Charcon

CharCon is the place to be if you have any interest in Role Playing Games, Board Games, Card Games, Miniature Live Combat , Live Action Role Playing, Video Games, Kids Games, Fantasy Art, CosPlay, and/or Costume Contests.

CharCon was the brain child of Travis Reynolds and Nick Gillispie. Lets hop in the way back machine and see how it all started (insert sound effects here):

For years, our duo, along with a number of their friends they had been gaming with since childhood, had talked about opening a game shop in Charleston. They even had meetings about it and discussed some details. Alas, after years of little to no movement on the idea they came to realize that it was never going to happen. They both work full time jobs and while they loved the idea of having a true game store in Charleston, they just were not sure that it could work.

Around the same time they had been attending Origins for some time and their exposure to this great convention helped convert their desire to be move involved with the gaming hobby from wanting to own a store, to wanting to host a game convention. Thus the idea of CharCon was born. 2006 was the first year of CharCon and it was a learning experience for Nick, Travis and the rest of the small staff. Picking and choosing things from the other game shows they attended or say on the intertubes and making it up as they went, they manages to produce quite a successful show. Just over 375 of their closest friends and seven different vendors made it out over the Friday and Saturday show. The feedback was almost universally positive and combined with the turn out, it was enough to make CharCon an annual event.

CharCon 2006 was the culmination of many discussions over games about the lack of gaming opportunities in West Virginia. Several different gamers came together finally to attempt the impossible, "to put on a Game Convention" in our own backyard. The first CharCon was held in one of the back sections of the Charleston Civic Center. So far in the back, that you could not get to CharCon by using the front doors. Yes, you had to drive or walk around the Civic Center to enter on the back side of the building. Even with that obstacle, we managed to attract almost 400 attendees. Since we were hoping for about 250, this counts as a very successful first year. The space was good and we had a great time. We were so successful that we moved to a larger room for 2007. And yes, we had a door to the front of the civic center. CharCon 2007 was another success. We had a lot more space and filled most of it. In 2008, we added a little more space and had a great event. In 2009, we added a third day (Fri - Sun) and had over 500 attendees.