Going to a Con? Read and share any tips you've found useful

One of the players that played in my Beasties & Bygones Demo at Gen Con posted an article about what GM's need to do to be good "convention gamemasters". Not to toot my own horn but he also commented that Ed and I were one of the GM's that got it right. Here are the bullet points from the article:

1) GMs need to learn to say “yes” to their players. The single biggest failing I saw in the bad games was GMs being so focused on their plots that they did not allow players any agency.
2) You can have a play without the set, but not without a play. In two of the bad games I played in, the GM had gone to great lengths to bring miniatures, maps, etc. One of the GMs had BOXES full of terrain, and another had boxes full of minis. The problem was that they both spent so much time on the props that they didn't have time to do the basic work.
3) Listen at least as much as you talk – in one game the GM was charming, witty, funny… and spent way too much time talking about the background and history of the scenario – to the point where we had to cut several scenes, AND the climactic fight scene against the big bad had to be cut short after only two rounds because we ran out of time.
4) If you are going to do pregen characters for your pregen scenario, make sure all your pregen characters have a chance to shine.
5) If you are NOT going to have pregen characters, you had better be flexible with your scenario, In one game I played in, it turned out that fully 80% of the encounters were ones where I was completely useless (either traps that a different party member had to deal with or creatures that were entirely immune to my magic). In the best game, all the characters had something to do each scene.

The article: edplaysgames.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/pacificon-and-convention-games-in-general/