Today is the final day of the seventeenth UK Games Expo at the NEC in Birmingham, which is bigger and better than ever this year. Arriving from Resort World, visitors are greeted by Vikings and Romans, and a family of geese living next to the lake. Spread over three large halls, there are nearly six hundred exhibitors and a vast amount of table space for open gaming (both in the halls and at the nearby Hilton) and organised play-testing.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Most games companies have a stand at UKGE, some with sales, some just demoing and many with both. Exhibitors include Czech Games Edition, Oink Games, Hachette, Birdwood Games, Zeogenesis, and Asmodee (including demos of games from their distribution network like Bezier Games and Stonemaier Games). Unusually, Waterstones have a large stall with a wide range of modern board and card games, including recent releases. This suggests that they are keen to expand their position in the market, which can only be a good thing.
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| – Images by boardGOATS |
Board and card games are not the only things on display at UKGE, however. In addition, there are also lots of stands selling scenery for miniature games and props for role and cosplay. Accessories for general gaming feature as well, with dice, game storage inserts furniture. One of the largest of these was and Geeknson who sell gaming tables, where one of the main attractions includes a giant’s dice tower.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
This year, lots of the regular and occasional boardGOATS made the trip to the NEC in Birmingham and it really felt like home-from-home. Some visited just for the day while others helped on stands (Hachette and Zeogenesis) or at the Play Testing. The event is so vast now though that you can no-longer guarantee accidentally bumping into people you know, but SMS is a great way to communicate onsite.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
The general consensus is that this year, although the feel is more like that of SPIEL (Essen), there aren’t the high profile, large-game new releases that there have been in previous years, instead, there seemed to be more expansions re-releases. There are still a lot of exciting smaller new games to be had though and the event is great fun and well worth a visit. UK Games Expo continues at the NEC in Birmingham until 4pm Sunday 2nd June.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
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