Question about the first board game convention | Board Game Geeks

Simon Davis · 2026-03-22T06:35:07.911814+00:00

I was reading an old article on a game history site and found out the first real board game convention was in 1964 in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with only about 50 people. It's wild to think how small it started compared to the huge events we have now. Did any of you ever go to a really small, early con like that?

anderson.spencer5mo ago

My buddy's dad used to drive to a meetup in a VFW hall outside Toledo in like 1968. He said there were maybe twenty guys and they just had folding tables covered in hex maps and miniatures. The whole thing ran on a coffee pot and a donation jar for the hall rental. It was basically just a scheduled hangout, zero vendors or anything. He always said those were the real conventions, just a room full of people who really wanted to play.

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paul_stone415mo ago

Honestly, that 1964 thing gets repeated a lot but it feels wrong. Tbh, people were getting together to play games way before that, just not with a fancy name and tickets. My uncle used to talk about big war game meetups in the late 50s in someone's basement. Calling one event the "first" just ignores all the smaller stuff that came before.

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troykim3mo ago

1964 in Malvern PA. That 50 person number is wrong. It was actually 88 people. I've seen the sign-in sheets from the archives. The whole "people met up earlier" argument misses the point. A scheduled event with a name, a fee, and a rented space is different than a basement hangout. That's like saying the first movie theater was a guy showing a filmstrip in his living room.

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