It's hard to imagine that this time last week we were at UK Games Expo 2026 - officially the third largest gaming convention in the world. Over 80,000 attendance this year, spread over five enormous halls of Birmingham NEC (six if you include the ticketing hall).
So, how was it? First of all, major disclaimer - I was not there as an exhibitor. We're just 'punters' and wandering around to take in the sights, see the cool games on offer, chat to creators, and just to enjoy ourselves.
There and Back Again
In previous years, we've travelled to the Expo by the wonders of the train. Or rather, multiple trains, and having to travel across London via tube in the middle of the journey. It takes forever, and last year we even spread out the 'going to' journey with a stop over in London so we could get to the convention at a decent time on the Friday.
This year, our good friend Chimeric Designs decided to drive to the Expo and kindly offered to give us a lift there and back. Not only was this a lot cheaper (we contributed to the fuel) but also soooo much quicker and easier, and a lot less stress on our behalf. I don't know how stressful the actual driving was (I must admit, I find driving pretty stressful in general). I hope it wasn't too bad.
Sure, there was a nasty truck fire on the way there which slowed us down by almost 90mins, and there was a vast section of roadworks on the way back. But getting driven there and back was so much less stress. I cannot thank you enough for the chauffeuring. You're a legend.
At the Expo (Friday)
Due to the traffic (caused by that truck fire), we wandered into the halls on Friday afternoon around 4pm... Which meant getting our badges and lanyards was incredibly quick - no queue at all!
Once inside, it was the usual packed and warm swarm of people mooching around and looking at all the cool stuff, though thankfully the crowds had died down a bit and it wasn't too unbearable. I made a quick beeline to drop off some reference material that I no longer needed - hopefully it'll be useful to continue the legacy. From what I'd heard, that game has sold pretty well, and was even up for an award you know.
After that, we cruised around the halls quickly, before they decided to close up. Stopping briefly at the Effekt stand so I could pick up a copy of Tales of the Old West for a friend. I already had my Kickstarter copy, but it was good to catch up with the Effekt guys and support their work. (Shout out to Phil from The Dark Orb who saw me there, good to chat again!).
At the Expo (Saturday)
Saturday was our full day at the con, a real opportunity to wander around and really take in all of the stands. I had maps printed out and the stands I really needed to ensure were visited were marked on... the only problem is, there's no real orientation... I spent ages dragging Debs around looking for a stand only to discover I had my map upside-down. It doesn't help that the maps are printed with no real relation to each other.
I mean, c'mon, we're all gamers. We know maps. Heck, I used to work for Nature Conservation for the council, updating Ordnance Survey maps, so I know how to read my way around. Orientation needs to be consistent, and logical from one hall to the next. We need compass points, the street signs need to not only say the street but also indicate which way is East and West, or North and South.
We met up with Chimeric Designs again and wandered around, picked up a copy of Dread Knight from Odd Artworks (love his artwork - I really hope he does print versions of the supplemental zines, they look really cool), got to chat to Adrian at Dungeons & Dyslexia who interviewed me ages ago.
Caught up with Stoo Goff who had really pushed the boat out to promote Aegean this year with this impressive banner hovering over the GMS stand, and met up with Gareth Sleightholme who did the interior artwork for Aegean and the Tarot deck art for WILD. Always good to meet up with you both!
Speaking of which, I'd volunteered to help out on the Compose Dreams stand, a great distributor of indie RPGs based normally in Canada who have UK distribution too. They stock WILD, Aegean, and even more (head to their site if you're after copies!), and it was a great opportunity to experience the fun of working a stand at UKGE. I mean, I'd done it before at Tabletop Scotland, but UKGE is soooo much bigger.
Of course, this was when the air conditioning seemed to give up in the halls, and the temperature rose to sweat-inducing levels. It's almost like the NEC isn't capable of handling 80k visitors at once on a very hot spring day?
Ironically, though I was there to promote WILD, I managed to sell some copies of Stoo's games instead, including his new 'ashcan' sampler of Wolfshead - a new game of rebellion and resistance during the time of Robin Hood. The zine sampler looks awesome. It uses the same system as Aegean, and I'm sure we'll be playtesting that again in the near future.
While I was on the stand, Debs ran off to Hall 1 to meet Bill Making Stuff, host of a particularly amusing crafting and scratchbuilding channel that we enjoy. Debs was really excited to finally meet him, and gave him some of her zines. He even gave her some of his Gutterland Gazette zines in return, so she was a very happy bunny.
We wandered around a bit lost again for the rest of the afternoon, before heading over to the Hilton to hang around in the bar for a bit, after picking up some food from the food trucks.
In the bar we saw lots of familiar faces, including some Youtube hosts who looked busy searching for specific people to talk to... so I didn't want to interrupt. I mean, they don't know me from Adam as the saying goes. Maybe next year I'll say hi, even if it's just to say "I watch your videos, they're really good".
Even got to catch up with Angus who I haven't seen in many, many, many moons. Got to reminisce about the old days in the Camarilla, which was cool especially as Andy P arrived as well - I first met them both through those Vampire LARPing times in the 90s.
Didn't stay too long as we were all exhausted. I don't know how you youngsters manage it!
A Quieter Sunday
Sunday, as with previous years, is a bit quieter. Except for the Orcs. They were loud and scary, but pretty cool...
With the aisles a little easier to navigate, we set out walking up and down as many of the halls as possible to see all of the stands we hadn't seen already. Got to pick up some titles we'd been eyeing up over the previous days (then reminded myself I needed to be a bit more cautious with how much I'm spending these days). After a necessary cup of tea, we headed back to the carpark and the journey home.
In Summary
All in all it was good. Too warm again, but this year we'd learned from previous mistakes and were carrying a lot less (and I didn't bother with a jacket, no matter how much I wanted to look tidier).
Saw lots of people I knew, but it was too busy to really talk to them. Saw lots of stands with people I recognised and had the briefest of chats, but as I mentioned, I need to be a bit more careful with funds...
There were a couple of stands with AI generated artwork which was disappointing. We lost count of 3D printed stuff - I don't mean the individually designed stuff, like minis and terrain, which is really cool and requires skill and talent. I mean the 'downloaded a file' dice-towers and stuff. Oh dear...
And we saw a few stands with Ghibli and Pokemon stuff which I'm sure isn't licensed. As someone who loves licensed games, and has worked closely with IP owners, I know the efforts that are necessary to get official licensing and approval. To see loads of unofficial stuff it's just a bit disheartening.
I think mentally I may have gone to the convention with the "I'm going to talk to publishers" mindset. In my newly unemployed status, I guess I had that circling my mind at times, but UKGE is not the place for that kind of approach. Publishers of every size are far too busy.
The one thing I took from the whole convention is my admiration for those creators who are simply doing it all. They have a passion project, they create a cool game, they write it, illustrate it, do the layout, publish it, and get it out there for people to play. Cool creators like Montford Tales and Patchwork Fez Games who make games how they want to make them.
Is it weird to equate them to David Lynch or David Bowie? I wrote a long blog-post a while ago about how they loved to immerse themselves in challenging projects and push the boundaries - do what they wanted to do, the way they wanted. And I see that in a lot of the creators at UKGE. They are an inspiration.
After all, that's why I use the name Autocratik for the Masses. Do it my way, make stuff.
And that's what I'll do while I'm looking for gainful employ, even if it's freelance. I've got ideas. I've got plans. I've also got some limitations, but by next Expo, who knows..?
