The African Board Game Expo AB Con has launched a Kickstarter for its 10th anniversary two-day event to be held in Abuja, Nigeria, from November 27 to 28, 2026, with a base goal of approximately $14,000.

The organizer is NIBCARD Games, founded by Kenechukwu Ogbuagu, who has been organizing the expo since 2016, recognized by Nigerian television as one of the earlier board game expos in Sub-Saharan Africa. The page creator is Femi Olusanya. Funds will be used for venue, tables, chairs, sound equipment, and the two-day scale; last year's goal was about $9,000, raising over $11,000, the year before had a target of about $8,000 and raised around $16,000, and in 2021, it raised about $23,700. Due to inflation, crowdfunding will restart in 2024. Reaching $20,000 will initiate designer funding and mentoring, $22,000 will add an industry impact award, and $30,000 will extend the event to three days. Activities include prototype playtesting, workshops, industry discussions, markets, and public competitions, with the official website stating that over 65 African games and over 350 foreign games will be displayed on about 200 tables.

NIBCARD has been creating Nigeria-themed board games since 2013, with dozens to over seventy works, operating a game café in Abuja, and won the Diana Jones Award in 2021. The expo has grown from weekly game nights to an annual gathering, with about 750 attendees in 2022, around 1,000 in 2023, and projected 1,300 in 2024. Following this, there will be other African board game events in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and Dakar, Senegal. The crowdfunding deadline is September 10, all-or-nothing; public progress has shown thousands of dollars and dozens of supporters, still with a gap to the base goal. The venture capital fund Seven Seven Six shared that no one is willing to fund the board game scene in Lagos, so they are organizing the expo first, with the platform merely connecting those already working, which is the true meaning of crowdfunding.

The expo does not sell equity but sells tickets, booths, and cross-ocean donations. Sponsors have included overseas board game companies such as Free League, MOB Vanguard, and Arcane Wonders. The designer funding is intended to convert overseas dollars into prototype budgets for African authors, rather than turning the expo into a distribution platform.

In market mechanisms, this is small-scale cross-border fundraising under inflation, not institutional rounds. Buyers are overseas board game players and a few publishers, while sellers are the two-day venue in Abuja and exposure for African authors. Funds raised through crowdfunding will go to the organizing committee, then become rent, tables, and designer allowances that are only disbursed if targets are met. Beneficiaries are local authors and the café scene, while those under pressure are the rent and printing costs under the depreciation of the Naira. $14,000 is a small amount for European and American expos, but it is a critical threshold for whether the Nigerian independent expo can last two days. The venture capital's voice provides exposure but does not offer lead checks.

In supplementary statements, the organizing committee frames the tenth anniversary as a call for the world to set the next step together, rather than a completed industrial closed loop.

Source: Public Information