How to Host a 24-Hour Board Game Marathon

Why would anyone do such a thing?

My partner and I annually host a 24-hour Board Game Marathon (it’s drop-in, we don’t expect anyone else to stay up that long). It started as a funny way to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving because we had a long weekend. When we asked ourselves how we wanted to spend that time, the only answer was playing board games. We’ve just done our 7th Annual event and have found that our friends are becoming more dedicated to the idea each year. This year, we had the highest attendance (26 people stopped by to play), we had more people than ever stay through the night (we still had 11 people at our house by 5am) but still only a dedicated core (this year, 4 of us) that played the full 24 hours.

It’s both a wild and achievable event if you want to make it happen. We’ve done it while travelling (had Thanksgiving in Wales one year), we’ve done it at a friend’s house when our flat was too small, and for the last three years, we’ve hosted the event with an infant, then baby, then toddler.

Pro tip: The long sleepless nights of early parenthood are really great training for any kind of 24-hour event!

What follows is completely based on our experiences and preferences, but hopefully some of this will be helpful if you plan your own 24-hour board game marathon (or maybe an even longer one)!

The fundamentals of hosting a long board game event

Food and Drink

We ask people to bring a snack for the snack table and we provide a meal, usually something vegan in the slow cooker so that everyone can eat it whenever they want. There has always been a plethora of food and drink and we trust our friends to deal with their own eating requirements so unless someone is deathly allergic to something, we don’t make any particular requests regarding the offerings.

Facilities

Ensure you have fridge space for drinks and likely some food. We had a chilly bin at the last one to boost our cold space and that worked well.

For an event in the 25-30 people range (scale accordingly), we try to make sure we’ve got at least three playing tables: one that could hold something like Wingspan and another that could support a big one like Ark Nova. The bigger table can be used to play multiple different games at once any time it’s not needed for a beastly game.

We normally have games on all three tables from about 11AM. There’s almost always a heavy 3-4 hour game being played by 4-6 of the attendees and we do our best to make sure there’s a bit of mixing between our various game circles.

Bonus points if you have an extra surface for all the games people bring. It’s fun to see the pile grow as players arrive (though sometimes you’ll spend a couple of days returning games to the friends who stumbled out at 6am and didn’t manage to remember everything they brought).

Guests

We start by inviting all our friends who are even tangentially interested in board games (and some who aren’t yet), which means we end up with a wide range of player types and experience levels. We also encourage people to bring friends which, depending on the size of your place, may or may not be a good plan.

Host Duties

We try to make sure everyone is involved in a game and happy about what they’re playing. We are serious about this. It might be the only thing we’re serious about all weekend! We only intervene when necessary; as much as possible, we sit back and let things unfold but there are a few situations we watch for. We generally know people well enough to know if they’ll enjoy a certain type of game and can steer them towards experiences that have a higher likelihood of being positive. Obviously, there is more managing to be done with our new-to-the-hobby friends. The folks with a lot of board game experience can largely fend for themselves; the most we’ll do for them is subtly manoeuvre them away from playing a long game with someone we’re pretty sure they’ll clash with.

We occasionally sacrifice our own desires to enable other people get to play things they’re excited about. Sometimes this means giving up your seat in a game you’ve been dying to try. Sometimes it means playing Azul for the 34th time (instead of something new) so you can teach a table who have never played it. Sometimes it means jumping into a party game that maybe you’d rather not play but you know you can fill up the table by bringing attention to it and really, it’s a great game, it’s just not your cup of tea. These are sacrifices we’re happy to make because ultimately, we’re happiest when everyone who came to our weird event has a great time!

Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely host this marathon so that we get to play lots of awesome games. That’s why there’s two of us. We can tag team so that we both get to cross off things on our wish lists.

The Waiting Games**

Near the snacks, we have a little pile of games that play quickly and don’t take much space so people can sneak in a game or two on the counter while they’re waiting for bigger games to finish up.

The schedule

10AM - Noon: Quick, expandable, entertaining

Our hardcore friends, the ones who will be with us until the bitter, sleepy end, arrive on time and we expect folks to trickle in for the first couple of hours. Usually, we choose games with quick play times or that are round-based so the game can expand as people turn up. Also, games worth watching or engaging with from the outside (betting games, racing games, trivia games) are good in this window. Ice-breakers are a solid choice here, as well, as they help people get to know each other a bit before spending 24 hours together.

Noon - 6PM: Mix and mingle

Hydrate!

We can normally assume that most of the daytime shift has arrived by this point and everyone is fresh as a board game straight from the shrink wrap, so the group will gravitate towards games that have a bit more of a time commitment and ideally with a high player count. People are getting to know each other by now so games with high player interaction usually go over well. People are coming to this event with the hopes of playing games they (or others) have brought. Our biggest job right now is coordinating people so that each game ends up with the right player count and no one is left out because they’re a bit shy or not sure what a game will be like. That being said, getting at least one low-complexity high player count game going for newcomers (something like Incan Gold or Saboteur) is a good idea especially during what is usually the busiest part of the day!

6PM - 11PM: Settle in

Hydrate!

Time to dig in. As people get their dinner sorted, we settle in for some longer games that we’ve been wanting to get to the table for a while (or that we know only make it to the table once a year specifically because of this event). At this point, there is usually a clear distinction between the players who want lighter, party-style games, and the players who are here for the chunky games so while some folks settle in for a few rounds of Snake Oil, Tattoo Stories, or Anomia, I get ready for the main events. We almost always play Sidereal Confluence around now because it’s such a great game to play with the full player count and it’s so hard to make that happen! If we get that one to the table, my partner is happy. My game is Concordia Venus. I love teaming up with people who have never played it for an added challenge.

11PM - 4AM: Starting to feel it

Hydrate!

Newcomers are no longer joining, and many people are starting to call it a night, so you can bust out the extremely complex games because the people that want to play games through the night are usually the people who are serious enough to handle them. Never mind that you’re getting tired; you still have some time before the sleep deprivation starts to truly kick in. Forbidden Stars, any COIN game, Hegemony, all great ideas.

4AM - 8AM: Why are we doing this again?

Hydrate!

You know what’s great when you’re this tired? Low to medium complexity games that everyone is already familiar with so that you can play on autopilot if you need to. We all know how to play Terraforming Mars, right? Or maybe a quick game of Dune. (We had a friend a few years ago who suggested “a quick game of Dune” around 11pm that lasted six hours. We haven’t played it at the marathon since, nor have we let them forget it.)

Depending on the mood and types of gamers you have remaining, this is also the best window for light deception or speed-based games, things like Fake Artist goes to New York or Cockroach Poker or Jungle Speed because they’re instantly 20% more hilarious when you remove the barrier of being alert enough to care how it goes.

8AM - 10AM: On the home stretch

Hydrate!

Nearly there! Now it’s just you and the most dedicated. Everyone is sleep deprived, and you can’t rightly expect to get through anything more complicated than a game of Splendor. If you can keep your eyes open, quick games, team-based games, or dexterity games are our go-to’s, games like Trapwords (very funny and also somehow easier when you’re this loopy), Qwixx, Crokinole, or Win, Lose, Banana.

A good place to find games in this window of time is your Waiting Games pile.

If you can manage it, arrange breakfast!

We are lucky enough to have an amazing friend who likes board games but not enough to want to play them for 24 hours. They also really love cooking for people. For the past four years, they’ve gone home to sleep and then come back to make a lovely breakfast for the remaining gamers. It’s revitalising just to smell the food cooking and actually getting to eat it after so many hours of persisting on snacks and tea is a gosh darn delight!

Congratulations, you’ve done it! You’ve finished your first Board Game Marathon! Go have a long nap and clean up later.

We would love to hear stories of your board game marathons! Find us on Facebook or on Instagram: @aftergameapp