UK Convention Overview

We’re back and we’re bursting with song, but more on that later. We’re also talking about conventions, and definitely not singing about them. That would be silly. Specifically, we’re talking about the UK roleplaying conventions we attend, with a focus on encouraging those of you who don’t already attend them to do so. Conventions are great social occasions, a good way to try new games and not filled with anywhere near as many weird people as you may fear. We have limited ourselves to conventions that at least one of us has attended and that are still running, but this didn’t narrow things down much. This is a long episode. Apparently we spend a lot of our time sitting in hotels or holiday camps with dice in our hands. The conventions we cover, along with links to the relevant websites, are: * Conception * Concrete Cow * Conpulsion * The National Student Roleplaying and Wargaming Championships (Student Nationals) * Con-Quest * UK Games Expo * Continuum * Furnace * Wyntercon * Indiecon * Dragonmeet * London Indie RPG Meetup As we mention in the episode, Phil Masters publishes a calendar of upcoming RPG conventions, and this will fill in a lot of gaps in our rather incomplete list. We also mention that Neil Smith has published a how-to guide for running your own small Concrete Cow-style convention, so here it is. Before you start listening, it’s only fair that we give you warning: we sing in this episode. You may well have seen or heard us mention our Patreon page for people who would like to help with our hosting costs. One of the rewards we (well, Paul) offered was that we would sing our thanks in the style of a barbershop quartet to anyone donating $5 per episode. The full horror of what this meant only sank in when two insanely generous people sponsored us at this level, and we realised that only one of us could even remotely carry a tune. After an hour of recording and much editing and mixing, we have come up with a version that minimises SAN loss. It’s at the end of the episode, so brace yourself when you hear it coming. Please don’t let this put you off donating!