GenCon, Indiana’s tabletop gaming convention, calls itself “the best four days in gaming.” Every year, gamers from across the world make their way to the Indiana Convention Center to enjoy four straight days of shopping, games, panels, and more. This year, I finally had the chance to attend, and can present a G33k-HQ convention report on GenCon 2026.
However, GenCon is big. Very big. Far too big for one person to cover everything, especially a first-time attendee who might not know everything to watch out for. As such, this report will not be a holistic coverage of the entire convention, but will instead focus on this writer’s personal experience.
With that said, let’s take a look at GenCon 2026.
Convention Overview
GenCon is a huge tabletop gaming convention, founded in 1967 and going strong for over 50 years. While the con is technically held at the Indiana Convention Center, that’s selling it a bit short, as the convention center has several attached hotels, each of which also held rooms for games and panels.
Across the street, the convention continued at Victory Field, where the stadium was filled with tables and booths for even more games. Even non-connected hotels and the Indiana Repertory Theatre were used as part of the convention, spreading GenCon across the downtown area. Even the airport featured signs welcoming gamers to GenCon, complete with tables for travelers to sit and play at.
The downtown location meant there were plenty of food options nearby, including restaurants and fast food options. However, the massive crowd size also meant that everywhere was crowded, and reservations were required for nearly any restaurant.
Even with multiple hotels, the rooms sold out quickly when they first became available. While more rooms were added later, they were on the more expensive side, so many attendees (myself included) relied on more remote hotels, AirBnBs, or just staying at a friend’s place nearby.
Event Registration
To say there’s a lot to do at GenCon would also be an understatement. The 2026 event catalog had over 27,000 listed events, including panels, game demos, autograph sessions, live shows, and more. Attendees needed to register for events in advance by buying tickets on the convention website, which meant balancing both budgets and time to try and fit in all the events they wanted to do.
Prices varied wildly, with many panels and game demos being free, while in-demand activities like the True Dungeon could cost around $100. Badges were scanned before each event to verify registration and so the hosts could receive payment.
Knowing what events to look for in advance is also important. For instance, while I knew I wanted to attend the Gamers: Live events by Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and play in the D&D Adventurers League Epic, I didn’t know an author would be doing a book signing until it was too late to get tickets.
Given the sheer number of events, limited tickets per, and cost per ticket, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to get tickets to every single thing they’d want to do (much less fit it into their schedule). But with all the options available, it’s still easy to pack a day full of games and activities.
Shopping
GenCon has a massive vendor’s hall, filled with booths from some of the biggest names in tabletop gaming, growing and indie companies, artists, and more. Each day, the entryway was packed with a huge crowd waiting to be let inside, who would flood the hall as soon as the doors opened.
Beyond the doors, gaming companies and sellers had booths of all sizes set up, filled with rows upon rows of games, dice, supplies, and everything else a gamer could want. Companies like Games Workshop had entire stores set up in the hall, complete with statues of space marines, while others (like Slugfest Games, creators of Red Dragon Inn) held demos and gave out promo cards throughout the weekend.
Some lines looped around large booths, such as Asmodee and Ravensburg, whose high-demand items would sell out quickly each day. Other booths, such as Renegade Games, would hand out tickets so people could come back and buy items without needing to stand in line for hours. While many attendees were looking forward to the Dungeon Crawler Carl game, GenCon gave them the chance to buy a Mordecai miniature and pin, as well as blind bags of dice, in advance of the RPG’s release.
Elsewhere in the dealers hall, artists and authors had rows set up for selling their creations. Many of the writers specialized in fantasy, such as Jim Zub, who wrote comics for both Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, and is currently writing the Conan the Barbarian comics (check out our interview with him here).
Similarly, Drizzt Do’Urden’s creator, R.A. Salvatore was present (although I missed out on tickets to his autograph session) as were Dragonlance creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, who were doing signings of their latest novel.
Matt Dinniman, creator of Dungeon Crawler Carl, was also present, along with audiobook narrator Jeff Hays. Suffice to say, the popularity of the series made them both in high demand throughout the con.
The artist alley also contained incredible pieces by talented artists. Many of them have done artwork for Magic: The Gathering and were selling artist prints of their cards or signing cards players brought with them. Others were independent artists specializing in fantasy, science fiction, or other styles well suited for a gaming convention.
Even outside the dealers hall, several companies had entire rooms set aside for both selling their games and running demos. There were rooms for Daggerheart, the Marvel Multiverse RPG, and of course, Dungeon Crawler Carl (you might be sensing a pattern).
Plus, pin collectors could rejoice, as many booths had limited edition GenCon pins for their games. Each one came with a ticket, and seven tickets could be redeemed at the Pin Bazaaar for a special prize. There was also pin trading, where attendees could, well, trade pins.
A common refrain I heard when preparing for GenCon was: “bring an extra suitcase for all the games you’ll be buying.” Even though I tried to keep my purchases to a reasonable level, that advice still proved helpful, and the extra luggage was indeed necessary. (In my defense, I got a lot of freebies as well.)
Gaming
GenCon is dedicated to tabletop gaming. Of course there were plenty of games to play.
Name a game, and there was probably at least one instance of it on the schedule. This included RPGs of all sorts, board games, card games, and literally every other type of tabletop game you can imagine. Many of the games were held in a large gaming hall, while others had rooms set aside for them.
Magic: The Gathering, for instance, had a huge space inside the stadium for games, along with an early release of its Hobbit set. There was even an entire hallway absolutely filled with pinball machines, for the pinball wizards at the con.
While most of the games required advanced registration, there were also free play rooms and demos, where attendees could try to find an open seat to enjoy a game. However, in order to guarantee a chance to play, it’s best to register in advance.
For players who enjoy organized play, Pathfinder Society had a massive hall dedicated to its games. Dungeons & Dragons was in a slightly different position, as Wizards of the Coast has mostly offloaded its organized play systems, putting Baldman Games in charge of the new Legends of Greyhawk and all but abandoning Adventurers League.
If it weren’t for a group in Texas stepping up to run Adventurers League games at the con, there wouldn’t have been any at all. Thankfully, that group came through and hosted multiple games, including the multi-table Epic, Infernal Pursuits.
Panels and Entertainment
In addition to plenty of games, GenCon also had no shortage of panels, shows, live plays, video screenings, and other entertainment. Panels featured talks from creators, influencers, and other key players in the gaming space, while live plays brought together entertainers to play games in front of a live crowd.
One of the biggest events was the D&D keynote, where Wizards of the Coast staff announced the future of Dungeons & Dragons, including its upcoming Universes Beyond crossovers. You can read all about it in our article here.
D&D also hosted several live plays, including their ongoing Dungeon Masters show, the dog charity game The Puppy Roll, and DM Roulette, where players would rotate characters and take turns being the dungeon master.
To the excitement of many, Twenty-Sided Tavern came to GenCon this year. The show combines improv theater and D&D, with talented performers and guest stars playing out a game onstage, with input from audience votes and the randomness of dice rolls. It’s an absolutely hilarious show, and well worth seeing for any D&D fans who have the chance.
Additionally, GenCon is home of the ENnie Awards, an awards show focused on tabletop games and RPGs. Nominees were chosen by a panel of judges, after which the winners were chosen via public voting. There were multiple categories focusing on gameplay, design, art, monster encounters, and more, making it a big event and an honor for all nominees. (Personally, I won a silver ENnie a few years ago, and was nominated once more after, but I didn’t make the cut this year.)
Among the shows, The Gamers: Live was an absolute must-see. The show, hosted by Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE), was an improvisational game where the audience would choose ridiculous character concepts for the players, who would quickly switch between their in-game and out-of-game roles at the ring of a bell. Certain audience members could also step in as NPCs or roll dice for the performers, adding to the audience participation.
ZOE also had several other shows throughout the weekend, such as “I’ll Allow It,” where they played Savage Worlds with the rule that the DM has to allow any nonsense the players/performers came up with while integrating random props from the audience. They also had a screening of the long-awaited JourneyQuest season 4, and a panel for their latest series, Incognita’s Infamous Adventures.
Even just walking down the halls, attendees could enjoy shows from musicians, jugglers, and other performers. All that is just a fraction of the shows and panels GenCon had to offer.
Activities
Yes, there’s even more. Along with the games, panels, and shows, there were plenty of other activities that could be enjoyed at GenCon.
As mentioned, True Dungeon presented a unique dungeon crawl opportunity for attendees (although it was both expensive and in high demand, so I didn’t get to experience it myself). Some areas had large spaces set up for life-sized games, complete with remote controlled robots or cosplayers as the game pieces.
Games Workshop brought Warhammer: Kill Team to life with indoors laser tag, where players would take the side of either the Imperium or the Orks to try and claim objectives.
There was even a paint and take table, where attendees could rest their feet and paint a free miniature. For the more skilled painters, there was a speed painting contest, as well as a painting competition where entrants showed off their best work – and their best was insanely impressive.
Dungeons & Dragons
However, one of the best interactive experiences came from Dungeons & Dragons, which turned the Indiana Repertory Theater into the D&D Tower. Not only did that host shows like Twenty-Sided Tavern and the Keynote, but the top floor was transformed into the D&D Carnival.
This interactive area, based on the Witchlight Carnival from “The Wild Beyond the Witchlight,” presented players with a series of six challenges, each testing a different D&D skill. They had a ring toss for dexterity (the most difficult of the challenges by far), trivia for intelligence, a poisoned wine game for charisma, and so on.
All attendees also received rewards for clearing their games, and while clearing everything was not strictly necessary, it was certainly fun.
The entire area was set up to look and feel like an outdoors carnival, complete with fake grass, lights mimicking starlight, and circus tents set up all around. All the while, performers in costume would entertain the attendees as fey creatures and carnival performers. It was an event not to be missed by any D&D fans.
D&D also offered Dungeon Dare, a 45 minute dungeon crawl designed to kill characters as quickly as possible. Personally, I enjoy a good death dungeon, as long as it’s well-designed and provides proper challenges for both players and characters.
Unfortunately, Dungeon Dare fell a bit short there, as it’s designed to be a meat grinder that throws players into each room, gives them no information for finding or disarming the traps, and set the skill check DCs at far too high for the characters’ levels, just to artificially inflate the difficulty.
Dungeon Dare was also designed to showcase the new class features in the upcoming Arcana Unleashed book, but none of the challenges were relevant to the new abilities. While the pregenerated characters used the new subclasses, none of their features were helpful for clearing the dungeon, if they ever came up at all. The characters were also given magic items, but none of the traps or challenges required (or could even be affected by) the items at all.
With that said, it was still possible for players to approach the dungeon as a team and with some good planning to reach the final room (although in every case, the 45 minute timer would still kill them before they could reach the end). But if you go in to the Dungeon Dare knowing it’s not meant to be won, and want to see how far you can get before dying, it’s still perfectly fine.
The D&D festivities culminated in a drone show, highlighting iconography and major characters from the game:
Cosplay
Where there is a convention, there will be cosplayers, and GenCon is no exception. Attendees showed up in a variety of cosplays, including characters from fantasy series, roleplaying games, video games, anime, and more. There was no need to strictly adhere to the gaming theme, as an attendee dressed as an anime character was just as welcome as one dressed as their D&D character.
Outside the vendor’s hall, several large backdrops gave cosplayers a place to stand for photos. While walking by, one could see cosplayers chilling for photographers or meeting up with other cosplayers from the same series. And while cosplay gatherings weren’t as common there as one might see at a convention like Fanime, there were still a few meetups.
This year, there was one franchise that undoubtedly had the most cosplayers: Dungeon Crawler Carl. The book series has become a major hit, and with both a tabletop RPG and board game coming out in the coming months, it fit right in at GenCon. As such, there was no shortage of cosplayers in white boxers with polka dot hearts or wearing cat ears and a tiara, along with plenty of fan-favorite side characters.
So Much More
All this is only the tip of the iceberg that is the GenCon experience. I spent the entire weekend going between games, shows, events, and activities, and only barely scratched the surface of everything the con had to offer.
For instance, GenCon attendees spent the weekend building multiple massive card towers. On Saturday night, they threw quarters at the towers to bring them down, with attendees bidding for the right to make the first throw. All proceeds, both from the bid and the quarters, went to charity.
Or how about the film festival? Or the scavenger hunts? Or card game tournaments? There was so much I didn’t get to experience, not to mention things I don’t even know I missed, that it hardly seems fair to write an article where I can barely cover a fraction of what the con had to offer.
I guess I’ll have to go back some time so I can experience the rest.
Overall
There are some conventions that must be experienced at least once. GenCon is one such convention. Fans of tabletop games of all sorts will have more than plenty to do there, and even the most tightly packed and planned schedule will still not be enough to experience everything.
Yes, as reports have said, there was a tornado alert during the con, and yes, it did result in some flooding in the halls, but the tornado never touched the convention and the attendees were all safe. Indiana locals at the con assured out of town attendees that it was nothing to be worried about, and they were right.
GenCon was big, crowded, busy, expensive, and at times overwhelming. Those who hate crowds will certainly be uncomfortable there. But it was also an amazing experience, and for a first-timer like myself, I hope to be able to go again with a little more knowledge and preparation.
Next time, I won’t miss out on those autograph sessions.
