Yeah, the Toronto gaming scene has not been helped with the disappearance of Pandemonium.
It seemed to me that the on again off again problems with Pandemonium have not assisted. That said, there was an attempt to have another con in the Toronto area in the summer back in the late 90s and the organizers took a big hit on it.
There is Ad Astra in April. It is primarily a Sci-Fi lit con, but there has always been gaming at Ad Astra. It is, however, not its focus (by a long shot). It's still very much a hardcore 70s style SF con where people get drunk in various "Con suites"
It's complicated. The nature of Toronto is that the Con needs to be in an area accessible to the TTC. People as well want the Con to be held during the time of year that Ryerson, York and UofT are in session - which means early in the year at the time that Pandemonium was always held (and for the same reasons).
The requirements to be held at that time of year confine you to either something held on a University campus - but then there are difficulties in getting access to the space during that time of year (because it's in session).
Or you then opt for a hotel - and they want a fair chunk of money and guarantees of payment - which scares people (and with good reason).
Or you opt for something on the CNE grounds -- and that runs into the problem of walking from the TTC drop off to the building - which is unpleasant during the winter and a storm will end up costing you your deposit and leave you on the hook for the balance of the rental.
It's not a happy place to be. What you really need to be is a con with a longstanding tradition that can attract people back and then grow it. That's what Pandemonium did. But the control of Panda passed form the General Staff to others a decade or so ago and things went... unevenly.
There ARE quarterly board game mini-cons held in Toronto, the various Tabs Cons. They are well attended by two to three few hundred or so board gamers who organize on their own mailing list / Meet-up and use BoardGameGeek to get the word out. The problem with hitching a ride on their coat-tails to expand it is that they are essentially at "maximum size" for their current venue in a Church Hall just south of Bayview and the 401. They are as big as they can get at that venue.
I think it's back to square one and trying something out of Seneca or George Brown makes the most sense.
As for
FanExpo...they've screwed up gaming in some manner at virtually every Con they've held. I've never considered it a gaming Con and don't know many people that do. But...maybe it's time that we all did more to try it make it one?
Given the size of their organization, maybe it really DOES make the most sense to try and make that the "big Con" and make it better. Three - four years back or so, FanExpo really tried to up the "geek cred" on the gaming aspect of it and brought Gary Gygax to FanExpo. The Trolls had a set up in the Exhibit Hall and a few other smaller "name" game mftrs did as well. But tbh, not very many. The Exhibit Hall is really set up for comics, manga and T-shirts and autograph lines. The default size of their booth spaces are not conducive to the same size booths game mftrs are used to -- and have display equipment designed for -- at Origins, Gencon, PAX and DragonCon.
Not sure what the answer is to that. Hard to build up that tradition of getting enough gamers there to support that aspect of Fanexpo. It's a chicken and egg situation.
Moreover, it's very hard to attract game mftrs to FanExpo, as normally, Gencon is held the weekend before and Dragon Con is normally held the weekend after. People are TIRED and need to move their inventory around. It's not easy. This year, ironically, because Gencon moved up earlier in August, it might be easier to pull it off. Hard time slot though to be sandwiched in between Gencon and DragonCon, either way.
While FanExpo has grown to the point where it threatens to rival the size of DragonCon -- it doesn't have the same traditions and the crowds at each are little different. Add in the issues of sales taxes and getting inventory across the border and it's a daunting issue.
I think one of the problems with FanExpo and gaming is that it is a "top-down" managed Con with very little tradition of organizing a broad base of volunteers within the gaming community to sign on, run games and be a part of it. And little surprise that the most enthusiastic gaming volunteers (the usual suspects at least) are exhausted: they just did that very thing the weekend before at Gencon.