GenCon geeks: Secretly, I longed to be among them…

Last weekend, there were two huge events occurring simultaneously downtown in Indianapolis. We went downtown on Saturday evening — no, not for either of the big events, but to return a tie to Nordstrom (exciting, eh) — and saw huge crowds of people.

There were hundreds of little pods of fans moving along sidewalks, waiting on corners, lined up for dinner, and clogging the corridors at the mall. And you could tell just by looking at them, which event they were attending.

Because the two events were: the grand opening of the new Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, and Gen Con, the biggest gaming convention in the world. You can imagine that the attire and social customs of these two fan groups were quite distinct. The contrast was very entertaining.

Sports Fans

Most of the Colts people had on their blue (or sometimes pink, for the ladies) jerseys, caps, etc. The Colts horseshoe logo and players’ names were everywhere.

My People

On the other hand, most of the Gen Con geeks (I use that term affectionately) had on dark t-shirts (was there a memo about wearing black?), accessorized with their big convention badges. Some were dressed for live-action role playing, complete with weapons. We saw a crew of pirates, a Goth couple, an anime girl with blue hair, a Jedi-type, and few others whose costumes we didn’t recognize. Oh, and some t-shirts with gaming web sites, and even one with a 12-sided die on the front. And that was just on the street and in the mall. We didn’t have badges, so we didn’t actually go into the convention center. It probably would have looked like another world!

Oh, how I wish I could have seen that. Maybe next year.

Photo by Brandy Shaul