ut down your phone and pull up a seat.
Next month, two Brown County businesses are getting people around a table to play together, face to face.
BroCoCon, Brown County’s first game convention, will take place March 29 to 31, with the majority of the events happening Saturday, March 30 at the Brown County Inn.
“What we’re trying to do is make it an extremely accessible family and adult friendly game conference. What you’ll basically do is play a lot of games,” said Hilary Key, owner of The Toy Chest and organizer of the convention.
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On March 30, the Town Hall room at the Brown County Inn will be transformed into a gaming universe featuring game vendors showing off the non-electronic fun they have for sale.
In the center of the room will be games for people to play in four categories: Family games, strategy games, party games and toddler games.
“You’ll be able to walk up into an area and there will be 12 different toddler games around you with people there to teach them to you, for you to sit down and play them, and then the option to buy them at the end of day or any point throughout,” Key said.
As of last week, Key was expecting 19 vendors with 75 games. The cap will be about 20 vendors and 80 games.
“If you were to try to play every game during the first portion of it, you’d have to move on to a new game every six minutes. There will be lots of games,” she said.
SmartMax, which makes large magnetic toys, will provide 200 pieces for kids to sit and build while, maybe, Mom and Dad play another game nearby.
There will also be toddler “breakout games” where the first 20 children to go up to the stage will be able to play giant versions of games, like Unicorn Glitterluck.
The Woodland Room will host strategy games, such as Azul and Kingdomino, with an instructor on hand. Both games were Spiel des Jahres winners in 2018 and 2017, which is the biggest international award a strategy game can win.
“If you’ve tried to read the instructions on a strategy game, that’s the hardest part to get through, so they will teach the strategy game and then people will break out into their groups,” Key said.
On average, there will be five games of four people going on. “(They will) break into smaller groups, play a round of the strategy game and have the instructor walking around, giving strategy tips and coaching,” Key said.
There will also be a “play to win” section at the convention. Any game that players check out and play enters them into the raffle to win that game at the end of the convention, Key said.
The convention takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.
From 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. will be the convention’s after-party for those 21 and older.
“We wanted people to feel totally comfortable and confident that they will have a good time coming with kids or without their kids,” Key said.
“On the other hand, since a lot of game conferences aren’t super family-friendly, we wanted the people who are big gamers, but don’t have any kids — maybe particularly don’t even want to be around kids — to have a space that they’re like, ‘This is more what I was thinking,’” Key said.
During the evening session, a cash bar will be open and games from earlier in the day will be open for people to play.
“People can just be like, ‘Oh, I played Tapple and I loved that; let’s take this to our table and play it,’” Key said.
There will also be rounds of “game speed dating,” featuring games that could be inappropriate for younger players.
“Everyone splits up and starts at a table. The timer starts, you learn and play a portion of a game really quickly for five minutes, the buzzer goes off, and you move to the next table and play another one really quickly,” Key said.
The ticket for the after-party is different from the one for the daytime convention. “I think, especially for local people, there might be people who are interested in attending only that portion of it,” Key said.
Some games to be featured at the convention include party games Tenzi, Slapzi, Telestrations, word game Tapple, and Pencil Nose.
“Pencil Nose is a really funny new one where you have on these funny glasses and you have a dry erase marker on your nose and you have to draw, Pictionary style, what the prompts are on your card for the rest of your team to guess,” Key said.
The convention will also have a 60-person tournament of the card game Perpetual Commotion.
“What Do You Meme?” is another popular party game that will be featured, along with Quarto and Corridor, which Key said are “two of our fun thinking games.”
There will be no video games at the convention.
“If we can have 300 people legitimately playing with no screens, having a great time and meeting new people, that’s a big goal accomplished,” Key said.
The messaging throughout The Toy Chest is to “unplug and play.”
“I honestly think that’s why tabletop games are trending as strongly as they are, is that we’re getting to the point where everyone is kind of craving more social interaction, but we’ve gotten so far removed from it that it’s almost scary to do,” Key said.
“(It’s) like we’ve forgotten how to do it, or what the rules are. Games actually give you rules on paper of ‘This is exactly what you’re going to need to do.’ It lays out such a clean, predictable way to interact with other people and you end up having a lot of fun in a way that we’re not getting as regularly as we used to.”
Key is encouraging people to purchase tickets before the convention. “I really don’t want 400 people to show up the day of the event and then we can’t take them,” she said.
She’d like to see 200 to 300 people attend. Key said their response on Facebook so far is about half of that goal without doing much other promotion.
Tickets can be bought before the event online or at The Toy Chest. The ticket price will be higher at the door. People can avoid paying a service fee online if they buy their tickets at The Toy Chest, at 125 S. Van Buren St. in Nashville.
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What: BroCoCon, Brown County’s first game convention, hosted by The Toy Chest. Learn how to play new games and participate in a scavenger hunt in Nashville.
Where: Brown County Inn, 51 State Road 46 East, Nashville
When: Friday to Sunday, March 29 to 31, with the majority of the events happening Saturday, March 30 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. An after-party from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday will be for adults only.
Cost: $10 for adults, $5 for children, children 2 and under admitted free. After-party tickets are $10 for adults 21 and older, which includes a drink ticket. Tickets are available through ticketbud.com or at The Toy Chest, 125 S. Van Buren St..
More information: @BroCoCon on Facebook. A Facebook event page has also been made for the convention. Call the Toy Chest 812-988-2187 with questions.
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BroCoCon 2019 is looking for volunteers to learn games and teach them to others.
Volunteers will receive free admission to BroCoCon, a T-shirt and a free game. After they finish teaching and playing their selected games, volunteers are welcome to attend the event as they would otherwise, organizer Hilary Key said.
If interested in volunteering, call The Toy Chest at 812-988-2187, email [email protected] or send a message through the BroCoCon Facebook page.
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Planning this game convention for spring break was an intentional timing move.
Key said she’d noticed a decline in foot traffic during this time of year in Nashville. "That was frustrating to me. I was thinking, ‘What can I, as one individual store, even possibly do to try to increase overall foot traffic?’" she said.
Since tabletop games are gaining in popularity, Key, owner of The Toy Chest, thought of a game conference.
“The hope is five years from now, this is a big event that has grown to multiple venues, that other people around town are participating," she said. "They are changing a menu item to have a game theme, or all of the restaurants have board games on their tables for this weekend. That it’s big town-wide, people really come to play games this one time a year, and it brings us all a lot more traffic."
Other businesses are already getting involved.
Key is creating a countywide scavenger hunt for BroCoCon. Once people check in on Friday, they will get a set of clues with answers around town, which may be at local businesses. For every clue people find and post a picture of, they will get one raffle entry.
BroCoCon is also working with a local artist who makes handmade puzzles.
The Brown County Inn has created a package that includes meals, rooms and tickets on their website.
"I’m hoping to get a lot more interaction from the rest of town basically from year two on, because they will have seen it happen and want to hopefully get a piece of that business," Key said.
Key said she thought of the idea last summer, but didn’t want to add anything to the already packed fall schedule in Nashville.
Another motivating factor in hosting this convention was the changing face of retail, she said.
“You can’t just put items on shelves and expect people to come in and buy them. You have to do a lot more than that, so that’s a lot more events and outside-the-box thinking. I feel like adding things like this is probably just going to become an essential part of staying alive as a retailer,” Key said.
She said she also wants people to realize that the Toy Chest is a place for children and adults alike.
"It’s a toy store, and I don’t think you should ever outgrow playing, so we have things from birth through your entire life. There are so many people who play games, and we have so many things that appeal to adults," Key said.
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“I honestly think that’s why tabletop games are trending as strongly as they are, is that we’re getting to the point where everyone is kind of craving more social interaction, but we’ve gotten so far removed from it that it’s almost scary to do."
— Hilary Key, organizer of BroCoCon
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