UK Games Expo Friday 29th - Sunday 31st January 2026

1. Why I Went

The United Kingdom Games Exposition is the biggest Games Convention in the UK by far.

(If you exclude computer game events, of course, which we always do, don’t we?)

It’s the second largest convention of its type in the world in terms of trading space and the third largest in terms of unique attendees. It is only beaten by Spiel Essen in Germany in both categories and by GenCon in the USA by attendees. They have more people but don’t sell as many things.

I couldn’t care less about this. Alongside all of its other things, it has a large and well-organised Table-Top Role-Playing track with more people coming to play TTRPGs than any other event in the UK. I’ve attended to referee games for over a decade. I ignore the rest of the event and just turn up to play games.

It has a better reward system for referees than any other event. If you offer to run enough games for enough people you get free entry, food vouchers and overnight accommodation.

It takes place at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, where I live. I’m now old and have a Senior Citizen’s Travel Pass. This means that it is now free for me to travel to and from this event. So it’s basically free for me to attend. So why wouldn’t I?

2. The Shape of the Convention

The core of UKGE is the Trade Halls. The NEC has multiple massive trade halls. Over the years UKGE has grown from being based in a hotel and convention space, to occupying a single trade hall, into multiple ones. I don’t know how many it now fills but I counted at least four. As I say, the second largest convention of its type in the world in terms of trading space.

Alongside this it hosts several related events - the role-playing track, evening shows, seminars, VIPs, awards, escape rooms, starship simulators etc.

I don’t care about any of these. I only go to UKGE to referee TTRPGs.

Because it’s a large public event these are well-organised and it makes a point to publicly comply with laws and regulations. Anyone who wishes to referee TTRPGs at the event needs to attend and complete an online safety seminar. I hadn’t attended since the pandemic so I needed to get re-accredited and complete the seminar before I could offer games.

Most of the TTRPGs are played in conference rooms in a hotel next to the main Exhibition Centre. A few are played in rooms within the main site because there are far too many games offered now for the hotel to accommodate them all - even with several (sometimes too many) games played within a single room.

Referees submit games. These are approved and listed on the Expo’s extensive and impressive bespoke booking system. This is easy to monitor in the run-up to the event to see if your games are selling out. Almost all games do, with lots of last minute sign-ups taking place at the event itself.

Referees are given rewards based on how many games they offer for how many players. Five games for six players or six games for five players earns the maximum rewards of free entry to the event, enough food vouchers to buy lunch each day and free accommodation in the convention hotel. This last with the caveat that you have to share the room with another referee.

There are three four-hour game slots on Friday and Saturday.

9am to 1pm

2pm to 6pm

7pm to 11pm

And two on Sunday.

10am to 2pm

3pm to 7pm

These timings are not set in stone and you can offer shorter slots, adjust the times etc. but it’s just easier to stick with the majority.

There is a TTRPG reception where referees collect their game packs at the start of the event and return before each game to scan in a pre-printed game slip to sign in for their game

3. Games Played and Games Run

Because I live locally and have, mostly, free travel I offered to referee six games, each during the day. I didn’t offer any games in the two evening slots. 11pm is too late to travel home. I could have accepted the free accommodation but I don’t like sharing a hotel room. And I wasn’t prepared to pay the cost of a hotel room just to referee an extra game.

Anyway, two games per day is enough for anyone.

Every game I offered is one I’ve run successfully at other conventions. I would advise all prospective referees to do this.

Slot 1 - Friday 09:00 - 13:00

Starfleet Academy 2270 - Milk Run. This is my Star Trek game with Starfleet cadets getting into trouble flying a shuttle around the solar system. My only issue with this is that I start it by running a short introductory prologue game to familiarise players with the rules using the Original Series characters and, more often these days, I’m beginning to run into people who have never seen the original series.

The game was in an upstairs room set up with five gaming tables but I was the only referee offering games in the room in the morning slot.

(Friday morning most people are in the trade halls.)

This was the usual romp which had a spectacular ending with the Vulcan Psychic rolling a critical success in the final space battle causing the enemy ships to collide and explode.

The game took about three and a half hours. This meant I could get to the food wagons outside the hotel before the massive queues built up. There was a particularly short queue at the artisan beefburger stall. When I got to the front I noticed they had a priority queue for UKGE volunteers. The proprietor thought this meant people with yellow volunteer T-shirts but I pointed out my possession of food vouchers proved I was a different type of volunteer. He agreed.

Slot 2 - Friday 14:00 - 18:00

One of our Dinosaurs is Missing. My Steampunk game.

Other referees arrived looking for tables to play at. Two of the tables in the room seemed to have been reserved for other games so they avoided those. I later found out that these were sponsorship stickers. Other game rooms had stickers on every table. I personally thought this was a bit intrusive.

One of my players with clear mobility issues arrived out of breath and asked if there was a lift she could take after the event to go back to the ground floor. There wasn’t. She then informed me that they’d bumped into another one of my players earlier on and knew they were in a wheelchair.

I immediately went to the front desk to find a table on the ground floor. We were allocated a table in the VIP games room. We were asked to keep our game quiet but, as it turned out, it was the VIPs who were noisy. I had to speak loudly to make myself heard and went home that night with a sore throat.

This scenario - which you’ve read about multiple times in this blog - always plays well. 

This group tackled things in a different order to most groups but still succeeded and had a great time. This may join my Dr Who scenario on a list of scenarios I offer every year at Games Expo.

Slot 3 - Friday 19:00 - 23:00

I didn’t offer a game.

Slot 4 - Saturday 09:00 - 13:00

Blakes 7 - The Armageddon Run. This is one of my older scenarios. Its conceit is a crossover between the classic TV series Blakes 7 and the classic movie Total Recall. I recently resurrected it for the Northstar convention and it was an easy one for me to offer here.

For you aficionados of the series, the players chose to play Vila, Avon, Gan, Dayna and Cally. Vila and Avon are always chosen. Blake is never chosen. I know Gan and Dayna never actually met on the TV series, but who cares?

Another romp with the characters surviving by the skin of their teeth, leaving a decimated Mars in their wake.

Again the game ran under four hours. I went to “Chow Street” where the food wagons were, used the priority queue at the beefburger stand and was served very quickly.

Slot 5 - Saturday 14:00 - 18:00

Last Orders. This is the scenario which showcases my horror rules. The one about the tainted beer and the artesian wells in a classic Birmingham brewery.

This is a game I usually run in an evening slot at conventions - for obvious reasons. Running it earlier in the day loses some of the atmosphere but this didn’t seem to matter much.

My horror rules aren’t very scary or dangerous. In my games characters have lots of ways to “get out of jail free”, if their players are able to narrate them. This was the first time ever I had what is known as a TPK or “Total Party Kill”. The characters stopped the ancient horror from erupting onto the world but all heroically lost their lives in the process.

Slot 6 - Saturday 19:00 - 23:00

I didn’t offer a game.

Slot 7 - Sunday 10:00 - 14:00

Games start an hour later on Sunday. This was fortunate because there were no trains from Birmingham New Street to Birmingham International - the station serving the NEC. There was a replacement bus service.

As I expected the queue for the replacement buses was massive - filled with hundreds of lanyard-wearing gamers. 

(The picture only shows a section of the queue. It continues around the corner and in both directions.) 

Despite the Rail employee swearing under his breath when he saw the size of it, they were able to to rustle up enough buses and coaches to handle the job without any major fuss. 

We were all barely delayed getting to the event. Something the rail service gets a bad rap in this country but I thought they handled this well.

Before the pandemic, I refereed games at UKGE every year. And every year I ran a Dr Who based scenario on the Sunday morning. The same scenario. Year after year after year. A simple little thing laden with fan-service mainly drawn from the era of the 10th Doctor but with a big side-order of Terry Nation.

I allow players to make any character from anywhere in Time and Space - provided they haven’t appeared on the TV series.

The most “normal” character was a Space Station technician from the 40th century.

We also had an android. The same model as Kryten from “Red Dwarf”.

The last two players - both experienced role-players - were stumped by being offered such a wide choice of options. One chose to play Laika - the dog sent into space by Russia. The last chose to play Gareth Southgate, the ex-football player and England manager.

This old scenario still performs even after all these years.

During a break - half way through - the “Kryten” player, who was quite new to role-playing, took the time to privately inform me how much he was enjoying the game and, particularly, how much he appreciated the way I was running it. I think it was his first experience of more narrative role-playing games, being familiar with the formal D&D type set-up. But still, this really touched me. It is so rare for people to take time to say things like this.

The climax was stunning. Laika’s player rolled a critical success to dump the climactic monster off the top of the damaged skyscraper before the characters had under ten minutes to reach the ground floor before the building collapsed around them.

At lunchtime I discovered two things. The hamburger stand was sold out. But I’d also mislaid my remaining food vouchers. Still, I always have emergency food with me so I was fine.

Slot 8 - Sunday 15:00 - 19:00

Sparks in the Void - my “you wake up, amnesiac, lost in space”, scenario

This game was sold out but only one player arrived. She made a character for the game, and asked to retain the character sheet which was nice. After fifteen minutes I escorted her down to the front desk. I hope they found her another game to play in but, by then, they’d turned off their computers and were packing away so I guess all she got was a refund.

There is an air of tiredness that pervades UKGE on Sunday, but still having four players decide not to turn up for a game they’ve paid for seems a bit extreme.

I had a disappointingly early finish to my UKGE 2026.

4. Play Reflections

UKGE is a well-oiled machine. If you’re an experienced referee and you offer scenarios you’ve run successfully before, you’ll get players and you’ll do well.

I’m an experienced referee running scenarios I’ve run successfully before. Everything went well. And will go well when I do exactly the same thing next year.

I was particularly pleased that my old Dr Who scenario still got players after all this time and went spectacularly. I regularly advise referees - if you’ve written a good scenario offer it more than once. Not at the same event usually but, even then, there are people who probably missed out who would like to have a chance to play it. UKGE has thousands upon thousands of attendees and you can offer the same scenario year after year and still have it be new to people.

I think following its popularity across many conventions and its success at UKGE 2026, my Steampunk scenario about the missing Dinosaur might be joining it in being offered every year at UKGE as well

.

I offered a lot of Science Fiction this year. Maybe I should offer a bit more Steampunk next year. And maybe it’s time to offer another Dr Who one. Still “you can make a character from anywhere in Time and Space” but just with a different starting point. 

“Worlds Enough and Time” anyone?

5. Cost, Time, and Value

I’ve stopped giving an analysis of my personal costs for events. It wouldn’t be helpful here because my UKGE 2026 was virtually free. My free travel pass doesn’t work before 9:30 am on Friday so I had to pay for my bus and train to get there, but that was it.

But for most people, it is expensive. In some cases cripplingly expensive. It is a major reason why many people avoid it. So I thought some indicative costs might help.

An adult ticket for one day was £20. £54 for three days.

This buys you the right to enter the halls and browse the trade stands. Many vendors offer free activities such as demonstration games. And there is plenty of free space to play games of your own.

However, if you want to take part in any organised events, you have to buy additional tickets for each one. These vary but to play in one of my games, for example, would cost you £7 per ticket. (I have nothing to do with setting the prices.)

If you were to attend for the weekend and play 8 TTRPGs the cost would be:

Entry: £54

Games: 8 x £7 = £56

Total: £110

Cost per game: £13.75

Cost per hour: £3.44

Plus other costs.

You’ll have to organise and pay for travel. The venue is right next to Birmingham International Rail Station and airport. So travel should be really easy. You should be able to get good deals if you book ahead.

The real killer is accommodation. It would not surprise me to find out that the hotel which hosts the UKGE TTRPGs is already booked out for next year. Certainly, if you were to look at the prices (and compare them to the weekends before and after) you might have a bit of a shock. There are cheaper hotels nearby but you need to find them and book them early. All hotels in the area use surge pricing to take advantage of this massive event.

Apart from booking hotels early I’m aware of three other “hacks” to cut accommodation costs.

I know some people come as a group - possibly a family group - and book Airbnb accommodation such as apartments or complete houses.

The other thing to consider is that you can commute into the event from nearby towns and cities using the station next door. Birmingham might be a bit pricey but how about Coventry or some of the stops in between?

And the UKGE website itself recommends camping.

Whichever you choose you need to start looking now. Accommodation for UKGE 2027 will start booking out soon and prices for rooms that are still available will start to increase.

Because my last game was cancelled, I never got around to buying a pint of lager. I do know that it is expensive - equivalent to London prices at least. And service is not fast. Staff at the hotel seem set to survive the convention rather than serve it.

6. What I Took Away

The trade part of UKGE is massive. Far too massive. Along with the cost, this is what puts many people off.

But for other people, UKGE is THE major event of the year.

I fall in the middle. I only go to referee TTRPGs. I don’t need to go into the Trade Halls. The TTRPG areas do not contain overwhelming numbers of people.

I do believe the hotel fills up in the evening when the trade halls close down and people move over to play games or watch shows, but I was not there in the evenings this year to confirm that.

And any individual can only play one TTRPG at a time. So it doesn’t matter if the convention offers tens of games in each slot or hundreds, you’re still just playing 8 games in a weekend. So to me UKGE is just another weekend convention like - for example - those at the Garrison Hotel.

On this basis it's good. Very well organised. But slightly expensive.

I would recommend it but it’s not in my top 5 UK conventions of the year.

Of course the best way to save money and attend cheaply is to get your finger out and offer to referee some games. I recommend this. Just ask me for advice if you want to try it.