PLAAY-Dot-CON 2025: The Schedule
PLAAY-Dot-CON is ON! June 26th through the 28th at the Hilton Garden Inn, Highlands Ranch! This will be our eighth convention in all, our fourth convention at this location. More information about pricing and accommodations can be found on the convention PLAAY Pass page.
This is a tentative schedule, subject to change. NOTE that open game tables will be available throughout the convention, you’re not expected to participate in every or event nor required to attend any specific event! Just have fun!
WEDNESDAY 06.25.25
2p to 430p Super Early-Bird Gathering, Enchanted Grounds Coffeehouse and Gameporium: Open game play, bring your favorite game and get something going. Or just grab some coffee and hang out! We’ll hold our third annual Pre-CON Demo Derby Smash-Down event, open to any/everyone! It’s a FUN way to get the festivities underway! No admission charge for this, everyone just pays for their own food and drink.
5p-7p Torchy's Tacos: The “official” eatery of the convention, within walking distance of the hotel. (“Dutch Treat,” everyone pays for their own food/drink…)
640p-10p Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, Coors Field: We always try to book our convention when the Rockies are in town, as it’s such an awesome experience taking in a game at Coors Field. (Ticket prices start at around $30). If you want to attend but don’t want to go alone, we can connect you with other PLAAY gamers who’ll be attending, just let us know.
NOTE that there won’t be “official” game space available at the hotel on Wednesday evening. You can play games, of course—just be respectful of the other hotel patrons in the common area.
THURSDAY 06.26.25
10a-5p Open Gaming, Hotel Ballroom: We’ve expanded the space and the game-playing hours! Bring your favorite games PLAAY or non-PLAAY, and have at it with old friends, new acquaintances or by yourself!
110p-410p Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, Coors Field: An afternoon game, as the Rockies wrap-up this home stand. (Ticket prices start at around $30). You should be able to enjoy the game AND get back to Highlands Ranch for the pre-con picnic.
5p-8p Pre-Con Picnic, Redstone Park: This year we’re considering catered food (Chipotle, Chik-Fil-A, or similar) instead of cook out. It’s FREE, included in your convention admission pass.
8p-10p Open Gaming, Hotel Ballroom: Enjoy game time with other convention-goers, or go solo mode and knock out some action from your at-home league! NOTE that the game room will need to be closed at 10p so that the hotel crew can set up for the next two days' full convention configuration.
FRIDAY 06.27.25
9a-930a, Registration: Get your official convention lanyard, program and “swag bag,” plus pick up any (discounted!) PLAAY merchandise you ordered.
9a-10a Sports (and other) Game Flea Market: We’ll have tables available for you to off-load some of your un-played games (no judgement, “so many games, so little time”) for whatever you feel is a fair price. You can either monitor your merch, or “sticky-note” it with your contact info. HINT: you might want to save some room in your luggage just in case you pick up a few treasures from someone else’s table! (Speaking from experience…)
10a-1130a “Reel-Time Pro Fishin’ Tournament”: Our 2024 holiday game makes its return, with raffle tickets for the top anglers! Open to everyone, whether you own the game or not. We’ll have a “get-(re)acquainted with the game” YouTube stream a couple weeks before the convention, so you’ll be ready to catch some fish!
1130a-130p lunch break: Numerous options within easy walking distance, and many more just a short drive/Uber away! Details in your convention program!
130p-430p History Maker Baseball Time Machine Tournament: Past vs. Future!
This is going to be a super-cool twist on the “Time Machine” theme: for the first time ever, we will jumping BACK and FORWARD in time! We’re focusing on FULL-PLAAY History Maker Baseball this year! Everyone is guaranteed to play at least two games of full-play HMB. The table champions will earn raffle tickets and pair off for playoffs (one or two additional games, depending on the size of the bracket).
• PAST Division: Bring any officially carded HMB regular season team you want, any season, real-life or fictional.
• LEAP Division: Choose any of the 20xx LEAP teams from last year's holiday sale (we’ll have them on hand, 32 clubs to choose from, aligned with the contemporary big league scene), you’ll also get to randomly draw two LEAP players to boost your team!
We’ll gather around tables of four, grouped by PAST or FUTURE. Choose an opponent from your table and play. Then, for game two, table winners play winners, losers play losers. Table champions (those who win both games) will advance to the playoffs. Then, in the ultimate Time Machine battle, the PAST and FUTURE Division Winners will play each other for the all-time title in Saturday night's "Eve of Champions." NOTE that the two divisions may OR may not be of equal size! (In other words, it will be an easier path to the championship of a lesser-populated division!)
430p-630p dinner break
630p-700p Dave Gardner Keynote Presentation: Dave is one of the leading voices of the sports game hobby and we’re very excited to have him join us at the convention! He’ll talk about how he got into the hobby, how his love for sports games led him into the podcasting and streaming arenas, and share some interesting behind-the-scenes things!
7p-10p Guest/Designer Showcase: This has become an annual feature of the convention, where guest game designers get table time to talk about and demo their own sports games. This year we have our largest-ever contingent of guests and guest designers (in alphabetical order), three of them are first-time guests…
• Kurt Bergland, “Kurt Bergland’s Baseball World” YouTube Channel (first-time guest). (Tentative “There’s No Crying in Baseball!” 1944 AAGPBL (“A League of Their Own”) Mini-season with HMB: three to six managers needed.)
• Joe Bryan, Sideline Strategy Games (Payoff Pitch, etc.)
• James Cast, SportCast Podcast.
• Clay Dreslough, Season Ticket Baseball, Football.
• Grant Fines, 49 Sports Games (Football, Hockey). Grant will be demonstrating his new fast-playing hockey game, “49 Highlight Hockey!”
• Mike Fitzgerald (Baseball Highlights 2045, Score Cards, Crunch Time, Mystery Rummy, Diamonds and WCW Nitro, and more!).
• Dave Gardner, Digital 2 Dice Podcast (first-time guest).
• Glenn Guzzo, Strat-O-Matic (baseball, football, basketball, hockey): Glenn will be discussing all things Strat-O-Matic, including winning STRAT-egies for games and the Baseball MAX initiative.
• ST Patrick, Sports Sim Magazine, Matchup College Football, Squared Circle Wrestling.
• Brian VanderWal, Heroes of the Short Track stock car racing game (first-time guest).
You can float from table to table or spend the evening with a specific designer, OR just play games with your friends—whatever you prefer!
SATURDAY 06.28.25
9a-1130a, 2025 PLAAY Gamer Open History Maker Golf Tournament: Always one of the highlights of the convention, we’ll play two rounds at a custom course TBA, everyone who attends the convention will get a copy of the course in their “swag bag.” Open to anyone/everyone, whether you’ve played the game or not—trust me, we’ll have plenty of people willing to help guide you through your game! First round, form a foursome and start playing. Second round, we create foursomes based on score, with the leaders grouped at the end. This makes for an exciting finish, just like on TV! Raffle tickets for the winner and runner(s)-up!
11:30-1:30p lunch break
noon-1p "Brown Bag Lunch" Presentation Panel discussion, “Social Media and the Sports Game Hobby”: An informal Q&A with Dave Gardner (Digital 2 Dice Podcast), Kurt Bergland (Kurt Bergland’s Baseball World), James Cast (The SportCast podcast), Bill Sauerbier (High Volume Games, Twitch), and Steve Tower (After Further Review, YouTube).
130p-445p Welcome to the XHL! Similar to last year’s fantastic FLOTA tournament, we’ll re-launch our fictional hockey universe at this year’s convention, re-branded as the XHL! You’ll draw your team randomly and play out a mini-season with the other teams at your table using Hockey Blast Express. Table champions will advance to the playoffs! NOTE: similar to FLOTA, the XHL teams will be created with parity/balance in mind—coaching/managing will be a major factor! NOTE: we MAY switch this to full-play Hockey Blast rather than “express,” stay tuned!
445p-5p Raffle Drawing: We’ll have over $1000 in PLAAY Games raffle prizes! Same as past conventions, everyone gets a block of raffle tickets with your “swag bag,” there’ll be boxes set up where you can deposit your raffle tickets however you like. Put them ALL in the box for the prize you REALLY want, or distribute them evenly so as to have multiple chances to win—it’s up to you! Be sure to save some room in your luggage, though, because your odds of winning a prize are roughly one out of six!
5p-7p dinner break
7p-10p ”Eve of Champions”: The winners of the PAST and FUTURE divisions in the Time Machine Tournament will meet for the all-time title. baseball, The top two (or four, depending on the size of the original field) teams from the hockey tournament will play off for the league championship. We'll also offer a football championship game format for those who'd like to conclude the convention with some gridiron action.
7-10p Fury Sports Finale! We'll use the "Mercenaries" cards for Fury Football and Fury Hardball for these twin events. Choose your sport and find a table. Every table gets a “Mercenaries” set and every manager gets a $25 (million) salary cap. Each table holds a "snake draft" (1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1) to stock teams. Then, round-robin play to determine the table champion. All this in under two hours!
(REPEATING) This is a tentative schedule, subject to change. NOTE that open game tables will be available throughout the convention, you’re not expected to participate in every or event nor required to attend any specific event! Just have fun!