Last year, Gaming Library held the three-day All Aboard Expo in the Grand Atrium of Shangri-La Plaza Mall. The event brings together board game enthusiasts from all over, and it’s a great opportunity to purchase board games, play games with other people and hopefully find a community you can regularly play with, learn about new board games that are being developed, and even be the first to play newly released (and not even released) board games led by the creators themselves.
This year, the All Aboard Expo was held at the Quezon City Meeting, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (M.I.C.E.) Center on the Quezon City Hall grounds. We were able to go on the last day of the event, and we were pleased to see that the energy of the event hasn’t gone down.
Upon approaching M.I.C.E. Center, you’re immediately greeted by numerous food stalls featuring Quezon City vendors. You get everything from fruit shakes to coffee to pasta to grilled goods to desserts, and even Palestinian food prepared by a Filipino-Palestinian family who fled Gaza.
Inside M.I.C.E. Center, you see two lines for guests: one for QC residents, the other for non-QC visitors. There was also a booth where QC residents could apply for and get their QCitizen ID.
Aside from open gaming areas and a store where you can buy board games and gaming paraphernalia, there were other things to do, such as trying miniature painting with Pilipintados and taking photos with cosplayers. There were also workshops on topics like board game design.
We linked up with another group to play Spooktacular, and once we were done, we met up some friends and commandeered a table on the second floor, where we played games like Flip7, That’s Not a Hat, and Surfosaurus MAX until the event started winding down.
Check out my video of our day at All Aboard Expo.
This year’s All Aboard Expo definitely seemed much bigger than last year’s, so we’re looking forward to the 2026 edition, which will be held at M.I.C.E. Center again on May 28 to 31, 2026.
