Cancon is coming on rapidly, only 48 more days until I land in Canberra for the festivities to begin.   But not all is going well games are not filling up like they used to.

Now it is almost time to get serious about painting and getting ready, signing up or is it?

Overall I have found like many others have found this years user experience to be lacking.  I can see what they have done, they have looked at a very US style entry system, where you buy a ticket for the amount of days you are there, and then you buy entry into the game you want.

Having been in the US I am not sure why CGS is tring to re-invent the wheel, they could have asked one of the big cons in the US for what they do and I am sure they would share it. Instead we have a system that explains nothing on what has to be done, the work flow for the user doesn’t work.  To the point where many people have either purchases a game entry but no entry in to the con, or just a con entry and no game entry.  It took me three tries to enter before I finally go through the process it was tedious, and left a sour taste in my mouth.  This of course is not uncommon from what people have said.

CGS have a list of instructions every person should know that most people are going to remember 1 or 2 things, they should be prompted through the process,

To enter a TOURNAMENT at Cancon 2016:

1. Find your event(s) in the tournament section, read the blurb(s).
2. Note how many days you will be playing
3. Go to the ticketing page.
4. Games are listed by day and time (this is how the ticketing system work, please take your time to read the list carefully.)
5. Pay the Cancon entry fee for the number of days you are playing. (If you are playing DAYS and EVENING, only pay for the days.)
6. If you are playing WM&H, pay the prize fee for that event.
7. If you are ONLY playing an evening event, pay the evening entry fee
8. Find the games at the times you want to play, enter them (And this will add any event prize fee to your total)
9. Choose a T-shirt or Polo shirt (Optional)
10. Pay. (Ticketing fee will be added)
11. Save or print the ticket you will be emailed. (Some TOs may not need to see it, but others may want to.)

This could have been better and in fact it should have been, the work flow is terrible. The site to pay is poorly layed out and while I am being critical if more than one person has not correctly purchased a ticket then maybe the problem is the system not the people.

The worst part though is the credit card processing fee or Ticketing fee, at 3.85%.  But no way of paying any other way, you get ambushed with a fee you have no way of getting around.  It is gouging at it’s finest, I hope CGS get a fair kick from the punters about this.

The over all the experience has been really bad so far.   However I am stilling forward to going, not cause of the games, but to catch up with people some of whom I have not seen in more than 2 years, that is why I go to cons, to meet up with people that I have just not seen recently. The after hours social aspect is the biggest reason I go to everything, and I am keen for that again.