on the road

Quick weekend schedule

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.) Continue reading

MiniCon Day One: Friday

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… Continue reading

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.