A popular gaming convention held annually in Victoria is folding up its tables and calling it quits.

The GottaCon convention, an annual three-day “broad spectrum” gaming convention, has announced that its event held earlier this year will be its last.

“A decade of personal sacrifice has taken its toll on both of us and with a substantial financial loss after our 2015 event it nearly broke our spirit,” event organizers Carson Upton and Evan Hatch said in a statement. “After much soul searching, we decided to continue the event but then the challenges started to pile up.”

Those challenges included losing management staff, which the organizers said was surmountable, and policy changes made by the City of Victoria that “were going to alter how the City and the Victoria Conference Centre could support GottaCon,” they wrote.

With an average annual attendance growth of 51 per cent and an attendance of 4,000 for GottaCon2015, organizers said they tried to work with the City to find a solution to keep the popular event alive for 2016.

By the end of June, they thought they had found one.

“But, that very day, we were notified that our event dates at the end of February 2016 were no longer available,” they said.

The only weekend identified by the City and convention centre was March 11-13, which Upton and Hatch said was not possible due to “conflicts with spring break, post-secondary exam periods, other local and North American conventions as well as the careers of the two owners.”

The pair thanked supporters and attendees in a statement posted to social media and the GottaCon website, saying “You inspired us, and made us feel appreciated. I just hope that we did the same for you.”

Many tweeted their disappointment at the news.

The convention began in 2009 with just 600 people attending, and featured vendors selling miniatures, trading cards, role-playing games, board games and video games as well as demonstrations, contests and panels.