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Trading Card Con San Diego 2026

Oct 2 – Oct 4, 2026 25.0 San Diego, CA (venue TBA — check t…

Somewhere between the person who has every card graded, sleeved, and logged in a spreadsheet, and the person who pulls a binder out at dinner because you have to see what they found — that is who this weekend was built for. Three days of buying, selling, trading, and standing in a room where nobody has to explain why any of it matters. Pokemon, Magic, sports cards, and the whole orbit of collectibles around them. Tournament play, vendor halls, and the floor conversations that only happen when serious collectors are in the same building with time to kill. San Diego's collector scene is already established — the same people who fill Front Row Card Show and Card Party turn up here. Badge tiers run from a single day up to a full weekend pass; venue and details at tradingcardcon.com. Send it to the person you traded with in middle school. Find out whether they still have the binder.

Mustangs by the Bay 2026 — San Diego Embarcadero Car Show

Coming Soon

48 Gathering

2h away

Mustangs by the Bay 2026 — San Diego Embarcadero Car Show

Today · Oct 4 400 Kettner Blvd, San Diego, CA 92…

The Mustang Club of San Diego has been running this show for decades, and the reason it keeps drawing 250-plus entries and thousands of spectators has nothing to do with brand loyalty. It's because this is the car show where the owners actually want to talk to you. Every generation of Mustang since 1964 lines up along the Embarcadero — the early fastbacks that started it all, the Boss 302s, the Fox bodies that everyone made fun of until they didn't, the Shelby GT500s that cost more than some houses. The owners stand next to their cars with the hoods up, and if you ask a question you're going to get an answer that's longer and more passionate than you expected. October 4 at Embarcadero Marina Park North. Free to attend. If you're entering a car, registration details are on the Mustang Club of San Diego site. The bay view behind a row of polished muscle cars is a photograph that takes itself.

Pokémon TCG League at Bards & Cards — San Diego Gaslamp

Weekly

38 Gathering

5h away

Pokémon TCG League at Bards & Cards — San Diego Gaslamp

Every Sunday · Next Oct 4 936 5th Ave, San Diego, CA 92101

You built a deck and you need to know if it holds up against the real thing before you ever pay a Regional entry fee -- this is where you find out. Bards & Cards runs weekly Pokemon TCG League play in the heart of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, built for players who want structured competition without the all-day Regional commitment: come in, play a set number of rounds, earn League points, build your ranking across the season. The player base spans people grinding Championship Points toward Worlds to collectors who just want to see their favorite builds in action, and the store carries a strong singles inventory, so filling a deck gap on-site before rounds start is realistic. Bring the friend who keeps threatening to get back into it. For San Diego players who want consistent weekly competition instead of waiting for the next Regional, this is the local infrastructure. Check the store's event reservations page for current format, timing, and entry requirements.

Pokémon Gym & Open Play at Odyssey Games — Pasadena

Weekly

13 Gathering

5h away

Pokémon Gym & Open Play at Odyssey Games — Pasadena

Every Sunday · Next Oct 4 1795 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA…

Every deck looks perfect until it meets somebody else's. You can theorycraft all week and still never learn the one thing you needed to know, which only shows up when a real person is sitting across from you and does not care about your plan. Sundays at Odyssey Games are where that gets sorted. The Gym badge track gives newer players an actual ladder to climb instead of a wall to bounce off, while the veterans run open battles to stress-test builds before Regional Championships. It is the accessible end of competitive Pokémon in the San Gabriel Valley — bring any deck, play real games, get told the truth by people who have been at this for years. The singles case matters more than it sounds: you find the hole in your list at midday and you can patch it before you drive home. Odyssey Games on East Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, from midday every Sunday, free to play. Text this to whoever you traded with in elementary school. They still have the cards.

Commander Night at Off The Shelf Games — El Cajon

Weekly

24 Gathering

Tomorrow

Commander Night at Off The Shelf Games — El Cajon

Every Monday · Next Oct 5 173 Fletcher Pkwy, El Cajon, CA 92…

If you have never played Commander and always suspected the table would leave you behind, this is the room that proves otherwise. Every Monday at Off The Shelf Games in El Cajon, players of every experience level show up at 173 Fletcher Pkwy to build boards, make friends, and spend four hours doing exactly what the format was designed for - surprise politics, improbable combos, and the kind of game-ending turns the whole table is still talking about next week. Commander Night here is beginner-friendly by design: established players take the time to walk newcomers through card advantage, board-state reading, and threat assessment, so first-timers never feel stranded. If you have been playing for years, it is a room full of people who take the format as seriously as you do. No Swiss rounds, no prize pressure, no ego - just good games in East San Diego County. The store's library has hundreds of titles for open play the same nights, so bring the whole group even if not everyone plays Magic. 4 PM to 10 PM every Monday. Free entry.

Weekly

47 Gathering

Tomorrow

Magic: The Gathering Weekly at Spikes Lounge — Commerce

Every Monday · Next Oct 5 Spikes Lounge, 5211 East Washingto…

Somebody across the table groans at a topdeck, a pod starts arguing politics, and the whole table leans in when a deck finally does what it was built to do. None of that survives a screen. Spikes Lounge in Commerce keeps that going every Monday night, and the format is not decided in advance — Draft, Sealed or Commander, chosen by whoever actually walks in. Sets in rotation include Final Fantasy, Lorwyn and TMNT. What makes it worth the drive from Montebello or East LA is that nobody there is precious about it: if you have never drafted, the regulars will walk you through pick order without making it a lesson, and Commander pods take all comers. Entry runs ten to twenty-one dollars depending on what is running, and parking is free. Text the friend who still has a shoebox of cards from high school and tell them the pod has a seat.

Cars and Coffee Classics — Downtown Anaheim

Monthly

44 Gathering

2 days away

44 1 saved

Cars and Coffee Classics — Downtown Anaheim

Monthly · Next Oct 6 Center Street Promenade, 201 W Cen…

You learned these cars from a video game before you ever saw one move. The boxy Skyline. The first-gen NSX. The Datsun somebody's uncle still talks about selling. One morning a month, on the first Sunday, the Center Street Promenade belongs entirely to that generation of machine, and unlike the everything-welcome mega-meets this one leans hard and lovingly vintage: nineties and earlier Japanese iron, Toyota and Nissan and Honda and Subaru and Mitsubishi, the imports a whole cohort of kids grew up worshipping through a screen. There is a DJ, a vendor market, a Best of Show, and the unhurried pleasure of holding a coffee while you walk rows of machinery people kept alive out of pure stubborn devotion. Free to walk in. Come if you can date a car by its headlights. Then bring the friend who can date it by the taillights and let the two of you argue about it all morning.

Disney Lorcana League Night at Bards & Cards — San Diego

Weekly

86 Gathering

2 days away

Disney Lorcana League Night at Bards & Cards — San Diego

Every Tuesday · Next Oct 6 936 5th Ave, San Diego, CA 92101

You can walk in having never touched a trading card game, buy a starter kit at the counter, and be playing real games against real people before the hour is out. That is the strange, generous trick of this one — a skill floor low enough to step over and a ceiling high enough that people have been chasing it for months. Which is why League night looks the way it does. A Disney fan on their first deck across the table from somebody who has been tuning the same build since release, and the game holding up for both of them. This is the weekly touchstone for the local scene, where the best players sharpen before bigger events, and where the shop's singles case means you can fix what broke between rounds instead of driving home annoyed. Bards & Cards in the Gaslamp, on Fifth. The store's reservations page carries the current schedule and format. Bring the friend who keeps saying they want to learn and never has. This is the room where they actually can.

Weekly

2 days away

Groundswell Brewing Board Game Night — Weekly in Chula Vista

Every Tuesday · Next Oct 6 Groundswell Brewing, 3097 Ocean Vi…

Every week at Groundswell Brewing in Chula Vista, the tables get cleared and the board games come out. Chess, UNO, Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, whatever someone brings from home — the brewery provides the space and the craft beer, and the regulars provide the competition. Runs 6-10 PM every Tuesday night. This is not a tournament and nobody is keeping score across weeks, at least not officially. It is a room full of people who realized that sitting across from someone with a game between you is the fastest way to go from strangers to friends without having to make small talk about the weather. Groundswell is at 3097 Ocean View Blvd in the Barrio Logan area. No cover charge and no minimum. Just show up, pick a table, find a game on the shelf or bring your own, and ask who needs a fourth. The brewery's tap list rotates seasonally, so even the beer is different every time you come back. The crowd skews young but the regulars span every age.

Every 2 weeks

2 days away

San Diego Pinball Club Fall League

Every other Tuesday · Next Oct 6 $6 Brewskis Bar & Arcade, 8760 Mirama…

Your hands still know it. Not your memory, your hands. The nudge that stops just short of tilt, the timing on a drop-catch, the way you lean without deciding to when the ball is heading down the outlane. Most people lose the arcade and assume the skill went with it, then stand in front of a machine after fifteen years away and discover the skill was never in the building. This is a league, which means it is not a room of strangers taking turns. It is the same forty-odd people every other Tuesday, a standings sheet that people argue about in earnest, and a wall of machines swapped often enough that nobody gets to stay comfortable. Every skill level plays, and the handicapping means a first-timer can and regularly does knock off a ranked player. What newcomers never expect: scores here are IFPA-certified, so a Tuesday night in Miramar quietly moves your world ranking. 21+, $6 entry, every other Tuesday at 6:30pm, Brewskis Bar & Arcade, 8760 Miramar Rd.

Down Back Tuesdays — FGC Tournament at Arrow Lodge Brewing

Every 2 weeks

127 Gathering

2 days away

127

Down Back Tuesdays — FGC Tournament at Arrow Lodge Brewing

Every other Tuesday · Next Oct 6 950 E 3rd St #1A, Los Angeles, CA …

The fighting game community does not care how long you have been playing. It cares whether you play. Down Back Tuesdays runs on that principle — a biweekly bracket at a brewery in the Arts District where Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Skullgirls share floor space with people who came to actually compete. This is not a watch party. This is the version of esports where the person you just lost to can immediately explain what went wrong and then challenge you to a rematch. Amateur brackets run alongside the main event — first-timers are expected, not tolerated. The venue is Arrow Lodge Brewing in downtown Los Angeles's Arts District, which means the skill ceiling and the beer selection are both higher than you would expect from a Tuesday night. Doors open at 6pm for casuals. Tournament brackets start at 7pm. Entry is five dollars per game plus a fifteen dollar venue fee at the door. Runs every other Tuesday through the year. 950 E 3rd St, Los Angeles.

Weekly

3 days away

San Diego Nerd Night — Weekly at Twisted Horn Mead & Cider, Vista

Every Wednesday · Next Oct 7 Twisted Horn Mead & Cider, 1042 La…

Every Wednesday at four o'clock, a meadery in Vista becomes the room you wished existed when you were fourteen. No sign-up. No structure. No one running it. Just a taproom full of people who brought their character sheets, their miniatures, their half-painted Warhammer armies, their Switch, their board games, their cosplay-in-progress, and the specific relief of being somewhere that the word 'nerd' is not a category — it is the atmosphere. Twisted Horn Mead & Cider brews award-winning mead and hard cider in a tasting room that looks like a Viking hall designed by someone who also plays D&D. On Wednesday nights it fills with adults 21 and over who want exactly one thing: a place to nerd out with strangers who already get it. The tables hold campaign maps and Magic decks and laptops running Baldur's Gate and conversations about lore so deep you forget you are in a strip mall in Vista. This is not a scheduled event with a host and a microphone. It is an unorganized, recurring, come-as-you-are gathering that has been running long enough that the regulars have inside jokes and the newcomers are absorbed without introduction. The mead is good. The people are better. Wednesday is the night. Every Wednesday starting at 4:00 PM. Twisted Horn Mead & Cider, 1042 La Mirada Ct, Vista, CA 92081. Ages 21+. Free entry.

Weekly

91 Gathering

3 days away

D&D Adventurers League — Weekly Sessions at Temecula

Every Wednesday · Next Oct 7 GameStar Hobbies, 27380 Jefferson …

Finding the rules was never the hard part of tabletop roleplaying. Finding four other people whose weeknights line up with yours — and staying friends with them long enough to actually finish a campaign — is the hard part. Adventurers League deletes that problem. You walk in with a character — or you build one at the table — and you sit down inside a story that is already moving. Nobody asks how long you have been playing. A first-timer who has never held a d20 and a veteran of twenty years end up in the same party, and both leave with something they want to keep pulling on. The stories stack week over week, characters grow teeth, and eventually the weeknight stops being a weeknight. GameStar Hobbies, 27380 Jefferson Ave in Temecula, every week. Character rules live at dnd.wizards.com/adventurers-league. Send it to the friend who still has dice from high school in a drawer somewhere. The seat is open and the dungeon is already in there waiting.

TAC D&D Night at Off The Shelf Games — El Cajon

Weekly

32 Gathering

3 days away

TAC D&D Night at Off The Shelf Games — El Cajon

Every Wednesday · Next Oct 7 173 Fletcher Pkwy, El Cajon, CA 92…

Every player knows the dread: showing up to game night and finding an empty table — or worse, one exhausted Dungeon Master drowning under nine people who all want to talk to the same shopkeeper. That very specific dread is what this format exists to kill. Every Wednesday in El Cajon the club runs organized tables in Primordia, a homebrew world built for this group of players rather than pulled off a shelf. RSVP through Meetup or the store's Discord and the table assignments post before the session, so you never walk in wondering whether the game is actually happening. Returning players get real continuity — choices from earlier sessions carry forward — while newcomers can drop into a one-shot without needing a page of backstory. Off The Shelf has been the East County hub for tabletop for years, and the evening runs long enough to actually finish something. Text the friend who keeps saying they want to try this but is scared to walk in cold. This is where they start.

Board Game Night at Odyssey Games — Pasadena

Weekly

75 Gathering

3 days away

Board Game Night at Odyssey Games — Pasadena

Every Wednesday · Next Oct 7 1795 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA…

Somewhere in your closet sits a game you bought six months ago and have never once put on a table. This is where that ends. The back tables open up on Wednesday nights, and the store library is the real draw — hundreds of titles, gateway stuff through heavy euros through the social deduction games that ruin friendships, all free to play off the shelf. Come alone and slide into something already running. Bring three people and teach them the thing you have been evangelizing. Or finally cut the shrink wrap. The regulars here have been showing up long enough to know which games are worth the rules explanation and which new release is overhyped, and that informal knowledge is the whole difference between a game night that works and one that is merely organized. Doors stay open late and it costs nothing. Text the friend who keeps saying you should hang out more. This is the hang.

Coming Soon

37 Gathering

🌎 Nation's Best 4 days away

New York Comic Con 2026 — New York, NY

In 4 days · Oct 8 – Oct 11 From $45 (1-day) Jacob K. Javits Convention Center,…

The Javits Center in October, a hundred thousand people in four days, every niche of pop culture in one building — and the streets of Hell's Kitchen turning into something you've never seen on a regular Tuesday. The Javits Center fills with a programmatic density that rewards strategic planning. Main stage panels feature talent from the year's biggest genre properties. The show floor covers hundreds of thousands of square feet of publishers, studios, collectibles vendors, and artist booths. Artist Alley at NYCC skews heavily toward comics — the original fanbase — alongside anime, gaming, and TV, giving it a different character than conventions that have shifted more entirely toward film and streaming. The autograph and photo op schedule is extensive; tickets for specific sessions go on sale in advance and sell out. New York Comic Con in 2026 is celebrating twenty years, and the Coney Island theme suggests organizers are going big on identity and atmosphere. The anniversary edition will likely bring programming and exclusives designed for the occasion. If you have been considering NYCC as a destination event, this is the year to go. The East Coast advantage: NYCC is adjacent to one of the world's great cities. The convention ends at 7pm and New York starts. Restaurants, bars, and attractions are all accessible from the Javits Center. Hotel inventory near the venue is limited; book early and consider Hudson Yards or Hell's Kitchen options within walking distance. Tickets go on sale in June with a Superfan Presale for Popverse members opening before general on-sale. Javits Center, New York City. October 8–11, 2026. New York Comic Con was founded in 2006 and reached 250,000 attendance within its first decade. The 20th anniversary edition in 2026 with the Coney Island theme signals that the organizers are treating this as a milestone year — expect expanded programming, anniversary exclusives, and a level of production that reflects two decades of iteration. If you have been waiting for the right year to make NYCC a destination trip, the 20th anniversary is the obvious choice.

Weekly

644 Gathering

4 days away

644

D&D Adventurers League — Game Empire SD

Every Thursday · Next Oct 8 Free / $5 suggested 5037 Shawline St, San Diego, CA 92…

You do not need a group, a character, or any idea what you are doing. That is the entire design. Drop in on a Thursday evening, pick up a pregenerated character sheet, and join a table — mid-campaign or at the start of something fresh. Dungeon Masters are provided. Dice are provided. Rules questions are not tolerated so much as encouraged. Tables sort by Tier, so a first-time player rolling their first d20 sits with other new characters instead of getting lost behind a party three levels deep. If you already have a D&D Beyond character in Adventurers League legal format, bring it — after tonight it is recognized at any AL table anywhere in the world, which is the quietly remarkable part of organized play. Game Empire SD, 5037 Shawline St, San Diego — a dedicated tabletop store with real event space and staff who know the rules. Parking on-site. Most sessions need no reservation; check the store calendar. The only bad session is the one you did not show up for.

Hobby Night at Odyssey Games — Pasadena (Warhammer & Miniatures)

Weekly

16 Gathering

4 days away

Hobby Night at Odyssey Games — Pasadena (Warhammer & Miniatures)

Every Thursday · Next Oct 8 1795 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA…

There's a specific relief in a room with lighting good enough for detail work and a table you don't have to fold up at the end of the night -- somewhere your army can just live for a few hours. Odyssey Games in Pasadena runs Thursday hobby nights for miniature wargamers, model painters, and Warhammer 40K players who want exactly that. The format is intentionally social: players set up terrain for casual games or spread their models out to paint, Warhammer 40K leading but other systems welcome, the crowd a mix of competitive players testing list builds and hobbyists at every stage of the painting queue. The store stocks paints, brushes, primers, and Warhammer product, which solves realizing mid-session you're out of the one color you need. Bring the friend whose backlog rivals yours. Pasadena's Warhammer scene is active enough that finding a casual game on a Thursday is reliable -- no Discord coordination required. Open 10 AM to 11 PM; the community gathers from 6 PM Thursdays. Free entry.

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