WINCon

Author: MANDTANDERSON

  • Meet WINCon’s First Community Supporter: Central City Comics and Gus Foster

    Meet WINCon’s First Community Supporter: Central City Comics and Gus Foster

    This is a bit overdue….

    Every convention needs a first friend. Ours has been sitting in Ellensburg the whole time.

    We’re proud to announce Central City Comics and owner Gus Foster as WINCon’s first Community Supporter. We’d like to say it’s the first of many, but right now it’s also the only one, and we think that makes it mean a bit more.

    Why we wanted to recognize Central City Comics

    Tabletop gaming in Ellensburg has had a steady friend in this shop for roughly two decades. Gus opened Central City Comics in the mid-2000s, and it grew into a hub for the local trading card game crowd, comic book aficionados, and a spot where the town’s gamers and nerds could count on finding each other.

    He’s the kind of shopkeeper who greets regulars by name, knows what they’re into, and will happily help you tune a Magic deck or find that one comic you’ve been looking for.

    That kind of support rarely makes headlines, and often goes unseen, but it’s the reason a hobby takes root in a town. 

    But we see you Gus.

    Before WINCon was a plan on paper, people were already gathering at Central City Comics. We wanted to take a moment to say thank you out loud.

    What Gus and the shop do for the community

    • A home for the Ellensburg table top community. Every week, the local board game night meets at Central City Comics, free of charge. That’s a table, a roof, and a welcome for anyone who wants to play.
    • Game nights beyond tabletops. Magic release parties on Fridays bring another crowd through the door.  D&D – he’s got it, Miniatures? Yeah he’s got those too.
    • Games for WINCon. Gus has donated games to the convention, and we’re grateful for every one.
    • Honest feedback. Gus has given us constructive input on WINCon along the way. When you’re building something new, people who will tell you what they really think are worth their weight in meeples.
    • Support, plain and simple. He’s been in our corner.

    A great place to start

    We won’t pretend to know how WINCon would have turned out without Central City Comics. What we do know is that the shop gave us a great building block: a place to gather, a network of local players to start from, and a framework to build on. A lot of the people who will be at WINCon in October 2027 are people we first met across a table at the shop.

    Go see for yourself

    If you haven’t been in, Central City Comics is more than a game night venue. The shop carries comic books, retro comic-related toys, D&D and miniatures, and tabletop supplies. Need dice, sleeves, or a new mini to paint? Start there. Gus has put a lot into our hobby, and the easiest way to say thanks is to stop in, say hello, and take something home.

    Central City Comics is in the heart of downtown Ellensburg:

    113 E 4th Ave. Ellensburg, WA 98926 

    Drop in and say hi and thank-you when your here for WINCon.

    So thank you, Gus. We’re glad to have you in our corner, and we hope to see you at WINCon this October 8-10, 2027.

  • Never Been to a Con? Good. WINCon Was Basically Made for You.

    Never Been to a Con? Good. WINCon Was Basically Made for You.

    Our survey came back and here’s the headline: about half of you have never been to a tabletop convention before. Not “haven’t been to one in a while.” Never. Zero. As in your convention experience currently consists of that one time you played Catan at your cousin’s Thanksgiving and someone flipped the board.

    We could not be happier about this.

    Here’s the thing about your first con: a packed schedule and a wall of vendors is a lot to take in when you don’t know what to expect yet. WINCon’s first year is a little different — and honestly, a little more your speed.

    The Crowd Will Be Manageable

    Let’s be honest — this is our first year, so attendance is going to be lower than it will be down the road. We’re not going to pretend that’s not true.

    But here’s the upside: you will never once find yourself trapped behind 200 people trying to get to a table across the hall. You’ll actually get where you’re going. Revolutionary, we know.

    There’s No Schedule to Panic About

    We’re an open-gaming-first con, which is a fancy way of saying: we don’t have a wall of vendors and a jam-packed speaker roster demanding you plan your day at 6am with a highlighter and a prayer. Bring a game, sit down, play. That’s basically the whole plan.

    If that sounds less impressive than a 40-page event guide — good. That’s the point. First cons are stressful enough without a spreadsheet.

    We Want You to Fall in Love With Something New

    We run a Learn to Play program, and honestly? Our whole measure of success is you walking out having discovered a game you didn’t know you needed. Volunteers are there to teach, not to judge how many hours you’ve logged on BoardGameGeek (spoiler: it’s zero, and that’s fine).

    Everyone Here Wants the Same Thing You Do

    Here’s the part that should actually put you at ease: every single person at WINCon showed up to play games. That’s it. That’s the whole shared personality trait of the entire building.

    Nobody’s going to size you up for not knowing the meta on a game that came out three weeks ago. Nobody’s judging your dice bag, your rules knowledge, or the fact that you brought a 20-year-old copy of a game everyone else forgot existed. You’re with your people. They just haven’t met you yet.

    We Carved Out Space for You to Just… Be You

    No costumes required. No “con personality” to perform. No pressure to know the lingo before you walk in. We built this weekend so you can show up exactly as you are and spend three days doing the thing you actually like — playing games with people who also like playing games. Wild concept, we know.

    You Don’t Need to Bring Anything. Except Maybe That One Game.

    We’ve got a game library on-site, so truly — show up empty-handed and you’ll be fine. But if you’ve got that one game sitting on your shelf that you bought two years ago and still haven’t gotten to the table? This is your moment. We’ve got the space, we’ve got the time, and we’ve got a room full of people who are, statistically, exactly as excited to try new things as you are.

    First cons are supposed to feel like this. No 100-person crowds to fight through, no schedule to stress over, and a room full of people who get it. If your first con was always going to happen eventually — might as well make it this one.