R3play Expo - Blackpool 6/7 Nov 2010 - Reviews and comments!

[Turnarcades]

For those who aren't already aware, the CGEU (Computing & Gaming Events Union) are hosting a huge classic and modern gaming show called R3play at Norbreck Castle Hotel, Blackpool, England on 6/7 November 2010. The show is expected to build on the smaller retro gaming events and meets as well as the idea behind the 2009 Insert Coin show to create an all-encompassing annual show dedicated to all things gaming; retro and modern. You can read all about it at the R3play official website and through forum discussions across the web, plus I will now be posting updates here as and when they become known. As an idea of the show size, here are a couple of pics of the show location and the preliminary floorplan, which is in the large-capacity Norcalympia suite of Norbreck Castle Hotel:





This schedule has now been revised and the arcade section will be filling the nearside wall opposite the stage (second pic), but I'm hoping we can fill the perimeter with machines! A full gallery is viewable at the CGEU website here as well as past show images from other CGEU events.

The first show at the UK's spiritual home of arcade gaming is being promoted thoroughly across the arcade gaming community as well as in local press and any future of the show will depend on how well the initial show goes. All aspects of videogaming are so far well-represented from classic computers, consoles and memorabilia to network gaming, modern consoles and talks/wokshops so there is plenty for everyone's tastes. Various competitions and challenges will be run on the day from vs. fighting games to FPS deathmatches and some main stage comps. The show is being hosted by game-fan ex-TV hottie Gail Porter and there is expected to be an abundance of web, local TV and press media there reporting on the show and some possible minor celebrity attendances.

The big question most members of BYOAC are probably asking is what type of arcade gaming coverage there will be, particularly in comparison to Insert Coin '09's show. At present, arcade gaming is moderately well presented with plenty currently expected in terms of original classic machines as well as some Candy JAMMA offerings from online communities like Arcade Otaku and the JAMMA+ forums, and there will also be some DDR representation too. However, I've been in talks with Dave Moore at CGEU and he has expessed a desire to incorporate the home build community and increase the arcade gaming presence there, which many will be expecting. As he is unfamiliar amongst these communities he has asked me to put out a request to this community and see who we can get involved to make this show about the roots of gaming we know and love!

The show organisers would like more individuals to contribute and assure their attendance, so anyone in the UK or Europe who can make it to the show and maybe submit a machine for the arcade machine show section would be openly welcomed. Similarly, they would like other large or small-time vendors to think about attending with a trade stall, as it is expected there will be a decent proportion of enthusiasts to generate sales and some newcomers to the hobby who would like to see what is on offer to the relative novice. I will be leading by example as we will have a Turnarcades stall on display within the arcade gaming section with a couple of machines for playing on as part of the show as well as selling heavily-discounted kits ready to take away and taking orders for custom machnes. I see it as a good opportunity to mix with like-minded folk and also share stories with my fellow BYOAC members.

Anyway, could anyone interested in attending or contributing to the show please express an interest in this thread (Saint, if you could sticky this it would be great!), then I can point the CGEU organisers to this thread to see how they can help in any way and they can see the interestthis community obviously has in this type of event. I know there has been other minor threads on the show but if you have any questions or comments I can relay them back from here and hopefully make our mark on the success of the show!

[orchidius]

I'm carpooling with a bunch of friends from another forum and we'll be making our way over from Belgium to Blackpool. We won't have anything to contribute but our presence though... It's gonna be tight enough, cramming 5 ppl in a tiny car :p.

[Turnarcades]

I'm carpooling with a bunch of friends from another forum and we'll be making our way over from Belgium to Blackpool. We won't have anything to contribute but our presence though... It's gonna be tight enough, cramming 5 ppl in a tiny car :p.

Great news to hear; I think I may have read this in another forum actually. Good to see some European cousins will be making the pilgrimage! Will you be staying at the Norbreck?

[orchidius]

We're all students, so it had to be cheap above all. The person who organizes the whole thing found his way to our forum and negotiated a deal with a motel down the street. We'll be staying there.

[Turnarcades]

I think I know which one, and good choice too. The facilities and exhibition rooms at Norbreck are great but I hear bad things about their hotel rooms. Personally me and my gang will be staying in a small B+B by the tower. I'mhoping a few more visitors will be checking in on this and could possibly demonstrate a cabinet or two - if transport is a problem there is a possibility of the show organisers arranging something...

[Turnarcades]

I've had a second preliminary plan from Dave at CGEU and will hopefully know more soon. The arcade section is shaping up to be a more prominent feature with around 50 machines already planned out and hopefully a few more if anyone here can contribute - let's try and get enough for a 'home-build' section! Hopefully some of our favourite vendors here will be able to commit and if you can recommend anyone/anything you'd like to see that would be great. I am thinking of running a competition or two to win a cabinet kit from us, so I will have to see how my plans go.

[bertthedefender]

I live in Manchester and can't wait for this event!  A friend and I make an annual trip to Blackpool purely for the arcades and this will fit the bill perfectly! 

[Edwards80]

Looking forward to this event. I have booked a hotel 10mins walk away from the venue and will be coming along with a mate (the wife didn't seem too interested  )

My arcade cab shell was built by Turnarcades too so I will definitely be popping by to say hello. (Finally finishing the wiring of the contol panel this weekend - has been long enough now!)

Should be a good event.

[Turnarcades]

Great news guys will be good to see you both there - Scott it would be great if you could post some pictures of your cab progressing in the 'Projects' forum for us all to see.

With regards the show I'm hoping that the DDR display will still be close to the rest of the arcade section to continue the theme, though not too close to me cos we all know those cabs are LOUD!

[jimmy2x2x]

My buddy told my that 'press play on tape' are performing, cant see it mentioned on the site - any truth in that?

[Turnarcades]

My buddy told my that 'press play on tape' are performing, cant see it mentioned on the site - any truth in that?

No idea yet but Dave tells me the website will see some big updates soon as well as their facebook page. There will likely be some good use of the stage for things like this though I imagine more will be known after this weekend as some organisers are going to the venue to look at possibilities based on what they now have booked in.

Anyone wondering who PPOT are should check out this video:

[ark_ader]

Its practically down the street from my house, so I will be there.

Will you bring any *finished* cabinets to this fair Turnarcades? 

[jimmy2x2x]

err, that vid would probably put people off!

THIS is more like it!




I really hope they are performing, would love to see them live!

[Turnarcades]

Just been given the heads-up from a couple more of your favourite forum members and vendors that they will be in attendance but as plans are still being finalised by the organisers and these guys I will hang on a short while before mentioning them - I'm sure they will be adding their own comments here once they've made suitable arrangements.

Kick Energy are apparently the major official prtner/sponsor so I would expect promos and freebies associated with this; expect a load of already hyped-up gamers ripped to the tits on energy drinks all weekend!

[trevski]

This sounds AWESOME 

I was already sold on 1 day attendance, but if PPoT are there then count me in for 2 (esp if they're doing the Sat eve  )

[Arcadian1978]

'Elo everyone!

Thanks for all the interest in the Blackpool show, and cheers especially to Craig  (for assuming the role of "R3PLAY Head of PR", LOL!  )

Jimmy: no idea where you heard the PPOT "rumour" but I'm afraid to say it definitely ain't true!

--Dave (R3PLAY co-organiser)

[Turnarcades]

Currently waiting on any new info from Dave following last weekend's visit to the venue (which I was unfortunately unable to attend) but in the meantime here's some youtube vids of the venue and some teasers/previews of what to expect from the show:

r3play Teaser Ver0 3

[surface tension]

Just to let you know, I am officially on-board. I plan to have a couple of systems with me, so please drop by and say hello.

[Turnarcades]

Great stuff st, looking forward to it. Will be great to see the man behind the machines and finally get to have a look at those quality tables!

[LeedsFan]

Thought I'd bump this thread and see who's going from the BYOAC forums. I'v already bought tickets from their official site some time ago (though they still haven't arrived) and my B&B is already booked just round the corner from the event location. I'll be going over Friday evening so I can comfortably enjoy a full English next morning before strolling over.  

Looking forward to the illuminations during the evening, check out the arcades on the front, couple of pints and fish and chips supper. Blackpool are at home to Everton on that Saturday so the place could be full of Scousers on a day trip as it's only down the road. Should be good fun though.... really looking forward to it.

EDIT:  I could bring along my DK bartop if anyone is interested in displaying it. Of course I'm not a trader and I would be entrusting it to someone who had some space. I'd be interested just to see people playing on it and what they thought.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=94311.40

[JustMichael]

expect a load of already hyped-up gamers ripped to the tits on energy drinks all weekend!

Man-boobs?  EWWWWWWW!!!!!   

[Franco B]

I'm there for sure 

We are travelling up early Saturday morning and staying over night. It looks like it should be a great weekend. 

The final floor plan has now been posted over at the main site:

[surface tension]

I'm frantically trying to get everything ready for the show, and really looking forward to it.

Please come and say hello, though after this week you might find me asleep on the sofa. Just give me a kick. I met a couple of people from here at IC09, so looking forward to meeting a few more.

I'll be next to Craig, making sure his uprights don't start on my tabletops   

[Vebbo]

Oh man, I had some hopes making this but the opportunity slipped (Bad planning i guess)

Is this a yearly event?

Are there other arcade events coming next year? (I live in Norway so it doesn't matter where in Europe actually.)

[AndyWarne]

I will be jumping on a train and braving the hazard of engineering work at Wigan North West and hopefully get there around midday Sat.

I will be looking at what we could do to participate in the show if its held again next year. It didnt work out right this year as we have just moved premises and to be honest I am looking forward to that train trip to get some R&R!

Question is how much self-build Mame will be there? If the Northampton show was anything to go by, not a lot, but I'm sure it will be worth the trip anyway. Not sure if Mame sits comfortably alongside a Nintendo stand!

No doubt Craig and Dan will have some great cabinets and look forward to meeting all.  I could stick an Aimtrak gun into my bag if you want to plug it into one of your cabs Craig.

[LeedsFan]

Question is how much self-build Mame will be there? If the Northampton show was anything to go by, not a lot, but I'm sure it will be worth the trip anyway. Not sure if Mame sits comfortably alongside a Nintendo stand!

Well I emailed them through the website just last weekend asking them if they were interested in showing my DK bartop. I didn't expect much as it was late in the day to organise an exhibit. But they were very positive and want me to take it along. 

Are Nintendo known in the industry for being anti-emulation? Gotta say I wasn't aware of it if they are.

[Xiondz]

Xiondz +1 on Sunday
not many BYOACers be there

[TonyHoyle]

I'll be there on. Sunday hoping to kickstart my own cabinet project so will be looking for ideas 

[ark_ader]

It was a good show.  There was problems getting into the venue, as the organisers had more people to deal with, as we were queuing outside around the building well after the opening time.  But it was a bright sunny (chilly) morning, but they got their act together and resolved it.  Maybe next year (if we are lucky) they will fix that problem.

Inside they had la huge amount of console and home computers, candy cabs with a range of Jap Shooters, computer clubs and the Computer Museum.  The Computer Museum had relics of the past, including a PDP.  What was odd was the BBC computers included into this timeline.  Made me feel old.  

A nice range of Pins.  No Adams Family or Funhouse, but they had a cool Terminator 2 Pin.

Two great tombola for charity.  We bagged quite a few PS3 and 360 games for 50p.

Craig was there with his Mame machines, and we had a working Star Wars Trilogy and SW Vector to play on.

All in all a good day.

Pictures to follow, if i can get them off my phone..

[Franco B]

We had a great time at the show. We got there about 20 minutes after it started and we didn't have to queue at all, we must have caught it at the right time.

There was loads to do and I think it would have taken a couple more days to get round everything. I really enjoyed what I did get to play though. Its a shame a lot of the woodies ended up either not working or not set to freeplay but from what I could see all of the candies performed brilliantly.

Had a nice chat with Craig from Turnarcades and Andy(?) from Surface Tension, I must say both of your products looked great and they were very popular

All in all it was a great event and I hope it was the first of many. Who knows, I may actually take along something myself another year if I actually get something finished 

Pics to follow also...

[TonyHoyle]

I was blown away.. I've been to a few of these events that have turned out to be $bigcompany showing off something and a few hundred mobile phone sellers pretending they're 'down with the geeks'.  This was nothing like that.. Ended up spending all day :p  The 40 player 1942 was great fun.

It took me under 2 minutes to get a kit from turnarcades*.. went in, saw what the machines looked like 'for real' then decided on the spot it wasn't worth waiting (not to mention the saving in postage & a nice discount).  Of course now I've got a pile of wood and little idea what to do next :p

* With no instructions!

[LeedsFan]

What a brilliant event! Thoroughly enjoyed both days. 

Just about every home micro from the 80s was there (I didn't see a Jupiter Ace though  ). About an equal number of JP cabs and woodies. The only shame was that the Robotron cabinet wasn't working as it had got damaged in transit to the show. But other classics were there like Battlezone, Star Wars, DK, and also Jon Stoodley's beautifully restored Pacman sat alongside Tony Temple's Missile Command. (Though I did hear some bearded American guy complaining about trackball settings  )

The computer museum section was interesting and the geek in me even had me working on their challenge to program the BBC micro to print out the first 20 prime numbers in the least lines of code. That took me 30 mins of head scratching but I managed it in eight lines. Then it was back to the games.....

Turnarcades and Surface Tension both had a couple of top quality cabs on display. It's not until you see these cabs in the "flesh" that you really appreciate the tight attention to detail in them.

There were loads of competitions going on. I got to the quarter finals of the Sensible Soccer tournament but lost on penalties 
I won a couple of PC games on the tombola stands but, best of all..... I won the King of Kong competition that Craig ran on Turnarcades stand to win a lovely bartop kit.  So that's gonna be dedicated to the horizontal games seeing as my DK bartop covers the verts.

There was modern stuff there too of course but the balance was right.

The organisers aren't committing to another date next year but I'm sure they'd agree it was a total success. I really hope it becomes something regular.

I got loads of pics and I'll upload some later.

[LeedsFan]

As promised here are some pics 





Chuckie Egg yeaaaaaaah!!!!  I spent many weeks playing the Spectrum version of this classic back in the day. 



Now this is cool!  Remember the April Fool joke played on Thinkgeek.com for the iCade? Well someone has put the idea into production!  http://www.freekade.co.uk/

















Like a typical Englishman I reached the quarter-final stage only to choke on penalties.   





My DK bartop was received quite well. But unfortunately 10 hours of constant use proved too much as it expired right at the end of the first day.  Need to pull the guts out to find out which component died on me. 





I can't remember this guys name but he is a really good DK player. I set up an empty hi-score file for this event on my DK bartop, and it's a good job I did because this guy scored over 360K on my machine which I can't get anywhere near to as yet. We discussed tips on the game and it was good to meet someone who loved DK as much as I do.





Shame the Robotron wasn't working    Those original Wico's felt awesome though. The Defender was working later on but the joystick was quite stiff to use which made the game much more hard to play. But I'm crap at it anyway. 









Loved playing on this original Frogger cab. The joystick was beautifully responsive for the delicate control needed. I posted highest scores on each day for this game.    





Aren't Japanese cabinets simply AWESOME!!! So comfy to sit and play at these machines. Got talking to a guy about them and apparently the Egret II cab has a rotating mechanism for the monitor where you just lift the bezel and pull/turn the monitor with one hand. I have a future project lined up now that involves one of these cabs, a PC, J-Pac and an ArcadeVGA! 























Cosplay!

[surface tension]

This was an amazing show as everyone has already said. I wish I'd had the time to go and play on the Commodores and Amstrads, plus all the geat multiplayer stuff that was going on on-stage.

Good to see you made it home LeedsFan. Some great photos. I'll put a few up over the next few days.

It was also good to put some faces to names... Craig, LeedsFan and Franco. Plus new member Xiondz, doing some research for building up his new cab.

Iain Lee was great too. He was totally at home there and very friendly.

Dave and his team did an absolutely fantastic job. I'll be giving him a call once he's finished and caught up on the lost sleep.

[angrym0b]

I had a great time at the weekend. Played a pile of games that I had forgotten existed! A friend and I played Moonstone on the Amiga for about 2 hours on Sunday Was great to see what the Turnarcade cabs looked like finished (mine is ready to collect!). The surface tension tables are super sexy too.

I really hope they run something like this again as I'll definitely be attending

[Franco B]

[Vebbo]

So nice with some pics and video  Thanks for shearing. It looked like an cool event. Hope to see a "rerun" next year and I will be there.

[Xiondz]

   Definitely great event, hope there will be "rerun" in next year. Research done, need more emulators to put in My project. Lesson for next year, leave a kid at home   

[AndyWarne]

I was gobsmacked by the sheer size and scale of this event. It must have taken a huge amount of organisation. Great job by all concerned.

I just cant begin to wonder where all those consoles and other hardware came from, it all just seemed to be there by some kind of magic.

Iain Lee is a natural choice for this show being a genuine games enthusiast, he has the honour of having played Space Invaders with its original Japanese author!

[Turnarcades]

Sorry to everyone for not checking in earlier and apologies if I missed anyone's comments. Andy, thanks for the offer of trialling the new Aimtrak and I will be contacting you about trialling them very soon as we are ready to start building dedicated Light gun cabinets.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and I will be posting my full review of the show tonight.