It's no secret that London is home to a huge nerd population, and weekly Friday Night Magic events at LA Mood, well-attended cosplay picnics and the huge turnout at the Video Games Live concert in March all prove it.

Greg Picken and Matthew Hoy, organizers of the first-ever Project Play event, which takes place on September 16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Fanshawe Student Centre. They're aiming to bring together local nerds of all stripes to have fun and raise money for a great cause.

Picken and Hoy are both avid gamers — Picken runs a website called Gamer Pops, which reviews family-orientated games, and Hoy co-founded Games Day Podcast, a weekly online video show that discusses all things gaming. "Being that we're both playing in that same area, we got together one day just to chat over wings at Palasad," explained Picken. "We were just shooting around the idea of doing stuff around community building."

The idea blossomed into a series of events called Hello, My Game Is, which featured talks by local game designers and people who just love games.

From there, Hoy and Picken came up with the idea for a larger event that would bring together gamers of all kinds, from video gamers to tabletop gamers and everything in between. They looked to PAX, an event created by the makers of the Penny Arcade webcomic. "(PAX) was kind of the model that we thought would be really cool to bring here. There is DIG (Digital Interactive and Gaming conference) in town, which is a great event, but that's very much industry-focused and business-focused. We thought a good complement to having something like that would be to have something that's very grassroots — for gamers, by gamers." The initial idea has grown to include anyone and everyone who is proud to call themselves nerds, including costume players, artists and more.

Some details are still being worked out, but Picken said there is a lot to look forward to already. Local gaming company Digital Extremes will be showcasing their newest game, Warframe, and it will be available for the public to play for the first time ever. Other local companies, such as Big Viking Games, and indie programmers will be there to show off the games and apps they're working on as well.

"We've got everything from the biggest (game developing) company in town to people who are making apps in their spare time because they have jobs but they're just so passionate about creating their own games," Picken said. "I'm hoping that some of the students here can be inspired by that."

Tabletop gamers will be pleased to note there will be a number of tournaments including Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Warmachine and more. Other board games will be available for casual play, and people are encouraged to bring their favourite board game and set up a game of their own.

Other things to check out at Project Play include a cosplay contest, a digital art show, vendors selling fantastically geeky wares and much more.

In addition to making the event as fun as possible, Picken said it was also important to keep a bigger idea in mind. "As much fun as we can have pulling together video games and board games and Magic tournaments and all that, to have that many people together in one spot and not capitalize on that for something good, it would have been a huge missed opportunity."

Picken and Hoy decided to use the event to raise money for local charities. "We're doing this for fun — we could do it to try to make money, but, I don't know, it doesn't seem like that's fun anymore — then it becomes a job. We looked at it as we could really build on this and do something good and the idea that we settled on is to be able to provide gaming opportunities for kids whose lives have fallen apart, in a lot of ways."

All proceeds from Project Play's ticket sales, as well as any donations attendees may make, will go to one Strathroy charity, Women's Rural Resource Centre and two London charities, Merrymount Children's Centre and Women's Community House in London. The money will be used to put together gaming bundles, which will include consoles and video games, board games, card games and more. The bundles will be dropped off at the charities in October.

Picken said he and Hoy are hoping to make Project Play an annual event, and that people are already coming up with ideas for future events. "People are already talking to us now about things that they would love to see next year," he said.

Tickets are $10 and are available online at projectplay.ca. You can also purchase tickets at the door: $7 for Fanshawe students with student ID, $10 for guests. For more information about Project Play, chat with them on Facebook (facebook.com/projectplaylondon) or Twitter (@ProjectPlayLdn).