Games Expo 2012

Last year I went to the UK Games Expo and had an OK time. I found Shuuro, had a few games and bumped into a lot of friendly faces, well I would expect to, after all it is held in my home town. Last year was the first time I'd been to show though, because I had heard some rather negative things about it, the venue being the prime concern. I thought it was an interesting little show however, if a bit cramped and badly laid out. there were some well staffed stands with lots of cool things to look at. It was also pretty well attended, even for a Sunday. You see whereas last year I attended on the Sunday this year I attended on the Saturday... for a number of reasons, but the main one being that attending on the Sunday this year was just unlikely. Why? Because the night before (Saturday evening) I was hosting a Eurovision song Contest party, and there was bound to be much drinking and hilarity... and that meant Sunday was likely to be filled with hang overs and sore heads. So it was too prove, hence the late posting of the Sermon yesterday! But enough of that, I attended on a very sunny Saturday because I felt I had to get the whole event out of the way.

This was actually a quiet moment and represented a lull in crowds.

What were my overall impressions of this years show? Well yet again it was cramped, exceedingly so in fact, far too cramped to be fun. It seems the Saturday's unsurprisingly are way busier, and here's the thing, this show is clearly very popular. There wasn't room to swing a 15mm scale cat! Everywhere was constantly heaving and pretty much all the stands were constantly busy. That's a good thing if you're a trader I guess, but not so grand if you're a punter. I'm told the show is moving to a new venue next year. All I will say is that it had better be a far bigger space, or I'll not be attending as I'm fed up of being elbowed and I have bruises all over my back... and they're not from kinky sex or violent foreplay... that's just unacceptable in my eyes! I also felt that many of the stands this year were smaller, overly repetitive in their stock and quite frankly not worth visiting. I'm not sure I could prove it scientifically but this years show just felt like it had less stands as well compared to last year. There were a few gems however as always with these things and of course I will try my best to let you know what I thought of them. I have to apologise for my camera work, it was hot cramped and conditions weren't ideal!
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