UKGE 2026
By Alex White
- 5 minutes read - 923 wordsUKGE
Although it is a three day event, I just went along on the Saturday. I’ve not got a table, nor have I booked into any games. I just wanted to visit, see the lie of the land, maybe spend a bit of money, maybe try some small demo games.
I've heard that over the weekend they had 87,837 attendees, with 51,196 unique ticket holders. It didn't feel as crowded as when I visited two years ago; that may have been because it was stretched across more halls, or they allowed wider corridors between stands. Probably a bit of both.
It was delightful to see a few cosplayers wandering around with marvellously crafted outfits. Lots of families with small children enjoying the event too. Painting tables where people of all ages were studiously working on miniatures painting. It was very noisy but there was an extraordinarily joyful atmosphere.
This is what my day looked like:
10:30 arrived at the hall (90 minute drive, 15 minute queuing to get to parking, 25 minute walk from car park to halls). Badge queue was relatively short at that time, so I then wandered around to try to get a sense of place, and to find out where two stalls were that I was going to help on a little. First I tracked down Compose Dream, the Canadian and UK distributor who carry some of my games and wanted a little extra stock. I dropped off some additional copies of The Long Road Home, Love & Barbed Wire, Tail-End Charlie and new to them A Cool and Lonely Courage. Then I said hello to folks at the UK TIN stand (who are pictured in the banner looking happy) on my way to find Patchwork Fez. The convention is huge, and even with a map and their helpful ‘street labelling’ it was still extraordinarily difficult to find people!
11:30 met up with some old friends who had been touring the halls in the morning before gaming in the afternoon. Really nice to see them again, was surprised when one guy I didn't recognise said “Hi Alex!” He looked like a film star and I drew a total blank. Turns out I hadn’t seen him since he was 15 or so, and a lot can change in another 15 years!
12 noon I went to Patchwork Fez and helped out on their stand for a couple of hours. Sarah Cole (the writer of Terminus and other fine system-neutral horror adventures) had kindly agreed to host some other publishers, and she was carrying Expect Three Visitors and The Long Road Home for me. I enjoyed talking to customers about the games on display - there were about nine guest publications and several of them I knew fairly well, enabling me to explain them nearly as well as I could explain my own. See more about Patchwork Fez Games.
2pm I wandered the halls again. Had a bite to eat at rip-off prices (small chips and four tiny strips of chicken for £15?). Much better was finding some people I knew on stands. I had some chats with Gar at Pelgrane Press about the upcoming Merryshire Detective Club game, Nick Bate at the Black Armada stand about my renewed progress on Born to the Purple, and many others.
3pm joined the Compose Dream team and helped on their stand for over an hour. They sell a great range of games from lots of publishers, and had organised them into historical games, solo games, adventures and other kinds of categories. See more about games stocked by Compose Dream. And of course their Canadian Marketplace if you are on the other side of the pond.
4.30pm went to visit Big Table and had an interesting time listening to James Wallis talk to a number of people about the plans for Big Table (as a UK and Ireland industry body). Amongst the topics discussed were the difficulty businesses face when jumping from micro-business to the next tier and so on. Also great talking to Colm Lundberg, director of the Museum of Games Ireland who was there with him.
Then it was 6pm and the halls closed. There probably would have been an opportunity for socialising at the Hilton later, but I didn’t know where that was and it was going to take me over 2 hours to get home so I called it a day.
I also didn’t play any games, and my time ended up quite fragmented so I didn’t spend as much time perusing games as I might have done.
Turns out I didn’t buy any new games. There were some that caught my eye, but I’ve got too many unread games on my desk at the moment. I couldn’t in good conscience add to that pile!
What I learned
Firstly, this convention is so big that you really must plan what you are going to do in order to make the best of your time. Even if just coming as a visitor, I should have got a map of all the halls first, and made sure that I knew where all the stands I wanted to visit were, and plotted my way around them.
Secondly, I have to decide whether I would want to have a stand there next year (I'm thinking probably not just at the moment)
Thirdly, I ought to sign up to run some games next time. I enjoy running games anyway, and it's a great chance to do late stage playtesting with people that I don't know!