The vibes were immaculate this past weekend at Fallout Celebration 2024, an annual gathering of all things Fallout in Goodsprings, Nevada, which you might remember as the town where Fallout: New Vegas begins. Yep, the ghost town where Doc Mitchell nurses your character to health after eating a bullet is not only a real place, but as I found out, surprisingly true to life. The real Goodsprings is a tiny community nestled between a few dusty hills north of Primm—just far enough from society that crossing into its borders feels like you've entered a simpler, quieter world indifferent to the glitzy Las Vegas 30 miles down the interstate.

I imagine it was Goodsprings' secluded mystique and charming antiquity that made it the target of this massive fan gathering when it started a few years ago. Locals told me over 5,000 people RSVPed for the weekend—so many that the organizers stopped promoting the event in hopes that fewer would come—but nobody was turned away.

Most of the festivities were centered around the Pioneer Saloon, one of the oldest standing bars in Nevada and the inspiration behind the Prospector Saloon in Obsidian's post-apocalyptic take on the town. Local and traveling vendors sold Fallout art, posters, prop guns, and so many Nuka-Cola bottle caps. A live band played songs from New Vegas radio stations, the saloon served Brahmin burgers, and fans came dressed in their apocalypse best: There was power armor, wasteland bandits, Mysterious Strangers, license plate armor, and Pipboy-adorned wrists as far as the eye could see.

My partner and I drove up the night before the event and stayed at a hotel in Primm—the same hotel from New Vegas that features a non-functioning roller coaster out front. We enjoyed partying with fans, but my favorite interactions were with locals. I got the sense that most of the people who live in Goodsprings kept to themselves while thousands of visitors invaded, but not Collin Graves, who was standing in his front lawn visiting with Fallout fans when we passed by. His house was still decked out with Halloween decorations that included impressive seven-foot werewolf statues and an actual used casket, recently enhanced with Fallout references like a Vault-Tec skeleton and "Welcome Wanderers" sign.

Chatting with Graves, it was clear he and his wife aren't typical Goodsprings residents, many of whom are elderly and grew up in the area. Graves, who appeared to be in his thirties, only recently moved to Goodsprings from Kentucky. I'd been looking to talk to a local with no opinion on Fallout whatsoever and immediately stumbled on the only Goodsprings resident who moved there because of their Fallout fandom.

The wanderer

Graves's first trip to Nevada was a Las Vegas visit in 2018, but while he was there, he learned of the real New Vegas landmarks nearby.

"Somebody was like 'Hey, you should go to Goodsprings,' and I was like, 'Goodsprings is a real place?'" Graves told me. The pair fell in love with the town during that first visit, and they kept coming back.

"We always made the joke when we would walk around town that it's so peaceful out here, that we would just love to live here. And then when we looked at this house, we were sitting right here on the front porch and I saw Potosi Mountain," Graves said, gesturing to the postcard-worthy mountain range that Bethesda's engine couldn't quite do justice in 2010. "I would love to walk out on my front porch and see that."

It took time, but Graves finally pulled the trigger on his dream last year. "I kept coming back every year, and then I came for Fallout Days. Then last July is when I came out here and actually got my house."

The pair have spent the last year fixing up their place and getting acquainted. Graves, who works at a Las Vegas funeral home and drives a hearse as his personal vehicle, told me he and his wife are the youngest couple in town.

"The town population is 158 and we're the 52nd family," he said. Goodsprings, which was once a bustling mining town of thousands, now has one school with five children who attend.

Another local I met a block away, Bonnie, 69, grew up in nearby Jean but raised her family in Goodsprings. She told me the town keeps shrinking because the people who grow up there "don't stick around." Bonnie worked at the Ceasar's Palace and the Cosmopolitan casinos for over 30 years, but now spends her Saturdays looking after the Goodsprings museum: a gorgeous two-room building that was once the town's only post office, now converted into a time capsule. Bonnie doesn't know the first thing about Fallout, but she embraces the curiosity it brings to her door, and it was clear she could've spent all day regaling our small crowd of wasteland cosplayers with genuine Goodsprings lore.

Post-post-apocalypse

Fallout is the reason Graves fell in love with Goodsprings, but he didn't settle down there purely for the novelty of living in a videogame town. If anything, Graves thinks New Vegas' rendition of Goodsprings as a town of survivors who stick together was an accurate advertisement for the sort of place he's always wanted to live.

"When [the game residents] are talking about how everybody in Goodsprings takes care of each other and it's 'one for all, all for one,' that's how it really is here," he said.

As I'm at this Fallout celebration, surrounded by proof that Obsidian really did its homework when it built the Mojave Wasteland, it's easy to believe Fallout is the coolest series on earth. My partner and I waited in a long line to visit the Goodsprings general store and hung out with two friends who drove 25 hours to Goodsprings from Illinois. Along with a pair of NCR rangers, the friends discussed their wishlists for a New Vegas sequel, swapped mod recommendations, and tried to pinpoint which hill near town is where Benny shoots the Courier in the intro.

Fallout Days was different from any other game event I've attended. Attendees were passionate, but also noticeably respectful of the ground they were standing on. Folks seemed more comfortable around each other than a more general fan convention like Comic-Con or PAX. References shot back and forth between passing parties as freely as bullets in the wasteland. Conversations had the air of fans who'd not only found their people, but also a safe place where to uncork a reservoir of enthusiasm that usually has nowhere to go. It was nerdy as hell, and it was beautiful.

There are no new Fallout games on the horizon, but the success of the Fallout TV show has brought a whole new audience into the fold. With the second season set to depict New Vegas, there's a decent chance Goodsprings will make another appearance, and one local shared a rumor that Amazon might even film in the actual town. If that happens, Goodsprings might need a bigger venue for next year's celebration.