SoCal Retro Gaming Expo was held on August 20th and 21st at Frank and Sons in ‘beautiful’ Rowland Heights, California.  The event took place in what could be best equated to a massive dealer hall.  The main draw of the event was not the sheer amount of vendors, but instead the various popular Youtube personalities like Gerard the Completionist, The Game Historian, and Pat the NES Punk.  The expo brought in several hundred people each day, but the hall floor was never crowded..
The location isn’t too difficult to reach for SoCal locals and there is a fair amount of parking near the building so that didn’t cause too much trouble for anyone wanting to attend.  While there are few restaurant options adjacent to the expo there were food trucks so mid-event meals were not too difficult to obtain.  When you paid for your entry you were given a nice drawstring bag with a guide, coupons, and a small poster.  The poster featured cartoony versions of the guests, but only a couple of them actually looked like their real life counterparts.

The building is pretty large and was divided into two sections.  The main Frank and Sons hall featured merchandise from various franchises and the expo side which was wholly focused on video game merchandise.  There was plenty of room to get around, but some of the booths did bring in larger crowds.  Some of the merchandise highlights included video game box designed posters, classic game box design notebooks, and gaming shirts.  This was in addition to the numerous booths selling hard to find and classic games.  One booth in particular had a wall of hard to find PS3 JRPGs where both Jared and Deb got titles they had been trying to find for awhile.

The expo side also had a gaming area made up of several pinball machines and a decent sized arcade area.  The arcade games were set to free play and drew a large crowd.  One of the standout machines was a MAME unit with over a hundred games set into its memory.  While some people were competitive there were no egos that ruined the arcade area.  In fact, many of the games were being played by families where parents were showing their kids some of the classics for the first time. 

There were two types of panels at the expo.  The first were band performances, which had a small stage area in the middle of the show floor.  There were some decent video game cover groups, but when they played it was difficult to hold conversations, go shopping, or hear the other panels.  There is little they can do considering the size of the venue, but no matter how good a band is it always weakens the experience when they blow out the rest of the event.  The second type of panel was the standard talking panel.  A makeshift room was set up with several rows of chairs.  Since it wasn’t in closed off room the speaker had to compete with the bands and the ambient noise.  However, it was a nice way to see various Youtubers close up and ask them questions.

The vibe of the show was great.  Everyone was generally friendly and there was a large amount of families all there to have fun.  It is nice seeing multiple generations of gamers going to an event and enjoying themselves.  The family atmosphere usually mellows out everyone else and sets a good feeling for the majority of the event.  Everyone had a good time and there were many impromptu conversations between attendees due to the laid back feeling of the event.

While the SoCal Retro Gaming Expo was a small event there was plenty to do on a one day trip.  You could meet a favorite Youtuber, go shopping for some hard to find games, and challenge friends to a match on the various free play arcade games.  The good attitude mixed with the lax schedule means that this event is very low key and easy to relax at.  The guest list was better than expected for an event so small and it was easy to get autographs or buy show merch.  This is a very small event and might not be what the regular convention goer would expect, but it has enough going for it to make the winter edition next February very enticing.  If you are into classic games give this event a chance you might just find that lost gem you’ve been looking for, just keep in mind this isn’t a cosplay/shanty town type event.  This is the kind of show you go to for a reason and enjoy it because of that reason.

This was a fun even for the whole team and special thanks go to Gerard, Stan, the friendly clerks, the nice people I chatted with, and the nice people at the food truck.  If you have any questions about this event feel free to contact the team.  We’ll be looking forward to the winter event and hope to see you at the next convention.

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