Have you ever seen it rain coins? At Gen Con, there is a time each your where it appears to rain coins – coins that will go to charity.
Welcome to the next installment of Gen Con newbie things. In past post I’ve posted about the obvious topics: the vendor hall, the consignment store, and the auction. In this post I’ll touch on a topic that nearly every Gen Con attendee sees between Thursday and Saturday, but many don’t give more than a passing thought even though it leads to one of the more exciting events at Gen Con to see. The topic: Cardhalla.
On Thursday, located near the Georgia Street entrance, right inside the convention center, you’ll generally find a table and a sign that mentions Cardhallal. You’ll also see that a few people have likely built a few structured out of collectable cards. This is the starting of Cardhalla that will continue until late Saturday night.
While people walk past these structures, many don’t give them more than a passing thought. These are, however, the making of an event that started in 1999. The event has grown to where it now is one of the events that happens each year and contributes thousands (yes thousands) of dollars to the Gen Con charities. For example, in 2025 nearly $7,000 was collected from this event alone.
To summarize, Cardhalla is a charity event where attendees build towers and other structures out of donated cards throughout the convention. On Saturday evening attendees can be a part of an event where coins are thrown to destroy all that was built. An auction determines who gets to throw the first coin. The money raised from the auction along with all of the thrown coins are then donated to charity. This year’s charities are Immigrant Welcome Center and Super Heroines, Etc.
Participating in Cardhalla – Building Towers
Anyone can participate in building the towers. Many attendees use some or down time to sit and construct a part of the towers. The cards in the area have been donated (or you can donate your own common or other cards if you want). Anyone is free to build up until the time the destruction occurs on Saturday. They do ask that you use care so as to not knock down what has already been built.
Participating in Cardhalla – The Knock Down
The big event is on Saturday evening starting around 10:00pm. At that time, people will have gathered all around the Cardhalla structures on both the main floor and the balcony area above. These are people there to not only be entertained by the auction that will occur, but also there to get a chance to throw coins and knock down some of the structures.
Gen Con Newbie Mistake: Don’t show up at the last minute if you want to see all of the initial action. If you want to be near the front of the crowd to see what is happening, you need to plan to get there well before the 10:00 start time.
At roughly 10:00 an auction will occur. This auction will be for the honor of throwing the first coin at the structures. This ends up not being a standard auction. It invariably will come down to two people bidding against each other – generally one person on the first floor and one person on the balcony, although it won’t necessarily be that division. Because the funds for this are going to charity, everyone is encouraged to help the person in their area win the auction. As such, people will start giving money (even a few dollars) to one of the bidders to help them win. The push will be for the person in your area to win! It’s in good fun with the focus really on supporting the charities.
Once the auction concludes around 10:30, the MC will work with the winner to toss the first coin. There is then a countdown and the audience is given the opportunity to toss their own coins. Within a matter of minutes the towers will start crumbling to the grown.
Seeing the tossing of the coins and the crumbling of Cardhalla is a Gen Con experience.
Gen Con Newbie Tip: You need to bring your own coins. Bring lots since you will be donating them to charity. Plus, it’s just fun to try to knock down the towers.
Gen Con Newbie Tip: If you attend and throw coins, once you’ve made your tosses, you should step back and let others move to the front that are still wanting to throw coins. If you are not throwing coins, you should move back so those donating can throw. You should not throw your coins if you can’t see where they are going.
Participating in Cardhalla – The Cleanup
It will take many minutes for the structures to all come down. Once they are down and coins are no longer being tossed, people can stay and help clean up. This involves picking up the cards and helping collect the coins. Cards that are not bent are generally kept for next year. In the past, those that with the help clean up are free to keep any of the cards they pick up. The cards are generally commons from collectable card games such as common MtG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Star Trek, and many others.
In Conclusion
Seeing the destruction of Cardhalla is a Gen Con event that every attendee should see at some point. If you can’t participate in its destruction, then take a few minutes early in the week to help set up a few cards so you can be a part of its construction. Either way, your efforts are going to build something pretty cool. More importantly, they are going towards helping local charities.
And if you happen to have thousands of collectable trading cards sitting at home that have little value, feel free to dop them off at Cardhalla. They could become part of that next huge tower!
Gen Con Newbie Tip: You can find more on the history of Cardhalla on Wikipedia.
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