On August 24th, 2023, the 55th Anniversary of GEN CON®, the Gygax Memorial Fund laid a stone at Horticultural Hall commemorating the founding of GEN CON® by Gary Gygax and presented a mock-up of an interpretive sign that will hopefully, one day, stand outside Horticultural Hall as a permanent exhibit.

The sign will let all who read it learn about Gary Gygax's founding of GEN CON® on the site in 1968 and how it is now North America's largest tabletop gaming convention with 60,000 attendees annually.

The history of Horticultural Hall is that in 1968 Gary Gygax decided he could run a war gaming convention with just the help of his family and friends. On August 23, 1968 the Geneva Convention as it became to be called, hosted nearly 100 gamers from around the country. With the exception of two years where it was held elsewhere, GEN CON®, as it is now referred to, had a presence in the Horticultural Hall through 1977.

As the convention grew from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of attendees, it expanded into the Holy Communion Episcopal Church Guild Hall and the American Legion Hall as well. Eventually the convention outgrew Lake Geneva and added the Playboy Club in 1977. Then leaving Lake Geneva completely in 1978, it moved to the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, then to MECCA (Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center & Arena), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and finally, to its current site, the ICC (Indiana Convention Center), Indianapolis, Indiana.

GEN CON® is now the largest table top gaming convention in North America with over 60,000 attendees each year and is a major source of income for the city of Indianapolis every summer. And it all started with Gary Gygax and his vision to create a Midwestern gaming convention in his little hometown of Lake Geneva.

Photos and a video of the dedication on August 24th, 2023.