Maybe there'll be one on the north of England at some point, some day.
@Everyone
I don't think that I need any help with setup since it will be really simple and handled by the store we are working with. Just demo running! I'd love to get together with people the day before the show though if people will be around to go over games that people might know / how to run the best demos.
@Ameena
Too bad! It would be awesome to see you again!
I forget that the subjective experience of distance is so different in the UK from the US; for me, I can't get anywhere at all interesting by train for $30, so a 2 hour train ride to a whole other city seems excitingly close. On Wednesday, Christopher drove from St. Louis to Kansas City and back; STL to KC is slightly farther than London to York, and that is fairly normal US behavior (8 hours in a car).
I wish we had useful trains :/
FTFY
To be a little more precise, that's fairly normal midwestern US behavior. I spent a lot of time on the East and West cost before recently moving to Indiana. When I was living in New York, I would have thought that was insane. But I drove up to Chicago (4 hours each way) for a weekend recently. (I still would have to have a pretty strong reason to do that for a one-day event, though.)
@ Ameena (or anybody else travelling to UKGE by train who doesn't know where to go)
The train station you'd want is called 'Birmingham International Station'- it's the one near the airport. And the UK Games Expo Venue (well, one of them, anyway) is sort of attatched to the station. That won't make the train journey itself any shorter, but it's not like you need to deal with buses or cabs or anything else once you have made it to the station.
It would still be a total journey time of maybe five hours, including there and back, from where I live about 30 miles east-southeast from London, so I'd have to leave ridiculously early (therefore the train fare would be even more ridiculously expensive than it would be off-peak) to even be able to spend a decent couple of hours there before I'd have to head back down again and try not to get home too late travelling (probably) all by myself on scary trains :(. I just looked up the car route in case there's any chance I could persuade my sister to go for a day out randomly all the way up in Birmingham but the journey time is still nearly three hours.
If ever there is a >G thingy in London I'm sure I'll be able to come along (Ja'Ph' and I made the one up in Leisure Games in the north of London a couple of years back and we go to the monthly meets around central London to play with various people from the forum), but otherwise it would probably be somewhat tricky :(. If it was in London I probably wouldn't even mind coming up on more than one day if it was at one of those conventions that runs over a weekend or something.
@Ameena
Cool! I do like London, so I will try to come up with an excuse to do this :)
Paul,
Not originally going, but tentatively interested in volunteering. Whether I can make it will depend on what you need and what I can get off work.
Okay, confirming my attendance! Booked into the hotel Julia suggested (thanks Julia).
I'll take a train down on Thursday and Michael will be joining me on Friday, and we're there all weekend. Yay! :)
Woo!
@pwatson1974
I could definitely use any amount of time that you are willing and able to spend running demos :)
I'll be there as we always go (and last year I got 3rd place in the cosplay contest in my Legacy costume!), but won't be able to commit to a time for doing demos. I will however, rave extremely entusiatically about SotM when I'm at the booth and help out at the time if it's wanted. I may even have to break out the Legacy cosplay again ;)
You can see the cosplay on this UKGE page btw (scroll down) :D
Just to echo Julia above... The NEC is accessed from Birmingham International. The great thing is that if coming by train, you barely need to step outside once off the platform as you are effectively in the NEC once you are out of the station. It is one long skywalk straight to the NEC itself and a quick wander across to the hotel where the show is. If you want to save a couple of quid and make getting in and out easier (depending on how busy the car park is), park at the train station as recommended on the UKGE website. The multistory at the train station is safe, easy to park in and it will keep your car dry and we all know how important that is!
Travelling up from London should be easy. Virgin make the journey in 1hr 20mins ish and currently is only £8 each way. Bargain. London Midland are generally cheaper but their trains are slower and stop more with it taking nearly 2 hours to make the journey. Trains leaving Euston are direct.
Sorry for the travel guide but some may find it useful..
Ok so! So far I have:
- Julia
- Silverleaf
- Pwatson
I'm about to get badges for you all! Anyone else interested?? I'll also email everyone in a week or two to make some plans for meeting up, doing stuff, and learning games to demo!
I wish I could go to all the cons and help you guys out! :P
@Donner
Me too :D
I could potentially be going to this for the Saturday and Sunday; I'd love to help you guys out if so!
Not a chance for me to make it up there and do so stuff for you, I am sad.
I will be there! Woohoo!
I mean, tip top cheerio and all that!
We need a SotM Cosplay meetup too!
Paul,
Not to nag, but any progress on that e-mail? It's under a fortnight to go and I'm one of those personality types that realy likes having things planned out beforehand.