Special Events at Southern Board Game Fest
Only two days left before it’s Southern Board Game Festival’s opening on Friday night! For those of you who have been in years past, this will be our first year opening the festival to badge holders on Friday with special events, open library, and even a sneak peek at the Play To Win Section!
But today I wanted to spotlight some of the cool special events that we have at SoBo. If you have a badge, all of these events are free and can be signed up at the SoBo 2026 Tabletop Events site.
I have already mentioned the first annual Unmatched tourney, hosted by Board Game Gumbo with help from our friends at The Beans & Dice Podcast and Restoration Games, which is taking place on Friday night at 7:00pm. There are only a few spots left available! I will give a brief teach of the game, and we will actually run through a few turns before the tournament starts. I will have 50+ different characters for you to choose your heroes for the tournament, so it should be a great way to get introduced to the game system, try out some heroes you have never played, and compete for some fun prizes.
Next up, I want to shout out to my buddy, The Jay Bell, who is hosting a Seminar / Q&A session all about board game design. Jay is not only a prolific designer (he’ll probably have a prototype or two on him if you want to try one of his new games), but he also works on the production side at Panda Game Manufacturing, the world’s largest board game manufacturer. Jay will answer your questions about how to get your prototype ready for manufacturing, in addition to general questions about the design process. That event is on Sunday afternoon.
We have another tourney on schedule, this one sponsored by our friends at Anubis Game & Hobby (who will have a vendor’s booth at the festival.) They will be running a Dice Thrones tournament on Saturday afternoon, and you can get more information right here: https://challonge.com/i80lcwd0
Coalition: Councils of the Republic was a big hit at GeauxPub last year, and successfully funded on Kickstarter. If you have always wanted to try this large group euro style social game, the designer (Joshua) is hosting a game on Saturday night. It wouldn’t be a convention night without a large group social game!
Maybe one of the coolest events we have at Southern Board Game Fest this year is our first Game Design Jam, sponsored by Panda Game Manufacturing and hosted by The Jay Bell. Here’s the scoop from Jay: Split into teams of 2-4 and brainstorm game ideas using components provided by Panda GM. There will be three rounds, each with a different prompt. At the end, pick your favorite idea and pitch it to the judges! Your pitch will be scored against our rubric, so you will get quick feedback! Obviously, no one will have a finished game in the span of an hour. This game jam is an idea incubator, and maybe one day one of these ideas will become a finished design!
Finally, we are importing a fun event that some of the Acadiana board gamers saw at BGG Con last year, the Hot Streak life-sized play. That’s right! The Hot Dog and Queen and Bear and Fish will be played by local gamers, and you can join in on the fun by betting on your favorites to win!
We’ve got a great line up of special events this year. I can’t wait for the festival to start!
Until next time, or until SoBo, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo