Building BAECON: A Community-Led Movement in Philippines Tabletop Scene

What started as small game night gatherings has grown into one of the Philippines’ most beloved board game conventions BAECON — completely free and fiercely community-driven. Ronald Villaver, lead volunteer of BAECON and VariablePlay, shares how shared values, grassroots support, and a little April Fool’s spirit helped BAECON grow from 85 hopeful attendees to over 500 passionate gamers.

Q: Please give a short introduction about yourself and BAECON. What is your role? What is BAECON about? Why did you decide to start BAECON?

I’m Ronald Villaver, lead volunteer for VariablePlay and BAECON (Board-Gaming Advocates and Enthusiasts Convention). VariablePlay is a volunteer network which mission is to share the joys of tabletop gaming to new people in the hobby. I’m also a designer under the Larong Atin group. Notable titles in my designs are Folded Wishes and Watchlist. Outside of gaming, I work in technology.

As the lead volunteer, I help my fellow volunteers in growing the community through Open Game Nights and community events. We also produce content online to help reach and grow the audience of tabletop gaming in the Philippines.

At the heart of BAECON is the community that has love and passion for sharing the board gaming hobby.  It is, at its core, driven by community, to see the board gaming community in the Philippines grow.

A couple of the core members of BAECON already have a weekly Open Game Night meetup around the metro on different days of the week.

Open Game Night is a simple meetup that follows 4 core values. Openness, Welcomeness, Supportiveness and Regularity. Open for anyone to join, people are welcomed to the table as soon as they arrive, we encourage the attendees to support the venue we are playing in, and we encourage the volunteers to keep to a regular schedule, whether it’s weekly, monthly, etc. These simple set of core values allowed us to grow the network of open game nights to more and more cities in the Philippines.

Eventually we realized if we bring at least 10 members from each of the game groups, then we could easily have 100 people, and it would be a mini convention.  We also had the date April 1 for the con, so that if it didn’t work, we could always say that it was an April Fool's Joke. But it worked! We were hoping for 85 people max, and were pleasantly surprised that we had somewhere close to 150 people that showed up!

This year’s BAECON we hit over 500 attendees!

Q: Can you tell us about the highlights of this year’s event and some of the most memorable moments?

Aside from the overflowing attendance, the foreign publishers were one of the highlights this year.  We had publishers from Singapore's Asia Boardgame Festival (ABGF) coming in, and we were thrilled to have them with us!  Another highlight was that we had a bigger, better venue! And of course, the support of the community who came in, played and experienced the con for two days.

The community also supported from various game groups, miniatures, social games, TTRPGs, artists, designers, war gamers, competitive card games and more.

Q: What do you do to keep BAECON unique compared to other board game conventions?

BAECON is always free for everyone for the last 8 BAECONs!  No entrance fee to join, just show up and bring your family and friends, and enjoy the hobby. Since it is community-driven, the volunteers and sponsors shoulder the expenses to run it. We will try our best to have it free for as long as we practically can.

The other aspect is also the atmosphere. Because of the core values that help set the tone, it always feels familiar, does not feel intimidating and there’s just a sense of warmth and support at every table. It’s just like going to a game night, but with featured guests, publishers and 50x the size.

Q: How did BAECON grow from a small community event to a large-scale yearly convention? What changes and challenges did that bring for you?

We believe through our shared core values, the love and support from the volunteers who continue to make BAECON possible every year.  Looking for a venue every year continues to be a challenge, as we search for a bigger venue that could accommodate everyone comfortably.  The need for more volunteers is also a yearly challenge. Costs in running it is also growing exponentially as the attendees grow more and more each year.

Q: How do you see tabletop gaming evolving in the coming years, and what role do events like this play in that evolution?

Tabletop has been steadily being brought to the mainstream if not there already.  As a result of this, more and more people will be interested in the hobby. BAECON provides an avenue where people can explore what tabletop gaming is. BAECON can also be a venue for other Asian Publishers for their games to have been known and played.

Q: What is the biggest challenge for indie game designers and creatives today in the tabletop and art industry, and how has BAECON been supporting local creators?

The barrier for tabletop games has always been learning about the game. The noise about the volume of games being published per year is also a challenge.

The best way to learn has always been to experience it. Having a community that welcome new designers, provide honest feedback, and give attention to encourage designers to keep on trying to improve fuels support and growth to the local creators.

Local designers can visit regular open game nights to test out their games and improve on their design skills. There is also a local UnPub group that regularly meets every month to support aspiring designers.

Q: Looking back, what is your greatest accomplishment from the past BAECON events?

The community that builds and supports BAECON.  Every BAECON, the main call to action is to build more game groups. It is through community that we can build the bedrock of the industry. More game groups means more people that can support the industry. This is evident by more game groups sprouting in and around the metro, and not just in the metro but also in the other provinces all over the Philippines.

Q: What are the future plans for BAECON next year? Any dates already in consideration?

More attendance from nearby Asian countries would be amazing, but mainly our goal every year is to grow it steadily. Usually around April is our target date but depending on the schedules of the nearby conventions in other countries we may have to adjust.

Q: Where can we find out more about BAECON?

You can follow us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/baecongroup and also through Variableplay Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/VariablePlay