Board recreation conference rolls into Kelowna

Board players take over

Photo: Lyndsey Wong

Kelowna’s first-ever tabletop gaming conference opened this weekend on the Coast Capri Hotel, with organizers providing free admission to wildfire evacuees and reporting turnout properly past their expectations.

The Okanagan’s first tabletop gaming conference is underway this weekend in Kelowna, and organizers say the turnout has already exceeded their expectations.

Lyndsey Wong and Kyle Cardno put the occasion collectively after getting back from the same conference in Vancouver and realizing the area had nothing prefer it.

“I started last fall and fell in love with board games,” Wong stated.

Cardno says he is been gathering and taking part in for years.

“I’ve been in board games for quite a while now. I mean, I personally have an almost $20,000 board game collection,” Cardno stated.

Wong says the occasion has come toegther with the assistance of volunteers and sponsors, faster than they thought.

“Honestly, we are so happy. We couldn’t be more grateful for all the support. We basically ended up with about five weeks to put this together, which is an insane timeline. Even when we thought we had three months, everyone told us that was insane. So to try to do this in five to six weeks was a stretch,” Wong stated.

She credit the Coast Capri Hotel because the occasion’s flagship sponsor, together with help from native recreation shops.

“Dragon Cards and Games supplied our open play library, which is about 250 games for people to sign out and play. We’ve also gotten donations from other stores like Orchard City Games. We’ve got a couple of professional dungeon masters for Dungeons & Dragons coming to host activities all weekend,” Wong stated.

Free admission for wildfire evacuees

With wildfire evacuations affecting elements of the Okanagan, organizers have opened the conference’s doorways to these displaced from their houses.

“We have opened it up for free admission to evacuees,” Wong stated. “We’re hoping that some of them… lots of them, join us. They can just show up at the door, just let us know they’re evacuees, and we’d be happy to have them out of the smoke. It’s just a great place to come for three days, connect with the community, maybe get your mind off things, have a little bit of fun.”

No expertise crucial

Cardno says the occasion is not only for seasoned players.

“The really nice thing about an event like this is that you don’t have to be a board gamer or a tabletop gamer.”

“We’ve got so much scheduled content. We’ve got so many people here that are willing to teach you. If you’ve never touched a board game before in your life, you can come, and there’ll be opportunities to sit down, and somebody will teach you from scratch how to play the game with them, and I hope you have a good time,” Cardno stated.

As of Friday, Cardno says attendance is monitoring at about 175 attendees, and plenty of of them are wanting ahead to unplugging for a couple of days.

“I do not even know if it is a generational factor, however there does appear to be a powerful want to have interaction in social actions which can be off-screen, that preserve you engaged, but additionally nonetheless permit that human connection in an actual area collectively.

The conference runs midday to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to eight p.m. Sunday on the Coast Capri Hotel. Organizers say visitors can drop in for a single day or buy a weekend cross. Kids are half worth, and youngsters underneath 5 get in free. For extra data or to buy tickets click here.