The Oregon Convention Center is once again hosting the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, which runs Friday, October 9, through Sunday, October 11. It's a three-day run that brings together arcade classics, celebrity panels, gaming competitions, and rows of merchants selling everything from loose carts to boxed-up consoles.
A Grassroots Meetup Turned National Phenomenon
KOIN reporter Kohr Harlan took viewers onto the expo floor for a segment airing as part of KOIN's AM Extra. The show has come a long way from its humble beginnings: its inspiration dates to the late 1990s, when a Pacific Northwest gaming group gathered in Seattle, followed by an inaugural Portland-area gathering in a Vancouver, Washington hotel room in 2006 that drew just 200 people, according to Travel Portland. The event officially adopted the Portland Retro Gaming Expo name in 2008 and has since ballooned into something else entirely.
Today the convention spans more than 250,000 square feet, and Travel Portland describes it as one of the largest retro video game conventions in the world. For its 2026 run, the show is at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland's Lloyd District, according to event organizer Retro Gaming Expo, Inc.
Atari's Co-Founder and a Vectrex Legend Headline the Floor
Behind the nostalgia is a non-profit, not a corporate promoter. Retro Gaming Expo, Inc. is an Oregon-based 501(c)(4) cooperative organization formed to preserve and celebrate video game history, per its own organizational materials. That structure hasn't stopped the show from landing a heavyweight guest list: the 2026 schedule features more than 100 confirmed speakers, celebrities, and special guests alongside 45 panel discussions, including appearances from Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and Jay Smith, creator of the 1982 Vectrex console, according to the expo's own programming.
The free-play “Retrocade” area is one of the show's biggest draws, with vintage arcade cabinets and pinball machines. The free-play floor adds to the event's nostalgic appeal.
Tetris Royalty Faces Off at the Jonas Cup
Competitive gaming has its own spotlight this year with the third annual Jonas Cup, running October 9 through 11 as North America's premier Delayed Auto Shift Tetris tournament, organized by the Classic Tetris World Championship. The tournament honors Jonas Neubauer's life.
Riding a Booming Collector Market
The expo's growth tracks with a broader surge in collector demand nationwide. Global retro video game market sales reached $3.8 billion in 2025 and are projected to grow roughly 10% annually through 2033, a trend Hoodline has linked to a 32% year-over-year jump in vintage console sales. That demand has pushed prices upward across the board; average retro game prices spiked 42% between February 2020 and May 2021 alone, according to pricing platform PriceCharting as reported by Hoodline, driven by fixed supply meeting surging collector interest.
That same price pressure has shown up closer to home, from a Puyallup family's stolen 40-year Nintendo collection valued at $50,000 to a Greenfield arcade's decision to make its 39-game collection free to play for everyone. Whether it's vendors haggling over loose cartridges in the Oregon Convention Center's exhibit halls or collectors watching market values climb, the same forces are at play across the region's retro gaming scene this fall.
