EGLX 2018
EGLX, which stands for Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo, is apparently Canada’s largest gaming convention. I had never heard of it myself until early this year, but it’s been around for three years or so.
I bought a Saturday ticket ($40 after tax), headed across the city and checked it out. It was held at the International Centre, which is a convention center just outside of Toronto by the airport. It’s technically in Mississauga, but everyone still generally refers to it as Toronto, because let’s be honest, everyone knows Toronto.
After accidentally standing in the wrong line for a few minutes (Motorama event or something), I finally made my way ten minutes away to the other building where EGLX was being held. Showed my ticket, got my wrist band, and went in.
At first glance, it looks exactly like FanExpo, just with its entire focus on games. Rows of vendors, an artist alley, main stage and multiple gaming tournaments. There was a BYOD Hearthstone tournament, a main stage Hearthstone tournament, Halo 5 and Smash tournaments, a Rocket League tournament in both regular and Snow Day modes, and many others.
The far end of the building had speedruns set up for an event called Games Done Adequately. Sidenote: That’s totally the sarcastic kind of name I would’ve come up with. I caught someone doing a Cuphead speedrun (any percentage, latest patch, one hour), but there were quite a lot of people speedrunning various games.
There were multiple vendors from various places. Nintendo was likely the biggest gaming company there, with a fairly large display and about a dozen or so Switch systems set up. They had Mario and Mario Kart, of course, I believe they also had DOOM and Skyrim running. I didn’t stick around in the line to play any because they didn’t have any upcoming games, and I already have a Switch myself. Microsoft Store had a booth, who were giving away free things, but not Microsoft itself.
They had a great Indie Zone, with local developers like Reptoid Games (Fossil Hunters) and Studio Monolith (Polyball). They had a retro zone with what looked like original arcade machines of various games, based on how damaged and worn some of them looked. Street Fighter II, Track and Field, the sit down Q*Bert and Pac-Man machines. It was a good time. One of the booths had an 80s room set up, with an ugly couch, CRT and several posters for movies of the era, including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Terminator.
Overall, it was an excellent time. I wound up meeting a few people, missed out on meeting a few people, met a few I didn’t intend to meet, an overall good show. Came home with some free swag and some bought things, of course.
After experiencing EGLX, I will definitely be going to future events, and I’ll definitely be getting the VIP pass to a) help support and b) get the stuff that comes with it. I still think I’d only go on the one day, as I’m not overly into panels and stage events, and you can definitely and see and do everything else in a one day visit. Saturday’s are generally the best, as that’s when everyone is pretty much guaranteed to be there.
Also, four dollar convention coffee.
James was born and raised in Toronto, and still loves the city. Tech geek, gaming geek, horror geek, and if you get between me and coffee, *shakes fist*. If you want to keep up to date or stay in touch, follow me on Twitter, peruse my site at CrazyCanuck.pro, check me out over on Twitch, and chat with me on Discord.
