Hard to reply on my phone Troy so I won't quote specific things, but know I'm replying to you as best as possible...
There will be an enforced penalty on early removed games next year. It won't be insane, but it will be there since like I said, I know people who abused it this year and removed early and got and spent show cash. There are easy solutions here.
You're right on the scale for games. We stopped doing that once the hotel was completely overwhelmed by what we had and it didn't make sense to give away the world when we couldn't fit them all anyway. We will look at reinstatement of it. Honestly, if the early pulls can balance it out, which I think they can, this is an easier task.
After Party Food. Long story short, far more difficult than most people can imagine. Also, this year we should have had food at 9, 10 and 11. Weather totally screwed that up so we got it at 930, 1115 and like 1am. We use a franchise that is a bit further away because he's a pinball guy and we like to support our own. It would have worked a lot better if not for the weather.
Drinks - also would have worked a lot better of the center gave us what I thought they were. There were supposed to be tubs for the sodas full of ice, or so I thought. There were not. I don't understand how that worked out or why. The beer thing sucks and is what it is. We actually had more drink tickets to give away, but no easy way to do it. Additionally, they were almost impossible to give put properly because some people weren't listening to me when I asked them to grab one, and then some of them were mad later how distribution was done. It can be fixed for next year.
Agreed on food. Soda prices are out of our control. There was five options total with the ones at the back of the vendor hall. Would be happy to have more.