One of the regular topics we get asked about by attendees, exhibitors, press, and indeed people we work with in our day jobs, is how Tabletop Scotland started.
Back in 2014, Dave went to Gen Con in Indianapolis as a 40th birthday present from his family. He had always wanted to go but could never justify the cost. Dave is a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s why he’s into tabletop games and so knowing that 5th Edition of D&D was being launched at Gen Con 2014 was a big part of why he went.
Three key things came from this that translated into why Tabletop Scotland exists:
- Gen Con has a festival feeling to it. Sure there’s a large trade hall with hundreds of exhibitors, but Gen Con is so much more than that. Not only does it use every sqft of the Indiana Convention Centre, it also consumes every sqft of space it can in every hotel within Downtown Indianapolis and now also uses the Indianapolis Colts NFL stadium (Lucas Oil).
- Dave played in the first 5th Edition Epic – “DDEP1-1 Corruption in Kryptgarden”. This was over one hundred tables of D&D all simultaneously playing the same adventure, which is something like 650 players. It was huge in scale, with klaxons going off at specific times and lots of enjoyable chaos.
- Greg C and Liz went with Dave to Gen Con. Greg C is a recurring character in this story…
In 2015 Dave (and Greg C) went to UK Games Expo. Back then UKGE was ‘just’ in the Hilton Metropole, so before it took over four / five halls of the NEC as it did in 2025.
Alongside the fun times of playing games and buying games, a reasonable quantity of whisky was consumed. Now, Dave had been pondering why Scotland didn’t have a ‘for everyone’ convention since before his trip to Gen Con 2014. Greg C was aware of this pondering, indeed may have heard some musings on it during the drive down to Birmingham. In true Greg C form, he saw the whisky consumption as an opportunity to encourage Dave to drink more whisky until 2am and ponder more out loud.
By the end of UKGE 2015, Dave had committed to create a convention.
But what would it look like? Where would it be? When would it be? Did anyone actually want it?
Those questions amongst others resulted in a gathering of folks shortly after UKGE 2015, to ponder those questions and essentially shape what could be. These folks included Greg C and Liz, as well as some of your Tabletop Scotland yellow shirts in John H, John L and Simon. Venues were visited, lots and lots of venues, to understand what the options were and something almost happened in 2015 / 2016. But it didn’t.
The idea however stayed and it was refined over time until at some point during UKGE 2017 there was a renewed desire to actually make it happen. Proximity to Greg C and whisky may have been a factor, another factor was that the organisers of UKGE hosted a workshop on organising games conventions. Dave attended that, took notes during that, and realised the plan back in 2015 was actually decent. The main hurdle was getting a venue, at the right price.
Then one appeared. The Dewars Centre in Perth was suggested to Dave as an option. As it turns out John H had been going to the Dewars Centre for many many years for model railway events, but somehow never mentioned it before… A visit was organised and after that everything seemed to come together. The venue team were supportive and easy to work with, the space was flexible, location was perfectly placed from pretty much every corner of Scotland logistically via road and rail, and despite having never done anything on this scale before the team were up for it.
So, that’s how it all started.