First Gobo Con Features Games and Creators
Charles Romans
The Ashland Beacon
Goblin Con will be the first foray into a convention event by the owners of the popular game store, Goblin Traders in Ironton, Ohio. Owners Aaron and Amy Dillon said that April 2024 will mark eight years they have welcomed customers for tabletop and card gaming, and public response has been overwhelming. “We carry a wide array of products,” Owner Aaron Dillon said. “But we focus a lot on the tabletop and trading card games.”
“Our most popular games are Magic the Gathering and Pokémon,” Dillon said. “And on the tabletop side, we do a lot with RPG’s like Dungeons & Dragons and wargames like Warhammer 40K and BattleTech which are futuristic-style wargames.” Fans of other games in both genres also enjoy games like Vampire: The Masquerade and others and can enjoy weekly games played at the store. Dillon said Friday nights are Magic the Gathering, and on Saturdays, there is a steady Warhammer group as well as a group that plays the Disney card game Lorcana. Sundays are usually Digimon and Pokémon. “Then, throughout the week we have a group show up for different tabletop RPG’s like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and Vampire: The Masquerade.”
The consistent and widespread interest in tabletop RPG’s is what inspired the idea for the Gobo Con convention. “It’s been great,” Dillon said. “We try to offer anything that people are interested in playing. That’s what gave us the idea for Gobo Con because myself and a lot of the employees were looking around on a Saturday and realized we had five different groups playing five different games. We thought maybe we should rent out a place bigger than our storefront and offer all these things at one time.”
The convention idea spiraled from there, Dillon said, and they began discussing bringing in other vendors and creators. This led to securing a spot at the Boyd County Convention and Art Center on US 60 in Boyd County. Dillon said that in the future the event might grow into multiple days, but for their inaugural convention, they chose to set it up for a single day, Saturday, March 16. The convention will include a tournament for Warhammer 40K, the same for all the card games Goblin Traders hosted weekly (Magic the Gathering, Pokémon, Digimon, Lorcana, etc.), as well as tables set up for open gaming.
“We also have met a lot of local board game designers,” Dillon said. “They will be coming to demo and showcase their games. I know of one creator who has recently had their game come out in production, and they will have it there for sale at Gobo Con.” Dillon said that Gobo Con would be an excellent opportunity for people who might be interested in gaming to get out and watch the games in action to help them decide which games they might want to try.
The event will feature around 30 vendors, Dillon said. Vendors will also be on hand from other comic book stores, artists (as well as ‘reimagining’ digital artists rendering new takes on established characters), creators, etc., with some coming from as far away as Tennessee. Two of the artists appearing at Gobo Con – Joe Slucher and Rope Arrow – have art used by Wizards of the Coast in the Magic the Gathering game. There will also be a Star Wars LARP group (Live Action Role Play) that will be doing Lightsaber duels and Lightsaber training.
Dillon said that Goblin Traders is very active on Facebook, and they have set up a Facebook page specifically for Gobo Con as well. There are links to their website, advance registrations and updates available.