Game Plan: PLAAY Dot CON 2024!
Experience the best two days in tabletop sports gaming, June 21 and 22 (well, it’s actually FOUR days, see below!) featuring a variety of fun events, presentations, prizes, and plenty of time to connect with our incredible community! Here's the latest (04.10.24) look at this year's convention schedule--there still could be a few things moved around, we'll have the "final" schedule prepared by mid-May.
• NOTE that there will be tables available for open gaming throughout the entire convention—we want to you play whatever games you want, with whomever you want! You won’t hurt our feelings by choosing to do your own thing rather than play in our organized events!
Sign-up for this year’s convention closes 06.01.24!
Here's what we have for you this year...
WEDNESDAY 06.19.24
“Super Early Bird” (informal) events...
• "Welcome To Denver" Meet-Up, Enchanted Grounds! 2p-430p: Games, goodies and fun. Grab a coffee, get a sneak peek at some in-development game ideas, and hang out with fellow "early birds" at THE south suburban game space!
• Torchy's Tacos 5p-7p: The unofficial "official" convention hang-out eatery!
If you want to prep for your upcoming tabletop sports adventures by taking in a REAL game, we have TWO options for you Wednesday night...
• Rockies vs. Dodgers Coors Field, 640p
THURSDAY 06.20.24
• Rockies vs. Dodgers Coors Field, 110p (Afternoon game!): You can do both the game AND the picnic!
• Annual Pre-Con Picnic, Redstone Park: 5p to 8p: Classic picnic fare, hot dog, chips and fixings. If you want, bring something to share--beverage, side dish, dessert, whatever YOU like. Or, bring nothing and just come hungry! Athletic activities for the competitive--last year, we played wiffle ball, year before Fury Football. Corn Hole, of course, and who knows what else!
FRIDAY 06.21.24
Time for tabletop sports to BEGIN!...
• Registration, 9-930a: Get your lanyard, raffle tickets, goodies and convention guide, and get ready to PLAAY!
• Flea Market/Vendor Booths, 9-1030a: Open tables (free!) for anyone who wants to clear some space on your game shelf by finding a new home for games that aren't getting played. (Be forewarned: you might come home with more games and cards than you brought, haha!) PLAAY Games will have our annual "Ding and Dent" $3 and $6 sale items, and we'll have guest vendors offering THEIR goodies as well, including 49 Sports Games, Sideline Strategy Games, Stone Mountain Press!
• Soccer Blast Express Tutorial, 1030-1130a: Our new express soccer game will have its debut at PLAAY Dot CON, everyone who attends will get a free copy and we'll have a monstrous express soccer tournament to kick things off! This tutorial will explain the game, and give you a chance to try it out before playing "for real" in the tournament!
• Lunch, 1130a-130p: MANY great locations within walking distance, including Torchy's Tacos, Ike's Love & Sandwiches, Rock Bottom Brewery, Chicago Pizza and all your favorite fast food fare!
• Soccer Blast Express Tournament, 130p-330p: Our first-ever express soccer event, and YOU can be part of it! It'll be a World Cup-style "Group Stage" tournament, with a strong competitive balance. Winner and runner-up get raffle tickets! (Winner gets more!)
• Draft Duel Showdown, 330-5p: Oh yeah. Here's your chance to show your fantasy football expertise with our first-ever Draft Duel tournament! We'll split into groups of four, winners advance until we have our champion! Winner and runners-up get raffle tickets! (Winner gets more!)
• Dinner Break, 5-7p
• Panel Presentation, "Sports Game Ratings Challenges and How to Meet Them!" 7-8p: Featuring Glenn Guzzo (Strat-O-Matic), Joe Bryan (Sideline Strategy Games), Gary Brown (Stone Mountain Press), Grant Fines (49 Sports Games) and Al Wilson (Fast Drive Football, Fast-Inning Baseball). In this session, we'll throw difficult ratings conundrums to our panel of experts to hear THEIR approach. Like, how do you rate a batter who had one at-bat for the season, and struck out? How do you rate a back-up player who had superior statistics to the starter? We have a lot of sports game home-brewers in our group, and this session is sure to be thought-provoking and helpful!
• Guest Designer Showcase, 8-10p: Choices, choices, choices!…
> Grant Fines, 49 Sports Games: Grant is planning to demo his new hockey game.
> Joe Bryan, Sideline Strategy Games: (Joe's still thinking about what he'll show/do!)
> Gary Brown, Stone Mountain Press: Gary has a number of design projects in the works, including a new baseball idea.
> Glenn Guzzo, Strat-O-Matic: Learn Strat from the guy who rates the players!
> Mike Fitzgerald: "Battle of the Bands,” this game has made major advances, if you tried it last year (in its very early stages), you will LOVE seeing where the game is at now!
> PLAAY Games: We have some cool projects in the works, we'd love for you to try 'em out during this segment!
• Rockies vs. Nationals, 640p, Coors Field: another opportunity to catch a big league game, if you want!
SATURDAY 06.22.24
• History Maker Golf PLAAY Gamer Open Golf Tournament, 9a-1130a: Our annual flagship event, last year won by Jeff Tomlinson, with Paul Salzgeber, Silas Williams (twice!) and Mark Russell winners the years before that! We'll play at an all-new, full-color course TBA (created to integrate with Course Collection TWENTY), everyone gets a copy of the course to take home with them! We'll use our "Do It Yourself" golf cards; everyone gets to select their own personal pro-level skill set from the HMG qualities. Two rounds, with the second round played with the best scorers golfing last for maximum drama!
• Lunch, 1130a-130p
• Brown Bag Lunch Presentation, James Barnes' "Table Action" Sports Game Publication (1978), noon-1p: Keith Avallone will host this segment, taking you through James Barnes (creator of the Statis-Pro line of sports games) state-of-the-art (at the time) guide to the sports board game hobby, including chapters on the essential elements of a successful sports game and starting your own sports game company. What's changed over the past fifty years? Well--a LOT! (Like, for example, play-by-mail leagues, type-written charts and Neft & Cohen's Pro Football Encyclopedia!) But, interestingly, some things have not changed. We'll discuss, and field questions.
• HMB Time Machine Tournament, Divisional Games, 130-430p: After two years of "express" baseball, we're going back to full-play for the first part of this year's convention tournament. We’ve decided to stick with the same format as previous years: BYOT (“bring your own team”), any team included in an officially carded PLAAY Games card set is eligible, including fictional teams. Cooperstown cards, All-Time-Franchise Great teams, home-brewed teams are not eligible. Everyone plays at least two full games of HMB as we narrow our field before the dinner break.
• Raffle Prizes, 430-5p: We'll have $1000 in PLAAY products available to WIN! Everyone gets a set of raffle tickets with their registration (and you can earn more by participating in events!), just drop your tickets in the bin that corresponds to the prizes you want to win!
• Dinner Break, 5p-7p
• HMB TMT Championship Rounds, 7-9p: We'll enter the "express" phase of the tournament with eight teams remaining, single elimination, winner advances!
• TBA, 7-10p: We've decided to go foward with a giant demolition derby event with as many drivers as we can cram in, multiple heats, ONE car left standing!
• Rockies vs. Nationals, 710p, Coors Field: another opportunity to catch a big league game, if you want!
Sound like fun? It will be! Reach out to us if you have questions. We'd love to have you join us for PLAAY Dot CON 2024!