GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Thousands of gamers are in Grand Rapids for a weekend of fun, fellowship and a little friendly competition.
The ninth annual GrandCon Gaming Convention is taking over DeVos Place.
Brian Lenz founded this unique, unplugged gaming convention.
“It is something that I started back in 2012, 2013, and it is a family, community-driven tabletop gaming convention,” Lenz explained. “Tabletop gaming is something that brings people together, right? In a more formal way. You’re sitting across the table from some family, some friends, maybe some new friends, maybe some new family, you know, but at the same token, it allows you to look at each other, to communicate with each other, to have those ‘aha’ moments or silly moments.”
The three-day event is open to people of all ages and has plenty of different games for both kids and adults.
“If you’re into role playing-style games or, you know, there’s like little train pieces that you can make,” Lenz said. “You see it all.”
John Federkins is the co-owner of Role 4 Initiative— a custom dice company based out of Portage.
He is one of the many vendors at GrandCon and has been designing custom dice for 15 years.
“We are a family of gamers, and I’m a retired engineer so I’ve been in product development for over 30 years,” Federkins said. “We’re not just another dice company. All of our dice are about 30 percent larger than traditional dice, they’re higher visibility, they’re easy to pick up and read and roll, and we want to be as inclusive as we can.”
FOX 17 also talked with Kaylee Milner who was attending GrandCon for the first time.
“The biggest board game library I’ve ever seen,” Milner said. “My family always played…Scrabble, Monopoly, Clue.”
Then, Milner’s boyfriend, Tyler Davis, introduced her to a world of games beyond the classics.
“Since a kid, I played like Magic, the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons,” Davis said.
“If you’ve been thinking about coming out and are even vaguely interested in board games, you should definitely come and join us,” Milner added.
GrandCon started Friday and runs through Sunday.
Click here for more information.
