Introducing the Twin Cities Tabletop Games Expo
The Twin Cities Tabletop Games Expo (TTGX for short) is a new expo style event coming to Brooklyn Center Minnesota April 16-18, 2027. The event is a 3 day paid event featuring:
- Exhibit hall primarily filled with Minnesota and midwest boardgame publishers
- Free play game library with over 2000 boardgames
- Scheduled events for TTRPGS, learn to plays, and more!
This first blog post aims to give a little bit of background on the event, and where it came from.
Why Start TTGX?
While Minnesota has many awesome events for playing games, like Con of the North and 2D Con, we felt that there were two gaps in the convention scene at large:
- An event for buying new boardgames – While there are a few boardgame market events, those are usually focused on second-hand games
- An event promoting Minnestoa local publishers – Many of the publishers attend events around Minnesota, but are typically not the highlight or focus of the event
Those two opportunities seemed a compelling argument that there was space in the Minnesota convention scene for something new.
What About The Big Cons?
There are tons of boardgame events around the world: Gen Con, GAMA, Spiel Essen, Pax Unplugged, UK Games Expo, just to name a few.
One key characteristic they all share however, is that they’re nowhere near Minnesota, and I’ll come back to why that’s important in a minute.
These events are all fantastic and have been staples of the boardgame scene for many years, while we hope to one day stand on equal footing with them, we are a long way off; so why should someone come to TTGX when these big events exist?
In my opinion there are a few compelling reasons why someone should come to TTGX when these larger events are an option:
- Access to small and mid-sized publishers with amazing games that typically aren’t at the larger events
- Its a less crowded experience, and makes it easier to avoid massive groups of people
- Significantly less expensive to attend for those in the Midwest United States. Just $20 for a day, or $50 a weekend with no additional event fees
Even if you go to the larger events, if you live in the Midwest TTGX is going to be a good bang for your buck.
Why Minnesota?
While one reason is pure bias, we are from Minnesota, there is another major reason Minnesota is a great place for a tabletop boardgame event.
There are TONS of boardgame publishers and designers in Minnesota, more-so than any other place in the United States.
With major players like:
Those already make up a sizeable portion of many boardgame shelves. Then you add in the 30+ mid-sized publishers and the several hundred indepedent designers across events like: Design Days, Protospiel MN, Break My Game, and IGDATC, and you’ve got a serious number of boardgames coming out of Minnesota.
Minnesota is a hot-spot for boardgame design, and TTGX aims to put a spotlight on it.
Closing Remarks
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little about why we are so excited to bring TTGX to Minnesota. Lets us know on our Discord what you thought of the blog, and what you’d like to see next!