YARMOUTH, N.S. — Excitement and anticipation have been building for months for the Y-Con Gaming and Comics Convention and now the event is here.
The convention runs June 21, 22 and 23 at the Rodd Grand Hotel.
A description of the convention on the event’s Facebook page says Y-Con will be all about the best in “board gaming, comics, wargaming, cosplay, tournaments, collectible card games, and all things geeky.”
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE WEEKEND EVENT BY VISITING THE FACEBOOK PAGE
An entire room will be dedicated to board gaming of all sorts. There will also be tabletop tournaments of various games.
Y-Con president Dean Martin explains why the focus is on board games for this event as opposed to video games.
“The reason we wanted to do that is we wanted to create a platform for socialization because when you’re playing a video game, you’re facing a screen. The idea is to get everyone together and talking and socializing.”
Organizers say the convention has the potential to continue to grow into a really large event.
“All of our vendors are full. We’ve sold lots of tickets, so it’s going to be a really, really big event,” Martin says.
VISIT THE Y-CON WEBSITE FOR MORE INFO AND SCHEDULES
These types of events are very popular elsewhere and Martin says he’s not surprised that it’s taken off so well here. But the speed at which people gravitated towards the event really has him pleased.
“Just how fast it took off,” he says. “When we started out with this there was already a group that had tried to start it, but it didn’t really work out last year, so we were kind of finding that stigma of ‘it didn’t work last year, so I don’t think it’s going to work this year’.”
But Martin said the effort that everyone put into it quickly changed that.
“It is happening! The doors are going to open on June 21 and there’s going to be a lot of people there,” he said.
Martin notes they decided to focus on gaming because Hal-Con is really good at the comic-con/Sci Fi kind of thing. He said they didn’t want to repeat what Hal-Con is already doing so well.
But there is more to the event than just gaming. A great panel of presenters (see schedule by clicking here) has been lined up for the weekend. Examples include Julian Smith who will share advice and information on publishing Sci Fi and fantasy stories; and Josh Robertson, a local board game developer from Yarmouth working out of Ignite Labs who will demonstrate a new game that is still under development. Other presenters include Tony White, Comics in Canada; Maritime Ghostbusters; and more. A lineup of the panels is included on the Y-Con website.
There are also some local filmmakers in Nova Scotia that are going to be screening their films, including Yarmouth native Nicole Steeves and her film colleague Struan Sutherland. Steeves and Sutherland, science fiction/horror writers and film makers, will talk about the joys and challenges of filmmaking in Nova Scotia during one of the Saturday panel sessions.
“It’s giving local talent a platform to show off their work,” says Martin about the convention.
The online registration for the event ended on June 16 but you can purchase tickets at the registration desk during the convention. You can find more information about tickets on the event’s Facebook page and website. CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE TICKET INFO
Meanwhile, if successful the goal is for this to become an annual event.
“Absolutely we’re hoping to do that – to make it a mainstay for Yarmouth,” Martin says.
