Magic: The Gathering has been a part of major gaming conventions dating back to the 1993 Gen-Con.
The collectible card game had a very unusual convention beginning, though.
While most games tend to gravitate towards setting up a booth at a Gen-Con or Origins or PAX nowadays, Magic benefited from becoming very big, very fast. Only two years after the first set, the Magic: The Gathering I convention was held in New York at the Macklowe-Millenium Broadway Hotel. And, like MTG conventions today, it had a headlining set: Homelands.
After subsequent events in Germany and Italy, Magic never really looked back. At all conventions going forward it was either going to be their convention or they were going to have a large presence there. As the world's largest trading card game, they can play that up, and at events not theirs, they get prime real estate at the convention center.
Today, Magic conventions, or conventions featuring Magic are held year round, but are mainly focused on in summer months so players still in school can more easily attend, so that the convention can be part of a larger vacation, and several other reasons ranging from logistics to availability.
The biggest one is also the most recent - MagicCon. There are three to four Wizards of the Coast backed conventions are held each year, with a general focus on Europe, East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast. Started in 2023 as a 30th anniversary celebration, locations generally still vary as they are still trying to get a good balance. For example, there will be no European convention in 2025, while in 2024 there was no East Coast location. That being said, Las Vegas seems to have been chosen as the West Coast location thanks to being in a very accessible place with lots of hotel space and a big convention center. And Chicago has been the Midwest location for two years in a row now. Time will tell if more locations become permanent.
MagicCons also tend to be held within a week or two of a set introduction, so that they can have a bit of a theme. Pro Tour events are also held, major announcements are made, a cosplay contest is held and, most recently, Dungeons and Dragons was added in the rotation.
Before MagicCon, Magic still had a huge convention presence. In addition to their own stand alone conventions, Pro Tours often had the convention atmosphere around them. But, unlike MagicCon, where the Pro Tour is a big feature, the convention was a big feature of the Pro Tour. But Convention-wise, GenCon was usually the go to one. In fact, in 1993, Magic had a convention debut there. Originally in Milwaukee, Gen Con moved to Indianapolis in 2003 and never looked back. In 2024, more than 70,000 people attended. But that is all games. For Magiccon, a one game only event, their record is over 15,000, which was set at the 2024 MagicCon in Las Vegas.
Even large-scale Magic: The Gathering events, such as the now-defunct Grand Prix events, served as de-facto MTG conventions.
And then there are the conventions that are on the periphery. The annual ComicCon in San Diego, Origins in Columbus, and PAX in Seattle, Boston, Melbourne, and San Antonio. There's also Dragon Con in Atlanta, Hascon, which was in Rhode Island but is now virtual, and the various Dreamhack stops. And those are just the big ones.
In total, Magic events tend to cover the US and the world, and while it started with a small Convention in New York, it is now a part of several conventions a year, and the sole game of a handful a year as well.
