Posts Tagged on the road
Quick weekend schedule
Posted by Rockjaw in Day Today, MMO-related on May 30th, 2008
Before I shower, shave, pack, etc.
Today: Pick up van, pack all our stuff, think we don’t have room, find we do have room, leave Brighton, lunch at Oxford Services, arrive Birmingham, get lost, get found, unload, set up stand, check into hotel, go find beer.
(If you’re in or around Birmingham this evening and want to find us for a pint, either check Facebook for our location (I can update from the mobile) or just try pubs in the Hagley Road area of Edgbaston. The Garden House is a pretty good bet as it’s right next to our hotel – especially if it’s a warm, dry evening, as the beer garden’s nice.)
Tomorrow: Up, breakfast, into the Clarendon Suites for Day One of UK Games Expo. Show’s open from 10am to 5pm. We’ll have Andrew Wildman, Neil Edwards and special guest Karl Kopinski sketching until their pencils break in two. Also: many cheap games and excellent freebies. (And by the way, I personally supervised the packing of CoH/CoV t-shirts. Oooh! Also we have special ‘black’ CoH/CoV tees not for sale anywhere else. Although we may have given you one of them, once.) Then; curry. If you want to eat with us, you’ll have to come to the show and find out where we’ll be.
Sunday: UK Games Expo, Day Two – 10am to 4pm. Then packing, the road, some crappy service station somewhere, the road again, unpacking in the middle of the night and home.
Are we clear? Good. See you there, or not.
Comic Expo… Bristol, 2008
Posted by Rockjaw in Day Today, Events, MMO-related on May 12th, 2008
In one two post posts. Not four, unlike the last show. Can’t guarantee to be short, though… so that’ll be like last time.
So, we came (again), we saw (again), we conquered (well that might be debatable but we certainly seemed to do alright, thank you). Another Comic Expo has come and gone. Let’s talk about it, shall we? Okay. With pictures? Oh alright then.
MiniCon Day One: Friday
Posted by Rockjaw in Day Today, MMO-related on March 27th, 2008
So let’s go back in time again… almost a week ago now. Boy, doesn’t feel it.
This is – believe it or not – a little lacking in detail, but I did my best. Let’s go…
The first day of a show, any show, pretty much unfolds the same way every time – a bit like the day after a show, actually. So Friday started with the entire team converging on our offices. I walked in to the compound to find several people freezing their asses off, just like I was thanks to some intense winds. I let them into the minibus I’d hired so they didn’t turn into people popsicles, and called Chris.
He was inside the office, collecting the last few pieces of stuff. I went to join him, and we did a few last minute things like printing out a few more maps and schedules to put up all over the centre. Then we piled everything onto our trolleys to move it downstairs.
This point on a ‘show timeline’ is always kind of maddening for me. We know we have to leave, but we’re slightly reluctant to, because we know there’s the possibility that we’re going to forget something. We’ve done plenty of shows when I’ve been half way to the venue and then suddenly started swearing because I’ve just remembered something. (The best example of this was when I realised en-route to Bristol Comic Expo last year that’d we’d forgotten the (then brand-new) CoH/V lapel pins, as well as our free trial DVDs. Considering how mad I was, I don’t look it.)
Eventually though, time forces you to just say ‘screw it’ and leave, so that’s what we did, walking back out into the cold to see that everyone had arrived. It helped that Chris had, quite literally, packed everything we had into the van he was driving, so we were pretty confident we’d have everything we need. Although there would be the small matter of finding it.
The day before yesterday
So, Chris/Aero and I went up to Birmingham on Friday to scout out Omega Sektor, where we’ll be holding the upcoming MiniCon over Easter Weekend.
Uneventful journey up – we’ve both driven the Brighton-Birmingham run so many times now, the only question is how to find what we need within Birmingham itself. It was the first time I’d actually explored Birmingham city centre on foot, and I was surprised to find, a bit like London, that loads of stuff is really close together. Our hotel was about three minutes walk from the Bullring (the major shopping centre) and Omega Sektor itself, so that was all damn handy.
Omega Sektor is pretty much what I expected, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s massive, spread over two floors, with about 400 gaming PCs, consoles and so on. They seem to have done a great job kitting the place out, and it’s wired to capacity with plasma screens everywhere, two massive projector screens, etc etc.
We’re really happy with it, and hopefully you lot will be too.
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