GameCon takes off for first annual event in Canada

Thousands flocked to the BMO Centre Saturday for a first-of-its-kind gaming convention in Canada.

Meibel Consulting is hosting Game Con Canada (GCC) which is hosting hundreds of vendors including AAA and indie video game studios, tabletop board game developers and publishers, eSports, cosplay competitions, celebrity guests, industry panels, game gear, gadgets and toy retailers from around the world.

“It’s been two years in the making,” said Chris Meilleur, CEO of Meibel Consulting and GameCon Canada.

“We started conceptualizing this thing during COVID and so we just started reaching out to some of our partners that we knew that might have some stake in the gaming sector to say, ‘hey, why aren't we doing this in Canada?“

Meilleur says these conventions are typically held in the United States, but felt it was missing from the Canadian market.

“There's lots of eSports events and different great things that are happening,” he said.

“We have tons of eSports here as well, but nothing on that BDC convention side where you bring the board games and video games and bring the actual publishers and the developers into the room, to show everybody what they're working on.”

ATTRACTING LARGE CROWDS

Brother and sister Kyle and Kaitlyn Fehr attended the event Saturday.

Kaitlyn says she believes she knows why GameCon is attracting so many people.

“A lot of stuff like this is happening to because ever since The Last of Us was filmed (in Alberta), the stuff would usually be in America,” she said.

“So coming to Canada really paved the way for this sort of stuff.”

Kyle says he has played video games since he was four, starting with his dad.

“Calgary has such a good video game base,” he said.

“There's a bunch of players I play with, Call of Duty and GTA stuff that I used to play with here.”

Business development manager for CreatureCaster Taylor Holloway, says he flew from Sudbury  to hopefully change the hearts and minds of many.

“We produce fine hand-poured resin models and we've been distributing them for about seven years now,” said Holloway.

“We do a lot of conventions all over the United States. And it's nice to see representation in Canada.”

Meilleur says he expects at least 30,000 people to attend the event through three days this weekend.

ECONOMIC BUMP FOR CITY

Owen Brierley, a PhD candidate in computational media design at the University of Calgary, and Dr. Richard Zhao, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary conducted an economic impact report for the event and its benefit to the city.

They forecast anywhere from $19 million to $28 million will be made in economic activity.

Game Con Canada also partnered with Child's Play Charity.

They plan to raise money to outfit every child healthcare facility in Alberta with games, TVs and gaming equipment to help improve the lives of children while in recovery.