GameCon at House on the Hill has been running since 2021. It started as a small Saturday gathering and grew, the way these things do, by word of mouth and Discord invites.
Today it's a free, volunteer-run board game night that meets at a house in NW Portland every other Saturday. The library has hundreds of games. Most nights there are seventy-plus people across eight rooms.
It is still free. Always has been. Nobody is ever asked to pay. That part won't change.
There's no staff, no board, no business. Everything that happens on a game night, setting up tables, restocking the snack counter, fixing the projector, walking new folks to the right room, making sure the cats are accounted for, is done by people who like the night enough to pitch in.
Hosts
There's no application, no commitment, no minimum hours. Help set up at 3 PM, run a teach for a heavy game, restock food mid-night, welcome first-timers, run a holiday event. Pick whatever fits. Most regulars do something eventually; nobody's keeping score.