gaining access to the other two in that fashion. I can't see that impacting much of anything unless one of the hotels has another block of non-con-goers who would care about this type of thing (in which case a check could be added just for that point).

Personally, for the number in attendance.. I didn't find the skywalks that bad. It was frustrating & a bit claustrophobic, sure.. but it moved about as well as it could have physically managed.

On that point, one thought that just occurred to me would be to open a large-ish room as a type of "quiet space" for use when the crowds do get to be too much for someone and they just need space to decompress.

It just seemed to me that the football fans probably went to the games Saturday afternoon (not a fan at all, no idea when they were held), came back to non-host hotels that evening after hearing about the con and decided to buy a pass to have something fun and interesting to do that night; which, because of the crowds, they should have been turned away by that time.

I know, it's neurologically impossible to be a football fan and also enjoy sci-fi. I'm sure that the colleges playing also made sure that no one that happened to like Battlestar Galactica got a single football ticket. Because you know, nerds don't need to be watching football anyways.

God forbid any of those Black Gay Pride people got into DragonCon either. The horror.

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