Bye, LeiriaCon!
It was our first time at LeiriaCon in Portugal. We actually decided pretty spontaneously that we'll come. We have been to Portugal before and wanted to come back a second time, so combining LeiriaCon with a bit of tourism was the perfect solution. 🙃
I want to start by defining what LeiriaCon is, as I didn't know much about it before visiting. I think the term ‘board gaming retreat’ fits it better than ‘convention’. There are no booths here and no halls, it's just all about gaming, be it games you brought with you, or a game from the 1000 titles in the library. There are also no opening times, LeiriaCon basically runs 0-24h which is amazing. You don't have to stop playing until your eyes close from sleep deprivation. 😅 There are some publishers around and you see prototypes on some tables - which you could potentially also try (as an example, Vital Lacerda was showing off his latest prototype). It is a great possibility for people of the industry to connect, but there are also tons of regular gamers who are there for a good time. The whole atmosphere is very leisurely and cozy. We felt right at home from the beginning. 🥰
The venue itself is great. 🏢 It all takes place at the Hotel Cristal at Praia de Vieira (ca. 90 minutes away from Lisbon). There are multiple rooms reserved for the event. It's all tables and chairs, luckily more than enough. The rooms we were in were often chock full of people, but we never had a problem finding a table to play. (Which is usually my main gripe with other conventions we go to - e.g. UKGE or SPIEL is not necessarily about comfortable sitting).
We met some great people like @our.board.game.table and @thebgcollector , but there were some others who joined in on games we were setting up. Actually it's very easy to find people for your games, or find games to join, everyone is very friendly. 😊 We played lots of games, and I want to write some impressions about them in the following days while our Portugal vacation continues. 😉
We are already thinking about trying to make it to next year's LeiriaCon, and can only recommend people to do the same. 😁 It's a fantastic time! ❤️😍 In the mean time, keep an eye out for our upcoming coverage of the games we played!
