Let’s Play Gaming Expo is a 2 day gaming convention that took place June 18 and 19th in the DFW area. I attended on that Sunday to check it out! I’ve been attending fan conventions for over a decade now, but most of the time I’ll find myself at an Anime Convention, Gaming events are not so much my thing. I still wanted to check out this event though, since it was local and I’m always curious to see how conventions run. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though I don’t consider myself a gamer there were plenty of things to do at Let’s Play.
Living up to it’s name, Let’s Play’s main focus was on playing games. With 2 console rooms, an indie room, a tabletop room and a classic arcade room I never had a hard time finding something to play. While popular games like Minecraft and Smash where usually crowded there were a ton of other options to choose from. Exploring the classic arcade games was my personal favorite, and they had a TON of them!
Another one of my favorite things at the event was the Museum that the Retro Gaming Society put together. Speaking with the curator he talked about a few of the pieces like a game produced to train US Army soldiers for shooting practice run off of a SNES and a modified military fire arm and one of the rarest modern game, NBA Elite 11. They also had a special PS3 that was custom made for NBA players that contributed to the game as a thank you from Sony. Another fun item was the Nintendo/Singer collaboration sewing machine that you could plug your Game Boy into to control simple embroidery and stitchs. I swear I saw adds for that thing on the TV as a kid.
Let’s Play was also host to many gaming tournaments if that’s your thing. They partnered with Dallas Society of Play to host a Game Jam and even had a four square tournament. In addition to all the gaming goodness they ran panels all weekend and hosted a cosplay contest on Sunday afternoon.
Whether you consider yourself a gamer or not, Let’s Play gaming expo provides a fun filled day of casual play for everyone. Day Passes are cheap as far as conventions are concerned and for the amount of things to do they are surely worth the price. Be sure to keep up with them so you can attend in 2017!