Video game connoisseurs, cosplay enthusiasts, Pokémon fanatics, and all other sects of attendees came together for a weekend of fun at Sonoma Con, the newest premier convention hosted at the Sonoma County fairgrounds on Oct. 4 and 5. The convention debuted in 2024, with Outer Planes Comics & Games hosting the event to boost the gaming scene in Santa Rosa. The company offered a variety of ways to engage and experience this gaming paradise.
Joseph Sapp, the event producer and coordinator, returned to the scene after putting on the event last year as well. “I’m a lifelong nerd, an experienced event manager and this is home for me, so being able to produce something at this scale for my local community, it’s the honor of a lifetime,” Sapp said.
Sonoma Con welcomed all attendees, from those who are brand new to the convention/gaming scene, to the experienced gamer entering into many different competitions. A large part of the community gravitated towards Magic: The Gathering, a strategic trading card game in which players attempt to outplay their opponents with complicated card pairings. While there were other card games featured, such as Pokèmon or the brand new Flesh and Blood, most of the event was centered around Magic.
Within Artists Alley, one of the halls hosting activities on the fairgrounds, artists displayed their work, engaged with fans and signed art pieces. Most of the artists were established Magic: The Gathering card designers, including Phil Stone, the main artist featured on the event page.
“I woke up one day and there was an email that was for Forgotten Realms,” Stone said. “They found me off of a $20 drawing I did for one of the companies I illustrate for.”
Stone has created such iconic cards as “Ancient Copper Dragon,” “Lightning Bolt” and “Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s War.”
Alongside Stone, other artists set up stands around hundreds of tables where players could come together, trading their most valuable pieces or challenging strangers to competitive matches. The producers brought in bigger names such as Nicki Rapp, a voice actor for video games like “The Walking Dead” and “Psychonauts”, and David Gonzales, who played the drummer “Ak-Rev” in “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.”
“I am here to celebrate the fandom of the Star Wars Universe,” Gonzales said.
Fans of the franchise were eager to interact with someone from the original movies, and Gonzales excitedly relayed his experience with any interested patron.
“We take cards from 30 years of Magic’s history and we’ll put them into different products,” said Dante Deusanio, the owner of Vintage Rarities, one of the main vendors featured at the event. “Some of these packs can be thousands of dollars to open cards that were made three decades ago, so we wanted to give people the opportunity to open those at a price point where basically anyone can have access to them.”
Vintage Rarities sells packs of Pokèmon alongside its Magic: The Gathering collection, where people can find rare cards. Other vendors included Hammerhead Games, Nostalgic Thrill, Bearded Bear TCG, Gateway Games and many more filling out every corner of the hall. Each one boasted a collection of enticing goodies and proved to be a money trap for the unsuspecting nerd to fall into.
While vendors promoted their businesses in Garett Hall, activities raged on in Kraft Hall. Rows of tables were set up for figurine painting and each one was filled to the brim for the entirety of the event. A large crowd gathered to play Warhammer 40K, which hosts tons of intricate figurines to personalize and color in. The hall also gave way to Madhouse, a company that brings gaming equipment to tournaments.
“Our tournaments can get as big as 180 plus people,” said Dakotah Mendez, one of the Madhouse owners who runs the bracket for these competitions.
They show a professional setup and offer tons of opportunities for people to play games like Tekken and Street Fighter. Dungeons and Dragons also had a large scene at this event, with introductory campaigns for new players and advanced scenes at a table close by.
Sonoma Con also introduced its D&D interactive experience, where people could explore various areas of the event while progressing a storyline put together by the event organizers. It struggled a bit in the execution, with quite a few people getting stuck on certain puzzles involved in the activity, but the story was involved and offers a good foundation for what can be expanded upon in the future.
The event proved itself to the gaming community as a strong mesh of nerd culture and professional organization.
