Hi, I’m Gerry and I have the privilege of being the con director for the 35th Gaelcon,
I’m going to do a few posts over the coming weeks to fill you in on the many exciting things we’re doing this year but I thought I’d start with a general overview of my plan..
Let’s start with the details of the event.
Details
Gaelcon 35 will take place in the Crowne Plaza Northwood (Very near Dublin Airport) From October 27th to 30th 2023
A change that’s been coming for a while is that we now offer Gaelcon I.G.A. Memberships instead of tickets to bring us in line with other volunteer run conventions like Octocon or World Con.
Memberships will cost €50 but will increase in price to €55 on the door.
There is also a €35 Concession Ticket available for the unwaged.
Individual Day tickets are also on sale.
See HERE for more details
The Plan
So what do we have lined up for you? Here’s a very brief overview of what’s coming!
Guest of Honour
We are very excited to announce Lynne Hardy will be attending Gaelcon.
(Details of the panels and events she will be part of will follow shortly)
Multi-award-winning games designer Lynne Hardy first discovered roleplaying games at university. Over the last few decades, she has worked for Nightfall Games, Pelgrane Press, Cubicle Seven, Modiphius, and Green Ronin—amongst numerous others—as a writer, editor, or both. She also created her own steampunk pulp adventure game: Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks.
More recently, she formed part of the team responsible for updating Chaosium’s legendary Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. She now works full-time for the Chaosium as Associate Editor for the Call of Cthulhu RPG and Line Editor for the ENnie award-winning Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game.
All Weekend
RPG’s and LARPS:
We will be running role playing games and live action role playing games all weekend long. Submissions for games will open on June 2nd. There will be an overall meta story tied to the outcome of the rpg’s too. More about that will be revealed on June 2nd.
Board games!
Our amazing board games library will be open all weekend, just pay your refundable deposit (€5) and pick your game, we have a superb breakout area lined up this year too.
Traders!
We have a veritable horde of traders and Artists clamouring to sell you their wares! We’ll be sure to let you know who is coming!
WARGAMES!
We have confirmed Warhammer 40K and Lord of the Rings Wargaming events running for the weekend and we’ve made tickets available for them but places are limited so act fast.
CCG’s
While the merchants cup battle rages on our CCG team will be working to present some great casual contests throughout Saturday and Sunday for everyone else.
Panels!
We will be hosting talks and workshops throughout the convention, I can’t confirm any details on this just yet, for reasons.
Kids!
We have been working on a host of activities for our younger gamers but I am pleased to confirm
Fingal Community Gaming will be offerring specially written D&D games for 8-12 year olds and 13-17 year olds both in the main hall and in a dedicated sensory friendly rpg room.
Thomond Comic Creations will be running character creation workshops over the weekend.
The plan is that the kids will pick characters to play in games, then draw those characters during their workshops.
Please note all children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian throughout the event.
Special Events
Charity Auction
Our award winning charity auction will be returning on the evening of Sunday 29th, last years auction raised just over €27,000 for our chosen charity for last year BeLoNGTo which is a charity for LGBT+ youths and teens in Ireland.
Pub Quiz
Quiz Master Mr. Turner has confirmed that he will return to boggle our noggins (My words, not his ) on the evening of Saturday 28th.
Contests:
Saturday 28th
The Merchants Cup:
Organised play has become ever more centred in the local games stores and each one produces a set of Champions at various games.
Question is can they go from best in store to the best of ALL the stores?
To find out we’re going to pit the store champions of different games from all over the Island against each other.
The contest in CCG’s:
Magic The Gathering
Pokémon
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Flesh and Blood.
We are also working on a BattleTech contest too!
In the unlikely event your local store hasn’t already recieved any information from us, they can contact merchantscup at gaelcon.com for details.
There will also be Casual tournaments occurring throughout the weekend in the chosen formats.
Monday 30th
SPOTLIGHT DAY!
On Monday we’re going to turn down the competitive heat and make the main hall into an exhibition centre to host demo’s and displays from up and coming game designers.
We’ll be releasing details of how to apply for a space incoming days
So that’s the plan in very broad strokes, I’ll be making further more detailed posts about each of the above in the coming weeks.
Until then head over to: https://iga.ie/gaelcon/gaelcon-tickets/ to sign up for the weekend memberships now!
By the way if you’d like to help us make the weekend great by donating a few hours of your time to help head over to https://iga.ie/gaelcon/volunteering/ and fill out the form there.
Until next time.
Be Well, Be Safe.
Gerry
Con Director
Gaelcon 35
