Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America, measured both by attendance and by its number of events. It features role-playing games, board games, card games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, strategy games, and computer games, and drew nearly 70,000 unique attendees in 2019.
Gen Con was established in 1968 as the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention, founded by Gary Gygax and first held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gygax later co-created the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
Gen Con has been held in Indianapolis, Indiana, since 2003, after moving through several Wisconsin locations between 1968 and 2002, including Lake Geneva, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and Milwaukee. It is scheduled to remain in Indianapolis through 2030.
Peter Adkison, who purchased Gen Con from Hasbro in May 2002, attributed the move to a lack of hotel space, an awkward convention center layout, and frequently broken escalators in Milwaukee's convention center. The convention relocated to Indianapolis in 2003.
Gen Con became the property of TSR Inc, the company Gary Gygax co-founded, in 1976. TSR and Gen Con were acquired by Wizards of the Coast in 1997, which was in turn acquired by Hasbro, and Hasbro sold Gen Con to former Wizards of the Coast CEO Peter Adkison in 2002.
Gen Con LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on the 15th of February 2008, citing unforeseen expenses tied to externally licensed events. This followed a lawsuit Lucasfilm filed on the 10th of January 2008 over a 2006 event called Celebration IV, and Gen Con emerged from bankruptcy in January 2009.