When I was in my teens, and already an avid gamer, I had the opportunity to attend a convention in my home town of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Growing up in a family of SF fans I had been to a number of science fiction conventions before, however this con would prove to be something special. It was devoted entirely to roleplay.
It was called ConFusion and it remains one of the best weekends of my life. I left it energized and eager for the next year’s con. Unfortunately it never came. For reasons I don’t know to this day, the first annual ConFusion was also the last.
I was left with the RP-Con bug and no way to relieve it. It was about this time that I stumbled across the book Master of The Game by Gary Gygax. It contained a section on running your own convention, an idea that I was desperate to implement. However the book also spoke of an existing gaming convention, one that was massive, one that had been going on for over twenty-years, and one that has been founded by the father of roleplaying himself. It was called GenCon.
In 1967 Gary Gygax organized an informal gaming get together at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Those who attended enjoyed it so much they decided to do it again the following year, this time as an actual convention. One year later, at the Lake Geneva Horticultural Hall, almost 100 gamers would gather to play. This was the first official GenCon, being named after its Lake Geneva birthplace, and as a joking reference to the Geneva Conventions, as the con was primarily devoted to war gaming.
The Horticultural Hall would be the home of GenCon for the next eight years. It would also become something of a roleplaying landmark as it was here, during GenCon IV, that Dave Arneson would debut his “castle sewer” adventure game. Finding it so enjoyable, Arneson and Gygax quickly agreed to collaborate on a new set of rules for the game. And so Dungeons & Dragons was born.
By 1977 GenCon had outgrown the hall and a larger venue was required. GenCon X would take place at the Playboy Resort and in 1978 the convention would move to the University of Wisconsin, where it would remain for the next six years. Here many players would camp in the surrounding woods, rather then head off campus to find accommodations. The university would become the site of such notable roleplaying milestones as the emergence of AD&D, the first sanctioned events of TSR’s new Role-Player Game Association (RPGA), and the release of Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Saga. This period would also see the convention’s event scheduling switch from the 12-hour clock to military time, a system still used by GenCon today.
By 1985 the convention had grown to over 5,000 attendees and found a new venue in the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center & Arena (MECCA), where it would stay until 1997. Attendance would rise steadily over this period, peaking at over 30,000 attendees, and the number of available gaming sessions would grow to exceed 1,000 separate events. This period would also see the first GenCon appearance of a fledgling exhibitor called Wizards of The Coast. One year later WotC would take GenCon ’93 by storm, unleashing Richard Garfield’s Magic the Gathering on a welcoming multitude.
In 1998 MECCA was replaced by the Midwest Express Center (MEC), a well-lit, air conditioned, modern convention center. By this time GenCon had seen six separate venues and four different owners, however the new millennium would hold even greater changes.
In 2002 GenCon was purchased by Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of The Coast. Deciding that a larger and more reliable venue was required, the convention was relocated to Indianapolis, Indiana. It was also decided that a second North American convention would be established, taking place in Anaheim, California. This new spin-off event would be called GenCon SoCal, while the original convention would be renamed GenCon Indy.
GenCon Indy debuted in 2003, quickly proving to be the larger and more successful of the two North American events, drawing over 25,000 attendees. GenCon SoCal was significantly smaller and by 2006 consisted of only 6,500 attendees. On January 26th 2007 GenCon SoCal was officially cancelled, with no plans to run it again. GenCon Indy had become the sole GenCon for North America.
Occurring from August 16th to the 19th, GenCon Indy 2007 has recently come to a close. The convention offered nearly 2,000 separate gaming sessions, with over 5,000 convention events in all. The site boasted a 218,000 square foot exhibit hall with hundreds of vendors and publishers on-hand to showcase their wares. Drawing attendance in excess of 26,000 GenCon remains the largest roleplaying convention on Earth.
GenCon Indy is not alone in the world however, and has spawned relatives abroad. GenCon UK and GenCon France provide venues for European gamers to congregate, while GenCon Australia offers our brothers and sisters Down Under a gathering of their own. Each stands as a testament to the fact that roleplaying is an international pastime.
In the end, be it held in Lake Geneva or Indianapolis, GenCon has always represented a coming together of gamers, all seeking to share with one another their love of roleplaying. It is an opportunity for players to step outside of the confines of their regular group, and perhaps even the regular RPG, and enjoy the company of fellow enthusiasts from all walks of life. GenCon may come to North America only once a year, but on those days, and in that place, all gamers can stand proud and say it loud, “I am a roleplayer!”
Next Month: A trip to a local gaming con whets my appetite for things to come.
