How does one survive Gencon?

Well I shall have to put together a survival guide, similar to my Otakon one, detailing all the things to keep in mind.  However, since the con is looming in the near future, I'll touch on the important points.  First of all you should always reserve a hotel room through the con housing as soon as housing goes live.  If you don't already have a room you will be driving into downtown each day (keep it in mind for future years).  Next if you have particular games in mind you want to play, you need to plan them from the convention catalog (this year's should be up soon on the gencon website) and be ready to register them the moment registration for events goes live.  The event registration process is a zoo and you should be prepared to miss out on a lot of your chosen events (unless you are very lucky), so make sure to have lots of backups.  Don't forget to leave time to decompress and eat too.  Don't make the mistake of trying to game every waking hour like it is a marathon.  Many new attendees are very ambitious in their scheduling, only to find they don't have the energy to carry out their schedule.  In short, if you want to go to Gencon, advance planning makes all the difference and you should plan on spending around $800 on a hotel, as well as another $100-300 on food (depending on where you eat).