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And, all good things must come to an end. After a wonderful day, it was time to go home, but I will sign off with some observations that I think could improve things for Play Expo 2015.
1. Queuing to get in:
On the Saturday, the event opened at 11am, and as I hadn’t pre-paid, I figured I would have a bit of a wait to get in, and I understood that. I also got the impression from one of the girls moving people into queues that all the pre-paid people would go in first. The pre-paid queue seemed considerably longer than pay-on-the-door, but the head of both queues were allowed to go in at the same time. As such, having queued from around 10.40, I got in around 11.10-11.15, whereas a number of those who had pre-paid had yet to enter.
At Revival, all the pre-paid customers got in an hour early, which would’ve made sense for Play Expo 2014. I got to Revival about 10.10 rather than the 9.30 start, but as there was no pre-paid queue at that time, I could just walk straight in. Meanwhile, the pay-on-the-door customers were understandably still waiting to enter.
2. No internet:
Having the internet completely disappear on me is something I’ve had experience of as a former Vodafone customer. However, it seemed that whichever provider you use, there was no internet capability whatsoever. I thought it was a Three problem – my current provider, and I saw others playing with their phones, but I heard of others unable to use the internet. I didn’t realise it affected the actual games, too, like League of Legends. I thought those would’ve had a dedicated network connection.
3. Gaming championships
There was no central point for gaming championships – they were all done in various places and, seemingly, on an ad-hoc basis. It would’ve been better to have them in one place. In terms of gaming event experience, I only have Revival, with which to compare, but championships worked better there, due to there only being one place to play them, and RetroLords made a great job of it.
4. Celeb pictures
I was wishing I’d had a picture taken with Red Dwarf‘s Chris Barrie at Play Expo. However, I got a bit confused as I saw the price list (£15 seemed rather steep) and thought that was for any picture taken with him, but I later found out that was specific to the professional shoot done round the back of where the guests were signing things. I think it needs to be made clear – before you approach your celebrity of choice – how much for a professional picture, how much for a signature, and how much (if applicable) for one taken with your own camera. I would find it embarrassing if I went up to someone, asked for a picture taken with my camera, and then suddenly they said “That’ll be five pounds, please”.
5. Smoking area?
I was also surprised to see electronic cigarettes in use inside the arena. As it was my first time in Eventcity, I didn’t know if it was allowed. I don’t smoke anyway, but usually these things follow the same policy as regular cigarettes. No-one seemed to be pointing the occasional users I saw in the direction of the outside world.
And some pictures to finish off the day of the arena after everything was switched off, plus a couple of outside shots. Game Over, goodnight and see you in 2015, when I’ll have to do both days. And while I was driving home, I was missing it already. I wanted to hide under the tables and play games all night and into the next day!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.