I'm not a big fan of event reports. Sure, there are a few gems out there, but in general, they tend to be boring, long, and/or unoriginal. Of course, there are exceptions for every rule.

Today isn't one of those exceptions.

Instead, I'm going to look at a few select moments from Gen Con and talk a bit about what I learned from them. Think of it as a written companion to the photo blog coverage I did for GatheringMagic during the event. All right, enough talking; let's get to the stories!

Lesson 1 – Celebrities Are People, Too.

I gestured to him, asking if he wanted to use the outlet behind me. He confirmed my suspicions, and I moved over to let him plug in his monster laptop.

“You’re Brian Kibler, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Brendan.”

I held out my hand, and after a few pleasantries, Brian offered a personal demonstration of SolForge. We ended up talking for most of half an hour, mostly with me asking questions about the game and Brian answering.

This is a big lesson I've been working on personally for the past year or two. While I'm not confident this applies to the extreme—Hollywood, anyone?—I do know that it covers the majority of people we view as celebrities.

We tend to put people in the public eye on a pedestal. I'm guilty of it, and I'm sure that a large portion of you are as well. (There are exceptions, of course, and to those of you who are, I tip my hat.) All because we feel their fame makes them untouchable.

Brian Kibler, Mark Rosewater, and any other person in the Magic community with a modicum of fame is most likely a down-to-earth, friendly person. They won't bite your head off if you approach them in a reasonable manner, and there's a very good chance you could end up having a perfectly normal conversation with them, as you would any friend or acquaintance.

Next time you have the chance, go up to someone you view as famous and strike up a conversation. Make sure you're polite and cognizant of his or her situation, but don't hesitate to ask a few well-thought questions or mention a comment or two on whatever it is he or she does—but remember to be polite! I bet you'll be surprised at the result.

Lesson 2 – Things Aren't as Bad as You Think.

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

Despite having just had a perfectly normal conversation with him less than forty-eight hours ago, I was still taken by surprise at Brian’s question.

“Hey, man. It’s all right. How was Round 1?”

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! What a dumb question to ask. He probably hears it every two minutes.

For a moment, I forgot Lesson 1 and felt pretty dumb about my response. After I had ten minutes to think over the situation, I realized I wasn't that idiotic. Sure, my answer wasn't exactly grade-A material, but who cares? People are busy and distracted all the time. Not only that, but they don't judge someone on a single sentence. (Okay, any reasonable person doesn't.)

Whether it's meeting someone famous, playing a competitive game of Magic, or just plain running into bad luck in life, chances are you are exaggerating the negative aspects. There are certainly some situations—a death in the family or having your house burn down comes to mind—that are fairly serious, but many times, you can recover from your mistake to win the match and/or the day.

One of my favorite questions to ask myself is: “If this goes horribly wrong, what's the worst thing that will happen, and how do I recover?” Take a breath, reduce that thundering heart rate, and ask yourself the same question.

Lesson 3 – There Is Always More You Can Do.

“It was cute, but I really wanted to see each one as a postcard—a real letter to the person.”

Damn. The rough idea had briefly flashed through my mind the previous night, but I hadn’t even taken the time to consider it as a viable method of execution. Instead, I remained set on the form I had laid out the previous two days, and I’d left it at that.

If I learned one thing from my five years of architecture study,¹ it was that your work is never finished. You can always improve upon your idea or push it further.

Some people take this negatively, stating they need to finish in order to be paid, sleep, start a new project, or a multitude of other reasons (i.e. excuses). Sure, you can't work on one thing forever. There is a point when you have to accept that it's good enough to be shown to the outer world—unless you're Pablo Picasso and sneak into museums—but it's difficult finding that happy middle ground.

Too often, we fall into the trap of saying, “It has to be completed, so let's end it here.” We don't take the time to step back and evaluate whether we are where we want to be. Day 3 was one of those times for me. I was so intent on getting things done how I had previously that I completely ignored an idea that would have made my article ten times as strong.

Lesson 4 – Take Advantage of the Unexpected.

I didn’t blame Adam—heck, I was just happy to know I was going to have a pass—but I couldn’t help feeling down when I got his call. The hall had been open for thirty minutes already, and it was going to be a while until I could go in. I couldn’t even enter the tournament hall without a badge. Imaginary sights and experiences ran through my head, attempting to convince me I was missing out on something glorious.

I dropped the melodramatic thoughts, shrugged my shoulders, grabbed my camera, and started stalking the halls for photo ops.

Those first few hours of Gen Con without a pass ended up being some of the best out of the entire weekend. While everyone rushed into the dealer's hall or signed up for the weekend's events, I wandered the Indianapolis Convention Center finding another side of Gen Con.

I ran into numerous people who would end up barely setting foot within the badge-required rooms all weekend, yet they seemed just as happy as those within. I found incredibly rare arcade games, a giant Robo Rally arena made out of Legos, miniatures painting sessions, card towers eight feet high, and a ton more. In fact, everything outside of the main event would have made a pretty large convention almost anywhere else.

I could have easily let myself fall into a sour mood after finding out I'd have to wait multiple hours to go into the main halls. I could have had a horrible time. Instead, I looked at my situation and took advantage of it. To be overly cliché, I saw my situation for what it was (time to explore other parts of Gen Con), and not what it wasn't (the tournament and vendors' halls).

Lesson 5 – It's About the People.

While none of the wonderful things that happened two weekends ago would have occurred had Gen Con not existed, it wasn't the actual convention that made me smile on my flight home—it was the people I spent those five days with. I might go so far as to say it is the people who make Gen Con what it is, and not the games, vendors, or tournaments we see on posters or advertisements.

I tried something a bit new to me as a writer this week. Please let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter. Thanks for reading, and may you enjoy time well spent with awesome people!

¹ Accredited architecture programs are five years. I would love to convince you of their difficulty and intensity, but I'll leave that for another article.