Retro Games Fair 2018

Just a quick note before we begin:

I’ve added a lot of photos to this post. They should all be lazy loaded for you

that means that they’re only loaded when you scroll down to them

 and included in carousels. And each of the photos in a carousel can be enlarged by clicking on it.

This weekend we were at the Leeds Retro Games Fair and it was just as amazing as in previous years.

There are two events per year:

• Retro Games Fair (which takes place in January)
• Super Retro Games Fair (which takes in the summer)

With the Super Retro Games Fair being the bigger of the two events. That’s not to say that the January even is small at all, because it really isn’t. In fact the main room is over 300 square feet, so it’s pretty large.

if you’re interested, we’ve written about the previous events that we’ve attended

Rare Things We Spotted

The sheer number of games on sale was astronomical, and I can’t even imagine the amount of money which changed hands over the day. Especially with some of the rarer games and hardware. Here are some photos of the rare stuff that we spotted:

I think you can tell that we’re fans of Resident Evil

Those photos don’t cover all of the rare things that we spotted, simply because of the huge number of stalls which were selling video games.

Games Breakout Room

At each of the events which are put on by the team at Retro Events there’s often a breakout room, and this event was no different: This event offered a room with some fantastic retro games - including a Retron5 and a few arcade cabinets - for folks to play for free.

This was fantastic for folks who wanted a break from the hustle and bustle of the completely packed main areas. Here are some photos of the games that we could play for chill out sessions:

Non-Video Games Stuff For Sale

As with a lot of events like this one, there were plenty of vendors who were selling game related things and nerd/geek culture stuff. There were at least two stalls selling plushies, a t-shirt designer selling his wares

if you’ll pardon the pun

and even some stalls selling anime stuff.

We didn’t get a lot of photos of these stalls (because they ended up being busier than some of the video game sellers), but here are a few photos that we managed to take:

The Main Draw

Almost everyone who came to the event made an appearance in the main hall, which was where the majority of the sellers had their stalls. There were other stalls, which were in the connecting hallway, and a few of the (slightly) smaller room.

It really was an amazing experience. Although, the room very quickly filled with patrons shortly after the event started (at 11 am).

Here are some of the photos we took of the stalls in the main room:

Our Hauls

Lets face it, the main reason for you reading this post is to find out what we managed to find and buy at this event, right?

no? Well, you’re about to be disappointed

Jay

Jay didn’t manage to score a lot of video games at this event. Mainly because he was on the look out for some of the stuff that Squidgey and Ik would be interested in

and asking some of the sellers about how they got into the buisness

As such, he ended up only making a few purchases:

The TMNT shirts are limited edition, as the designer behind them

Man Mountain Designs

was selling them off and has discontinued them. I did get a set of all four of them, but gave my Mikey shirt away to a friend shortly after the event.

The book on Rare will come in handy for a few blog posts that I have planned

hint hint

The copy of Aliens for Amstrad CPC 464 is one of the first FPS games that I ever played. It now sits by my copy of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral that I scored at the first of these events we attended

we also wrote about it a few hours after attending it

A quick side not on cassette tapes:

For those who don’t remember games from before the late ’90s, we used to have things called cassette tapes. These were lengths of magnetic tape

it’s the same technology as the black stripe on the back of your credit card

encased in a plastic case.

They were mostly used for playing music, but some of the older computers used them to load games and applications.

We used to have an Amstrad CPC 464, and it loaded games and applications from cassette tapes. I’ve written about the CPC 464 last year

here’s a link to that post

and I’m always tempted to buy one when we attend one of these events.

Squidgey

Squidgey’s haul was a very impressive one.

Not only did he buy a selection of things, but he also managed to win something extra: he bought tickets for a charity tombola and won a Super Mario Bros. t-shirt.

I took a look at the Japanese on the back of both of the Resident Evil 3 and Gaiden, and I think that they’re pre-release/review versions of the games. There’s copy which informed the owner that they’re not permitted to resell the games.

The Pokémon games are going to be added to Squidgey’s collection of boxed Japanese Pokémon games, which now includes:

• Red
• Green
• Yellow
• Silver

As slightly related side note: I recently tweeted about how the Japanese Pokémon games are perfect for practising Japanese with:

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

that’s from my twitter account which is all about programming

We would definitely recommend attending one of these events - or any of the others which are put on by Retro Events, because they’re absolutely fantastic.

All three of us (Ik included) remain convinced that there’s something for everyone at these events - as long as you’re interested in video games, that is.

I’ll leave you with a photo of the Metal Gear Solid mural, which ca be found behind Leeds Train station.