'Fallout' Fan Celebration: Thousands of gamers descend on tiny Nevada town

GOODSPRINGS, Nev. — The line to enter the Goodsprings General Store snaked down state Route 161, sometimes spilling out into traffic. Wait times stretched well past an hour. Thankfully, there was nourishment nearby in the form of smoked iguana sandwiches and the ever-popular mole rat on a bun.

Thousands of video game fans descended on the tiny former mining town — each shuttle bus dispersing nearly as many visitors as there are full-time residents — for the first day of the “Fallout” Fan Celebration on Nov. 16.

Adding to Goodsprings’ history

When Stephen Staats acquired the Pioneer Saloon in 2021, he knew most of its history: the deadly card game in 1915, the ghosts that supposedly haunt the place and the three days Clark Gable spent there in 1942 waiting for word on his wife, Carole Lombard, who’d died in a nearby plane crash.

Staats just wasn’t aware of its ties to the “Fallout” franchise, one of the most popular video game series of all time.

Goodsprings figures prominently in “Fallout: New Vegas,” the 2010 release that follows warring factions vying for control in the postapocalyptic Mojave Wasteland. The game’s action begins in Goodsprings, where the player’s character, known as The Courier, is nursed back to health after being shot in the head and left for dead.

“Fallout” incorporates the Pioneer Saloon, known in-game as the Prospector Saloon, and its neighboring general store. The game also includes likenesses of the Old Mormon Fort, Bonnie Springs, Hoover Dam, Mount Charleston, Spring Mountain Ranch State Park and Primm.

Staats said when he took over, the only mentions of “Fallout” were a framed copy of the video game and a claw machine game, both in the general store.

“When people would come in looking for stuff,” he said, “I felt like we were disappointing people.”

Staats allocated some space in the dining room, and people began donating “Fallout”-related items to what’s become something of a shrine.

To further give back to the fan community, he hosted the first “Fallout” festival in 2022, choosing National Video Game Day on July 8, because summer is the Pioneer’s slow season.

“We always try to come up with clever ideas to get people out in the summer,” Staats said. “Not so clever when I realized how many people would be dressing up in very elaborate cosplay outfits in July. Thankfully, no one keeled over and died.”

That first year, Staats expected maybe 50 to 100 people. He estimates a thousand showed up. Last year, he said, it was between 2,000 and 3,000. When expectations for this year’s festival hit 4,000 to 5,000 a few weeks back, Staats stopped promoting the event.

Making a pilgrimage

The vast majority of attendees came in costume, choosing to let their freak, and New California Republic, flags fly.

Las Vegans Shane Gabhart, 52, and Kate Gordon, 51, made their first trip to Goodsprings on Nov. 16.

Gabhart has played all the games in the series, but his favorite is “Fallout: New Vegas.” He figures he’s devoted a thousand hours to playing the games over the years, and he spent a year slowly piecing together his costume, which he said was “a derivative of the NCR Elite Ranger.”

“I’m a fan of the show,” Gordon said of the Amazon Prime Video series “Fallout” that debuted this year and earned 16 Emmy nominations. “But I’ve watched him play this game forever and ever and ever.”

Sebastien Menant bought the first “Fallout” game as a 20-year-old in his native France, and he’s played each of the games since. The 47-year-old tech worker moved to Las Vegas at the beginning of the year and has been planning this weekend for the past four months.

“I’ve watched videos from prior years, and I was very impressed,” he said following a tour Staats led of the town. Menant had visited Goodsprings before, but the tour offered a chance to go inside the schoolhouse which, like the town cemetery, is featured in the game.

Goodsprings local Gordie Siddons held court in front of the Pioneer Saloon, where he’s worked for the past two decades.

When the “Fallout: New Vegas” developers toured Goodsprings, they wanted to see a mine. Siddons took them to one and unwittingly inspired the character of Easy Pete the prospector. He’s become something of a local celebrity, the subject of many an Instagram post from “Fallout” fans who’ve visited the saloon over the years.

Asked how that celebrity has changed his life, between interruptions from well-wishers and autograph seekers, Siddons shrugged. “It really hasn’t. Still live out in the desert. Yep. Good times.”

His mother, Karen Everhart, had tended bar at the Pioneer for 15 years before Siddons started working there. Seated nearby, she dispelled some of her son’s gruffness.

“He enjoys every minute of it,” she called out.

‘Why’s everybody dressed up all weird?’

Attendees could purchase a variety of “Fallout”-branded merchandise as well as snow globes and baseball grenades. (Those, like the New California Republic flags, make more sense if you’re familiar with the games.)

“Pre-war money only,” one seller barked.

Nearby, a fan groused that he hadn’t cut the metal properly for his Brotherhood of Steel-related costume. “I can’t even sit down.”

Another popular souvenir made its debut. “Pioneer Saloon: The Fallout Era” featured covers of songs from the game’s soundtrack. Some of the bands who contributed to the album performed live.

“It’s neat to just see it on their face,” Staats said of fans coming to the Pioneer for the first time. “People just walk in, and they start geeking out because they feel like they’re in the game.”

Not a day goes by without a visit from “Fallout” devotees. Given the saloon’s history as both a cowboy bar and a biker bar, the presence of those fans can spark some interesting conversations.

“‘Fallout’ fans in their 20s, they don’t know who Clark Gable and Carole Lombard are,” Staats said. So he has to explain that part of the saloon’s history.

“We have bikers in their 80s who’ve been comin’ out since, like, the ’50s and ’60s,” he said. “They’re, like, ‘Why’s everybody dressed up all weird?’”