PROTECT YOUR DNA WITH QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY
Orgo-Life the new way to the future Advertising by AdpathwayDo you want early access to our giveaways? Do you want to read our reviews before your friends?
Join the COOL KIDS by subscribing to EverythingBoardGames.Com’s Email List Today!!
Dice Tower West 2025: A Convention Review
When: March 5-9, 2025
Where: Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas
Convention
Find more info HERE.
From the Dice Tower West:
Join us for five days of non-stop gaming, exclusive previews, and epic tournaments in the heart of Las Vegas. Whether you’re a casual player or a competitive gamer, Dice Tower West has something for everyone. Get ready to play, discover, and celebrate the best in board gaming with other enthusiasts from across the globe.
Review:
Dice Tower West, one of the largest board gaming conventions in the United States, takes place annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2025 edition of the show was held from March 5-9 at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino.
The Westgate was a new location for this show as Dice Tower relocated from the Rio Hotel and Casino the previous year. While I was not in attendance last year, everyone I spoke to raved about the improvement in venue for 2025.
The Venue:
The Westgate Resort is expansive, if a bit dated. Many things throughout the hotel, casino, sportsbook and convention center did show the age of the historic venue. That said, the expansive space lent itself very well to the convention overall.
The reception area was a bit confusing, with two desks for “check in”, one that allowed you to get your badge and any merchandise you might have picked up and another for attendees to grab a program, a branded shopping bag and a lanyard provided by All Play. The two check in desks were housed in a large hall that never felt crowded, even during high traffic times.
A room just off this hall was used for various private VIP events. This room would be considered a large conference room had it existed anywhere else, but in this layout, was the smallest room in the venue. This made it an appropriate sized area for the private events it would play host to.
Turning the corner from the check in “foyer” led to a long hallway that played host to traffic through some very important rooms. The first of these rooms, a much larger conference room, was used for various panels throughout the weekend, including opening night celebrations and first timer orientations. Just down the hall from there was the first, and smallest, open play area. I found this room to be a fairly standard sized room for a gaming convention. Plenty of room to play with large, round tables dominating the middle of the room with six-foot long tables lining the perimeter. This room was later used for the gamer-to-gamer flea market, easily one of the most popular events of the show.
A benefit of the Westgate was found at the end of this hall as a full service FedEx office sat waiting for traveling gamers that shopped throughout the weekend and now needed to figure out how they were going to get their loot home in their luggage.
Across the hall from these rooms was the main conference room for the weekend. This room was setup for open gaming as far as the eye could see for two-thirds of the room. The other third of the room was arguably the star of the show. On this third of the room was the massive game library, the play to win library and the Hot Game Zone. These areas were incredibly popular all weekend long.
Passing through the main hall led to a food court area that had access to an outdoor courtyard where attendees could step out for some fresh air and a snack. While it would be hard to say that any food within the resort was a good value, the food court did offer some options that were a little less expensive, at least.
The final room was past the food court, and was also very popular throughout the weekend. Some of this room was used for open play, but the majority of the room was dominated by an expansive Demo Zone run by Envoy. This was coupled with Double Exposure’s tournament play area and bordered by a small, by comparison, vendor area where attendees could shop for games and accessories.
The Great:
Taking a look at the truly great things Dice Tower did is not exactly easy. So much of the convention was executed very, very well.
The Check-In Process
So often this process is overlooked by conventions as just a necessary evil that exists. While the double table setup was a bit confusing, traffic was consistently flowing and easy to navigate. The staff in the area were well informed and did a great job of providing the information needed for gamers to get their weekend started off on the right foot.
Hot Game Zone
Easily the most populated area at all times, the Hot Game Zone was an area of the convention setup with gaming tables and some of the most popular games of 2024-2025. The games were already on the table, fully setup to start play. Attendees were invited to sit down, read the rule books and jump right into a game. As gamers finished their playthroughs, they would reset the game to the starting point for the next group to get started. It all had a nice flow to it and the tables were consistently full no matter what time you passed through.
The Game Library
Most any convention wants their library to be the focus of the show. People show up to check out games and take them to a table where they will play with friends or seek players and/or teachers to join them for a round or two. It took no time to realize that the crown jewel of this convention was the absolutely massive game library available for all throughout the weekend.
Demo Zone
Easily one of the largest areas of Demo games at any convention, this area was set aside for Envoy to operate demos. Supported largely by their impressive group of Heralds, games of all shapes, sizes, complexity and mechanics were available for people to sit down and learn how to play. It was hard to go more than an hour without overhearing someone comment on how great their experience was with a game being taught to them in the Demo Zone.
The Good:
The People
Overall, the people that converged on Las Vegas for this show were a really great bunch of people. It was easy to navigate games with complete strangers. People would randomly offer a teach of a game if you looked like you were struggling. Others were more than happy to chat up gamers at tables to discuss the game they were playing and ask their feedback. A crowd this size is going to have a few issues no matter what you do and there was evidence of sore losers at tournament tables and general bad attitudes throughout. The good far outweighed the bad here, though.
The Venue
As explained above, the Westgate was a great space for the size of the group of gamers that attended. It was easy to move around and not feel overly crowded, even during the busiest times of the show. That said, the age of the venue showed itself throughout the weekend as well. This included the bathrooms in the conference center ending up out of order for a few hours on Saturday night, causing people to have to traverse the large center to get back to the casino area to find working restrooms.
The Bad:
Play To Win
Similar to a game library, most conventions draw the people in with promises of free games that they can win while also trying them out for the first time. The Play-To-Win library is a hallmark of a convention and the bigger it is the better. Despite what seemed to be a convention built on being bigger and better than any others, the Play To Win library was underwhelming at best. Single copies of hot games, older games that sat on the shelf most of the weekend without being checked out and a paltry showing of shelf space offset by it’s placement in the midst of the massive game library all combined to have many people simply shrug it off and continue playing games they brought with them or found in the library.
The Shopping
Conventions that are built for gaming will often downplay the vendor area. A show of this size seemed odd to have such a small, and honestly underwhelming, area of items for purchase. The truly glaring miss was that the games located in the Hot Games Zone were nowhere to be found for purchase by any of the vendors. It seemed odd and disconnected from the rest of the show.
The Prices
Food, snacks, drinks and anything else provided by the Westgate were even more inflated than what most people expected from an event such as this one. It was the buzz of the weekend no matter who you talked to, a $16 standard-sized hot dog was not pleasing anyone. If you were not staying in the hotel, giving you the ability to bring food to your room that you could then sneak away to for a meal, you were left at the mercy of a very expensive food bill at the end of the day.
Final Thoughts:
This was a well done convention that was largely well executed and hit on some very key points. The gaming, which is where the focus should lie, was a focal point that was significantly well done throughout.
Large conventions are not always the “best” conventions from an experience point. That said, Dice Tower had enough going for it that most any gamer would find something they would truly enjoy, should they decide to attend.
Congrats to the staff, volunteers and workers that pulled together to make Dice Tower 2025 work on so many levels. It is definitely a convention I will keep on my list of shows I want to continue to attend in the future.
After reading Bill’s review, if this sounds like a Convention for you make sure you follow their site so you can join him in the future. Check back here so you can get your Con on HERE.
Did you get it based on our review? Please comment below letting us know!
Do you find that you’re missing too many reviews as we drop them? Provide your name and email below and we’ll keep you in the know of what we reviewed that week as well as other hot news!!!!!
Name
Email
Marketing permission: I give my consent to to be in touch with me via email using the information I have provided in this form for the purpose of news, updates and marketing.What to expect: If you wish to withdraw your consent and stop hearing from us, simply click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email we send or contact us at [email protected]. We value and respect your personal data and privacy. To view our privacy policy, please visit our website. By submitting this form, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.
Check out Dice Tower West 2025 and Dice Tower on:
Bill Ivie Reviewer
Bill has been an avid gamer most of his life and is always willing to pull up a chair and play a game. He works in IT and has for the past 25 years. He has six kids and an amazing wife, all of which are willing to play games of differing difficulties and mechanisms. He serves as the Board Game Director for Meeple-A-Thon, a charity in the Kansas City area that runs an annual convention to generate funds. His favorite games are Ark Nova, Terraforming Mars and Dice Throne. When he’s not playing games, you can find him watching baseball or football or traveling with his family.
All of Bill Ivie‘s reviews can be found HERE.
/pic8778267.png)
/pic7607523.png)
/pic7571955.png)
English (US) · 
French (CA) ·