HERE COMES THE EXPO!

First of all, big thanks to Insert Coin for inviting me to write this guest blog piece! We’re delighted IC are going to be providing the official Eurogamer Expo t-shirts this year – we’ve had a sneak preview and they’re awesome. 🙂

We’re hugely excited about this year’s expo. Every year, since the show started in 2008, we’ve grown the event. Back in 2008 we were at the Old Truman Brewery with a few thousand attendees, in just three years we’ve graduated to Earls Court One with 30,000 visitors over four days.

But with more people attending we need even more for them to do and I think that’s the biggest difference this year; we’ve gone all out to put on new features for people to enjoy. Brand new for this year is the retro area, which is being organised and managed by the guys at Replay (http://www.replayexpo.com/). They’ll be bringing along a whole bunch of consoles from yesteryear, including Mario Kart on the SNES (personal favourite!) and they’ll also be running various tournaments on different retro titles.

We’ve always had people coming to the expo in cosplay (check out this guy from 2009 http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=142498772433244) but we’ve never really rewarded them for their efforts. This year we’re running two cosplay competitions one of which is sponsored by Sony who have been very generous and will be providing a PlayStation Vita as a first prize. All you need to do to enter is come dressed as Nathan Drake or Elena Fisher from Uncharted. Nolan North will even be on hand to help us judge the entrants! If you fancy entering, all the details are right here – http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/faq#cosplay.

We’re also delighted that OnLive have chosen the expo as the venue for their UK launch. They’ll have a large stand at the show where you’ll be able to try out their new console and they’ll be giving away (yes, for free!) a large number of systems to attendees over all four days.

As well as the all new features, a number of old favourites from previous years will be returning, including the developer sessions, indie arcade, tournament area and the GamesIndustry.biz career fair.

We realise, however, that the playable games are the biggest attraction and we’re really happy that the first time UK gamers will be able play Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic, PlayStation Vita and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is at our show.

We reckon we have the strongest line up we’ve ever had and I can’t wait to open the doors on Thursday. That’s always been my favourite part of the expo, seeing everyone enjoying themselves and, with over 800 consoles and PCs and a stack of features, there’s plenty to enjoy.

See you there!

You can find out more by following Tom (@tomchampion) and the official Eurogamer Expo feed (@eurogamer_expo) on Twitter.