Replay / 5-6 Nov 2011 / Blackpool - THE BIG ONE!

[Samwise]

Event website: http://www.replayexpo.com/
Scale: thousands!

Dates: Saturday 5th - Sunday 6th November 2011
Opening Times: 10:00 - 19:00 each day
Location: Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Queen's Promenade, Blackpool FY2 9AA

Replay Expo is the unique video gaming event that prides itself in celebrating both the classics as well as the very latest titles. Following the success of last year’s debut show, Replay Expo will return to the Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre in Blackpool on the 5/6 November 2011; the final weekend of the famous Illuminations.



There'll be areas for STH/*. and also Retro Software, where we plan to be launching Blurp, all of Kees' Acorn Atom ports as recently showcased at In Da 80s and maybe even a Dragon version too. As well as that, Mark will be on hand under his RetroClinic banner, plus there'll be many more Acorn machines within the main gaming zones [Atoms/Elks/Beebs/Masters/Arcs etc].



At this point, I think we can confidently expect that Replay Expo will be the last big meetup of STH forum members this year. If you can only make it to one more show in 2011, make sure it's Replay Expo!

And remember, this is MUCH more than just a retro show - there'll be plenty of stuff on offer for modern gamers too, and if arcade cabinets are your thing - then expect to see more of these things than at all other events combined! The pinball area is also a hugely popular attraction.

Replay Expo 2011 will feature:

• CONSOLES
  Consoles from all generations will be on offer. From the current gen PS3, Wii and 360 and last-gen Gamecube, PS2, Xbox and Dreamcast consoles, to the Neo-Geo, SNES, Megadrive & MegaCD, N64, Saturn, 3DO, Jaguar and PS1 from the 90s. Not forgetting 80s favourites like NES, Sega Master System, PC Engine, Vectrex and Colecovision and the pioneers of console gaming from the 70s such as the Atari 2600. Fans of handheld gaming won't be disappointed either!
• COIN-OPS
  From the Classics to Japanese machines (Candys) through to Pinballs. They're all set at Replay Expo and they're all set to free play!
  
  The Replay coin-op arcade is being provided thanks to the generous support of private collectors as well as leading communities.
• COMPUTERS
  At Replay we revisit the 90s with 486/P1-based DOS Machines and Acorn Archimedes/RISC PCs, with the 16-bit Amiga & Atari STs representing the late 80s. For veteran gamers, REPLAY Expo 2011 offers 8-bit machines like the C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Electron, MSX and Atari XL/XE. We even find space for rarities like the Acorn Atom, Vic 20, ZX81, Dragon 32 & Oric.

We're will be running tournaments throughout both days of Replay Expo 2011, building up to grand finals on both evenings. The tournaments will span everything from VS Fighting, Shoot-em-ups and Retro Classics to LAN gaming (FFAs) and Multiplayer.

A feature of last year’s Replay was the range of talks from leading gaming industry figures. Replay Expo 2011 is going to be no different and we’ve got some exciting plans for our talks this year.

Adult ticket prices are £12 for single-day entry and £20 for a weekend ticket, with reductions for children and families. It is expected that the full allocation of tickets will be sold in advance through the dedicated website: http://www.replayexpo.com/

Once you've bought your ticket(s) we'd be very grateful if you could post in this topic to let us know which day(s) you're planning to attend (obviously, we hope as many people as possible will do both days!).

Obligatory plea: in many events, the bulk of tickets are sold in the final four weeks prior to the event. With Replay Expo being on such a huge scale, the more tickets are sold early on, the bigger and better show can be put on. So PLEASE buy your tickets as early as possible, and try not to leave it till the last minute!

Attending:

• Arcadian (DaveM)
• Samwise (+2)
• retroclinic (MarkH)
• sorvad (SteveO)
• TheKraken (MichaelS)
• kingcobra (JonathanP)
• jbnbeeb (JasonN)
• GroovyBee (MarkB)
• Winston (DylanS)
• ukretrogamer

[The Kraken]

Jonathan and I have ordered our tickets. However, I have to ask: why has this been scheduled for that particular weekend? Not only is it Bonfire Night, but because it coincides with the Illuminations the hotel is costing us an extra £20 each compared to the following weekend. If there's going to be another one next year, please can someone give it a bit more thought?

[jbnbeeb]

Just ordered tickets! I'm going and bringing the other half with me! Went last year and was loads of fun.

I'd encourage anyone on this forum to go if you want to see all the retro gear from Pong to the present day, and some interesting talks by games programmers from back in the day etc. Great wkd.

[sorvad]

Just ordered a weekender ticket, I'll be only coming on one of the days, just not sure which one yet. Ordered the weekender because as mentioned by Samwise, planning these things is hard and I've always been guilty of late purchases in the past so turning over a new leaf !

[GroovyBee]

I'll be attending on the Saturday, not so sure about Sunday at the moment.

[The Kraken]

So.... any word on when the tickets are going to arrive?

(and you forgot to add Jonathan to the "attending" list)

[Winston]

Jonathan and I have ordered our tickets. However, I have to ask: why has this been scheduled for that particular weekend? Not only is it Bonfire Night, but because it coincides with the Illuminations the hotel is costing us an extra £20 each compared to the following weekend.

Consider a bed-and-breakfast. The one I stayed in last year was only £39 a night, was less than a mile from the venue, breakfast was included and it had free wifi. The so-called "low cost hotels" like Travelodge and their ilk are a rip-off compared to a family run B&B. They charge just as much and don't include breakfast and charge obscene amounts for wifi.

[The Kraken]

As you may have guessed from the date of the post you're replying to, we've booked the hotel by now, but thanks anyway. Ours includes breakfast and wifi isn't a consideration for us, so it'll be okay.

[thew12ard]

Yeah I gotta say it's not the best weekend when you've got a wife and kids who wanna go to the local bonfire and hotels are cashing in on the hallucinations. I promised Dave and a few others i'd try and make it down but worry that by Sunday i'll have already missed all the good stuff and people will either have left or be packing up to go home.

I would be good to see another expo down Stoke way again. Really enjoyed Byte Back as it was about 15 mins drive from our house and there's always been a heavy beeb/acorn following down here.

Come on Dave get it sorted matey!

[Samwise]

ah, c'mon guys.

The dates for Replay were chosen due to a huge number of factors - anyone who was there last year must have seen the sheer scale of the event. It's far bigger than almost everything else on the calendar, and I'm sure you can appreciate that to put on an event that big requires a massive amount of co-ordination across a wide range of communities - it's much bigger than just the usual retro crowd. It covers new gamers, arcade gamers, one-on-one fighting games, pc gamers, console gamers, pinball fanatics - the list goes on. Bottom-line, Replay is much bigger than our little pond, and that means we have to live with the compromises that are made for everyone to enjoy it. Bear in mind that decisions like the date will drastically affect how much the venue will cost to hire etc.

I expect you're probably right, tho, Mart that if you leave it till after about 15:00 on the Sunday afternoon then some people will be starting to pack up ... but that's true of most events and I seem to remember the Replay lot trying quite hard to encourage people to stay as long as possible last year.

As for the events not being local to Stoke, that also seems a little unfair. Not even looking at events already been and gone in the retro gaming calendar, it's only about an hour's drive away to get to the Homebrew Gaming Weekend in Manchester which will boast a decent number of our members in attendance or the RCM Retro Gaming Weekend in Leicestershire which some of us have been to before (not to mention the big GAMEfest expo that is currently happening in B'ham - Dave's there all weekend, and I'll be joining him tomorrow). In fact, if you look at all the upcoming events in the Retro Gamer forum community's calendar, Stoke is actually pretty well centered for taking advantage of them.

If you need them to be closer than that, then at the risk of repeating myself, have you thought about organising one yourself? In the past few years, the retro game events scene has grown massively and I'm sure there'll be a few guys over at the Retro Gamer forum who can point you in the right direction on how to get started and put you in contact with ppl who might be willing to help contribute kit. It doesn't have to be huge - you could start by just approaching a local pub ... I'm pretty sure you'd get volunteers of support from others in your area, so long as you co-ordinate with others and make sure your dates don't clash with anyone elses events. You could gauge interest simply by starting a topic over there (unless you want to make it a very intimate affair, it's best to publicise it further afield than just our *. forum).

The more events the merrier!

Sam.

[The Kraken]

Bottom-line, Replay is much bigger than our little pond, and that means we have to live with the compromises that are made for everyone to enjoy it. Bear in mind that decisions like the date will drastically affect how much the venue will cost to hire etc.

Surely, the venue would also be cheaper had they scheduled it after the end of the Illuminations; these price differences aren't arbitrary but dependent on supply and demand.

[Samwise]

Or maybe the venue recognises that there will be a lot of footfall in Blackpool that weekend, and so hosting a large, public event will generate far more sales at the hotels bars / restaurants than if it was hosted a week later? If you were staying in a cheaper hotel for a weekend to see the lights, would you pop into The Norbreck if there was no public event being hosted?

Not being an integral part of the Replay organisers I have no idea what the circumstances are, but I've been involved in enough organising myself to have an idea of just how many factors would feed into a decision like picking the right date. Picking the wrong date for an event this size could well mean the difference between covering costs in ticket sales and losing an absolute fortune.

Sam.

[jbnbeeb]

I'm sure there's a good reason as to why it was booked for weekend of 5th, 6th.
After all, it was held at the same time last year.

I went last year with my wife - and we both thought the event was fantastic. The scale is breathtaking when you consider this is put together by people in their spare time.

You can't please all people all of the time. But they pleased thousands of people last year at Replay despite of the date. This year, wife and I want to host a bonfire night with friends.. obviously we can't do that on 5th/6th as we're off to Blackpool again.. so we're just going to do it on the next weekend Why not do the same if you want you and your family to enjoy a bonfire and a few fireworks?

As for things being local - there are events of varying size across the country. And if I want to go to them badly enough I will travel. I live in Essex and was more than happy to go to Blackpool- a) because I thought the event would be worth it and b) I like Blackpool.

As for cost.. darn, the tickets for entry on BOTH days is £20! That is a BARGAIN. This must surely be factored in when talking about costs. Events of this scale, such as exhibitions, festivals, concerts etc can often cost far more.

I've enthused about this event before. For those still thinking about going but haven't bought tickets, do it now! If you're passionate about retro computing (albeit games orientated), or like both old and new.. then I can assure you it'll be worth whatever effort you put in to get there.

I haven't met any of the organisers (nor anyone on this forum - but I hope to this time around) .. so I'm not giving a plug with some vested interest. Just wanted to state my enthusiasm and support for the event on this thread.

[The Kraken]

So.... it turns out Jonathan can't come after all Is it possible for us to resell his ticket?

[Samwise]

A weekend ticket, presumably? Send me a PM with a paypal address and I'll see what I can do. I may be able to find someone who'll buy it off you at cost, if you'll post it to them.

Sam.

[thew12ard]

Nope, won't be able to go. The wife wants me to spend the 5th taking my son to the local bonfire on the Saturday and we always go to the Alton Towers firework display on the Sunday as it's such an amazing event not to be missed and when you have kids you have to do what they want to do so the weekend is fully booked entertaining the kids already. I guess it's alright if your single, a teenager or someone with no responsibilities but that weekend of all weekends is really not good for me. Too much going on elsewhere i'm afraid.

[retroclinic]

Booked in now at the Norbreck - I know it's more $$$ than others in the area, but for the convienence of having your room next door to the hall, it was worth it.

Looking forward to it.....

Mark.

[ukretrogamer]

As last year, I'll be there both days again.

(As will most of the UK and NL YouTube retro-computing community if they're to be believed.)

[andyt31]

I may be there.

[jbnbeeb]

We're staying at the Windsor hotel - £60 B&B. We stayed there last year. Decent rooms and a nice cooked breakfast... and importantly, walking distance from the Norbeck hotel. I've checked and they've still got vacancies for that weekend.

http://www.bookdirectrooms.com/hotel/uk ... b3ffc1764d

[sorvad]

Does anyone want to swap a Saturday ticket for a Sunday one ?

[retroclinic]

Have you seen this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyjiaOS9CsA

I mixed in the music, but I've got the original MPG of the video of the arcade if it's of use to put on the big projector maybe?

Mark.

[trevj]

Some Pandoras will be there.

[Prime]

I'll be there (both days) and will be bringing :

An Atom with colour, ram-rom and MMC loaded with Kees' new Atom games.
A Dragon 32 (upgraded to 64K), with prototype DragonMMC and software.
Some keyboards, mice and speakers for DaveM's DooM PCs.

I'll also take along the new BeebSID boards incase anyone wants one, as that would save on postage.

@ukretrogamer, did you ever get your RAM-ROM / colour cards fitted to your Atom ? if you bring them along I'd be happy to fit them for you.

Cheers.

Phill.

[regregex]

I love doing this... I've booked a hotel for the Saturday and will make a weekend of it.

I know I haven't been reading the boards a lot lately but if @MartinB does appear I'll discuss any UEF queries he may have.

See you in 40hrstowers

Greg

[davidb]

I was in the south of England for a few days, but couldn't make it up north for this. Have fun, everyone!

[zz9zzzalpha]

I Would love to have been there, just to meet some of the guys off the forum and put faces to avatars my Avatar is a real photo of me, honest , but alas illness prevents . Ironically I'm only 60 miles from Blackpool and the Norbrek is our favorite hotel that we stay at. Have fun guys & gals

Ian C

[zz9zzzalpha]

My wife and I were sat in the Den with all the computer stuff when she said "Does that Astro Wars Work" I said why and she replied "well if you cant go to the Replay at Blackpool you can at least have a retro day". So for the next couple of hours I was playing "Astro Wars" I'm so glad I never grew up

[Dave Footitt]

Did anyone get a video of the Imagine talk?

[Kecske Bak]

Arcadian will doubtless have a definitive answer, but I believe there may be an official DVD set of Replay Expo 2011 coming soon that might include the talks.