17 Facts About Gen Con

Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events.

In 1976, Gen Con became the property of TSR, Inc, the gaming company co-founded by Gary Gygax.

Gen Con spent a short time under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, due to a lawsuit brought against them by Lucasfilm in 2008.

Gen Con's name is a derivation of "Geneva Convention", due to the convention's origins in Lake Geneva.

From 1978 to 1984, Gen Con South was held in Jacksonville, Florida, and Gen Con East was held in 1981 and 1982, first in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and then in Chester, Pennsylvania.

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In 1992, Gen Con broke all previous attendance records for any US gaming convention, with more than 18,000 people in attendance.

Gen Con briefly joined forces with its major competitor, the Origins Game Fair, and the two were run as a single convention in 1988.

In Indianapolis, the convention, now called Gen Con Indy, continued to draw between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors each year, at the Indiana Convention Center.

In 2005 Gen Con Indy generated the most direct visitor spending of any annual convention in Indianapolis.

In spite of Adkison saying that he did not want Gen Con to become a "mini-E3" in 2003, when E3 downsized in mid-2006, Gen Con LLC announced it would provide more show space for video game businesses.

Gen Con described their intention to "pick up where E3 [left] off".

Also in 2006, Gen Con LLC ran the official Star Wars convention, called Star Wars Celebration, which was held in the banner years of the franchise.

Benelux Gen Con was held in the Netherlands in 1998 and re-occurred there in 2000.

Gen Con has featured a number of events that raise money for a variety of charities.

The suit claims Gen Con failed to give the money raised at a charity auction held at the event to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Gen Con filed a counter-suit claiming Lucasfilm had no basis for their claims and owed money to Gen Con.

Gen Con rejected the hostile takeover bid, and the bankruptcy court allowed Gen Con to emerge from bankruptcy in January 2009,11 months after it had entered Chapter 11.