PLAY EXPO (formerly Replay), 13-14 October 2012, Manchester

[retrogarden]

Top weekend! Loved the retro section, glad that was the first thing you saw when walking in. Loved the Jamma Plus stuff (especially the Track & Field and the Hyper Sports) and Pinball had two of my favourite machines that weren't there last year!

Pro.play was okay, kinda kept my head down walking through it - wish the bar was closer to the retro section . Was amusing seeing people foaming at the mouth playing COD . Still if they're playing for cash I think I'd be a bit jumpy at times!

Cos.Play section was fascinating, good seeing all the costumes - far too many talented people there! One year I'll do a costume

But yes, of the current stuff, only thing that interests me was Chompy Chomp Chomp! Came home and bought it, shame nobody else is on there - anybody fancy a game?

But yeah, top weekend

[woody.cool]

Play Expo 2012, well, what do I say!?!

On a whole, I had a very good time and enjoyed myself thoroughly!
Initially I was rather concerned about the change of venue as I've always thought that Play (formerly Replay) was best held at a seaside town, but the Event City was a decent venue of a nice size.

The good
Seeing all the usual faces and plenty of new ones. It was great catching up with everybody, especially since I've not been to that many events this year.
The selection of systems was awesome, right from the retro up to the new stuff (even though I stayed away from the new stuff mostly)
Seeing some awesome hardware and excellent new games for old systems
Speaking with Dino Dini during the Kick Off tournament - and watching him score against SirClive

The bad
Not much to mention here, although Play Expo was far from perfect, I was happy at the event and had a good time generally.
The talks: well, it's disappointing they didn't take place, however, this was beyond the control of the Play Expo guys .... I understand they were let down by a third party, at last minute too, so although this is a bad point, I don't think anybody on the staff at Play Expo or the organizers can be held responsible for this.
The PA / announcements: unfortunately, unless you were directly in front of the stage, it was impossible to make out a word of what was being said over the PA - I'm not sure whether this was down to a poorly set up PA system or whether the cause was another result of a third-party letting the Play Expo guys down, however, this is one of my biggest niggles with big events! The only exception to this, was when Witchfinder was speaking - mate, you have a strong and clear voice, you should do all the PA / announcements
Tournaments / Competitions: these didn't seem to be communicated all that well, or at least I didn't hear any announcements or see anything pinned up anywhere with a complete compo list, so I missed out on stuff I'd have loved to enter.
Setup: Unfortunately, I'm a little p****d off. I have no problems helping people out, that's fine, but I came to the event, as part of the AmiBay team (another forum I get on) and supplied my own kit, which I got set up and helped AmiBay get their kit setup. I also helped out getting other kit, not mine and not associated with AmiBay up and running (me, Resi Paul & jdanddiet were running around like loonies getting consoles setup, tested and running) - however, no names mentioned, but a certain member of the Play Expo team was trying to get me and Resi Paul doing volunteer work during setup, before we'd got our own s**t sorted, and even though we helped out, we got NO THANKS OR RECOGNITION for doing this from said person. However, Andy (Console Passion), SirClive and Witchfinder did thank us for our assistance.
Sales / Stalls: I didn't have enough money on me !!!!! Not Play Expo's fault, but wish this event happened closer to pay-day as there was so many goodies I wanted to get my hands on!

The conclusion
An all round great event, a few niggles, nothing overly negative, just a few problems (some caused by an external company) which could have made a great event become awesome!
As we all know, I really love these events, and as long they are on, I will attend. I think the standard has been raised yet again and the Play Expo guys tackled the challenge head on and produced a decent event.

My final comment is to say a great big THANK YOU to all of the Play Expo staff, exhibitors, VIPs, pinball operators, arcade operators and volunteers - without you guys, this would not be possible

[r0jaws]

It was massive, and I'm knackered, but I had a great time. To me, it just gets better. Great to meet all you guys again, and thanks to those who helped out (woody, resi-paul, marko et all)
Probable favourite moment? Meeting Mike Montgomery from Bitmap Brothers in the Bar saturday night and chatting with him until after midnight without having a clue who he was at first. Just seemed like a decent bloke who Keith seemed to know.

[TMR]

Well, that was a good weekend... my legs are killing me, my back hurts and i've nearly lost my voice! =-)

[woody.cool]

Yeah, I know what you mean about the legs, mine are killing me too - not used to standing up on my feet for that long.

[Mootown]

Wow - there were loads of forumites at the Expo - wonder if I spoke to any of you guys I haven't met before without even knowing? I was working of the Nintendo stand the whole weekend..

[mainvein]

my legs, my back, my throat are all broke, but was an ace weekend.

i didnt really spend much time in the modern section, but i managed a quick sneak in to see the wii-u before the doors opened today which was cool.

i was on duty for retrocollect for the weekend, so was hanging around there, i spent more time chatting to new people and forumites for here, retrocollect and amibay than actually playing the games, just a shame i couldnt get to speak to everyone i wanted to. Our competitions went down a storm, we gave away a couple of hundred games for free too which i think was a nice touch, we even inspired some children to want to buy a nes and other retro and even better was that we came across an 8 year old who was a collector of C64 games (so we gave him some to add to it).

too much to write about now though, time to finish my beer and go to bed

[Merlin]

I'm with Woody regarding some of his comments. I asked Matt beforehand if I should bring some Dosboxes along and he seemed to be dead keen, although when we finally asked where we should set them up he didn't seem to give a monkeys, although his head was probably full with 10,000 things all at once.

At the end of the event, I gave Woody one of the Dosboxes, r0jaws and Skilgannon took the other two and I really can't remember what happened to the three 17" monitors...... *whistles*

Thanks and shouts to RetroCollect, for donating some Commodore stuff for the AmiBay stand - we raised a whopping £125.50 from sales of Recycle Bin items on our stand. Next time aroud, we hope to have some hardware as well as software. Some people were offering us systems and we hope to be able to collect these in the near future, get them 'pimped out' by r0jaws and Zetr0 and bring them to the next event.

Thanks and kudos to all of the gamers who dug deep and bought items from our stand - the money raised will definitely help Amibay towards the costs of hosting. I am also glad that we saved all of the items sold from going to landfill.

The most annoying thing for me was the irritating voice of the woman on the mike at the Cosplay - her voice was like nails down a blackboard. On day 2, she turned the mike on and said "1,2, is this working?" I was so tempted to say "No, we can still hear you...."

Two funny stories from the event. Phil (r0jaws) was talking to a guy dressed as Batman near the Amibay stand and after a few minutes, Phil asked him "So, are you here for the Cosplay Competition then?" "What competition?" came the reply.....

On day 2, I had just grabbed a cuppa from the Staff area and was walking back to the show floor. The staff area was near the toilets and as I walked back, a guy dressed as a Jedi was walking towards me. Quick as a flash, I did the Obi Wan finger sweep and said "These are not the toilets you are looking for". "Really? Where are they then, I'm bursting!" came the reply.

It's the little things.....

[psj3809]

Who was that girl near the end on saturday who just kept singing some dire x factor style song over and over ?

Yeah some funny moments, i had an embarassing one, went to sit down on a stool by one of the new arcade machines and somehow missed it and went flying, very embarassing. Seeing some of the cosplayers was amusing, the 'slightly eaten too much' boxer guy, very very brave !!!!

Still cant believe how much my feet were aching

[Scapegoat]

Seeing some of the cosplayers was amusing, the 'slightly eaten too much' boxer guy, very very brave !!!!

I believe he was playing King Hippo:



Brave indeed

[psj3809]

^Ha ha cheers, what a legend ! He did get a good reception when he went up. Very brave very brave

[']['enacious]

Really really enjoyed the event...

Being my first event attended I was overjoyed to see the opening area consisting of all old systems, I didnt know where to look first. I was able to play on some systems that I have only ever dreamt about or read about in the mag. First machine I sat at was a vectrex playing scramble, was amazed at how good it was. Then my next dreammachine I see was a SamCoupe, got to speak to the owner of the machine briefly and have a little blast on lemmings, I really wished hard for one of these lol. Then I see an MSX, something that was never thought of, but still wanted to experience the feel of the plastic shroud that is MSX, Only machine I didnt get to see that I was hoping for was the headache inducing Virtualboy.

I do have crap hearing and was extremely hard to make out any announcements, but I understand this wasnt the organisers fault, just something to rectify next year. I also have some worries about the proplay area. Although I used to be an avid progamer and attend LAN parties in the heyday of multiplayer gaming. I wasnt attending for this, and even though I would have enjoyed taking part and watching tournaments, I feel that I couldnt have my head on for both events, and I too feel that the majority of proplayers were ignorant to us geeky old farts with old tech, and cosplay members. I often see the younger progamers taking mickey out of cosplay, and I dont think they should be mixed with them as I feel the cosplay ppl were slightly intimidated by them, meaning we all enjoy it less. Hats off to the Cosplay, I havent got the balls yet to take part but loved seeing costumes!

I took my stepson alongwith me and he thoroughly enjoyed it, Im so proud of him for not showing much interest in the nowplay and proplay although he wanted to get stuck in to a bit of COD but he still preferred the 'FREE ARCADE'. He also loved the cosplay guy that looked like a winged demon with glowing red eyes. I was so into this, thats what its all about, the first time we see him my son was hugging my backside and was a bit afraid, but next time the guy (or gal) slowly held their hand out in a friendly gesture and they shook hands and had a pic. Brilliant! Thanks to this guy!

I briefly spoke to Jason kelk about his type in game featured in issue 100, was very nice to actually speak to someone from the mag, I did want to meet some more peeps like sir clive, and daz but I didnt know who to ask as I didnt know faces and I thought I recognised darren but wasnt sure and being a bit shy didnt approach the fella lol, I think this would have been easier if the proplay guys were not storming about. I clapped eyes on Jeff minter as soon as I walked in but just didnt have the guts to ask for a pic and chat lol.

I think badges are a must in the future...

Thanks to everyone who pulled the event together and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Merlin]

I looked at that large poster of Ronaldo opposite the Retro machines area and wondered why it said "King of Pies"...

[SIR'86]

A big thank-you to all those that made the event possible! An even bigger thank-you to all the arcade cab collectors who preserved and restored all those classic arcade games, then took the time and immense trouble to bring them to the show for us to play on (with all the risks that entails for breakages, abuse by players, etc. ).

Some of the machines were in incredible condition - one Defender machine looked almost new. The only thing is I now want a stand-up Star Wars machine more than ever, but I don't have the room for one, the money for one, nor the technical and practical skills to keep one in working order.

It was great playing it at the show though. A couple of goes and the muscle memory kicks in and it's just like I'm back in the 80's playing it in the arcade.

The arcade section was the main reason (apart from the talks) I went to the show, and it delivered in all respects.

[Superjoe]

I really enjoyed my time there,
apart from it would have been better if one of my mates had come with me, rather than me having to stand around and hope someone would invite me onto a machine to play. Thankfully 2 lads saw me pining near Mario Kart 64 and asked if I wanted to join in.

I don't know where all these arcade and videogames machines come from but big thanks to all the people who lend them/donate them, it was amazing to see them all set up on CRT's. I've always believed that proper retro gaming is done on the origianl hardware and im pleased to see that a lot of other people do as well.

Didn't spend to much time in the pro area, those guys were less polite and more ignorant than retro gamers, although it was interesting to watch them do there stuff.

Really looking forward to another one, and maybe I will me more proactive and seek some of you guys out.

Oh, one highlight for me was watching Jeff Minter playing Space Giraffe dancing along to his game (him, not me), lol, I still cant work out WTF is going on in that game though and watching him play it didn't make it clearer.