Date: Saturday 13th August 2005
Venue: The Fairfield Halls, Croydon, United Kingdom
Opening Hours: 10am - 7pm
Notes: The second UK Classic Gaming Expo.

Held at Croydon's Fairfield Halls on Saturday 13th of August 2005, the CGE 2005 was the second UK Classic Gaming Expo.

The event was originally going to be part of Gamestars Live, however when the Gamestars event went under it looked like 2005 would be a year without a UK Classic Gaming Expo. Thankfully, organisers Chris and Christine pulled out all the stops, found a vacant Saturday in August and booked the show back into the previous year's venue; Croydon's Fairfield Halls. The quick venue and date change was not without it's headaches. Stall holders and special guests who were going to be present at the Gamestars event had to quickly change their plans too.

With the change of venue and date a few small hiccups cropped up throughout the day, but nothing on a scale that would spoil the day for all who attended.

GamesTM Retro Editor Darran Jones (left) talks to Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day

Spectrum legend Matthew Smith was once again down on the list of guests to appear and talk to the masses. Unfortunately Matthew seemed to vanish somewhere between his home town and Croydon. Matthew's never been known for his time keeping and reliability, so his lack of appearance wasn't a total surprise to many. Naturally a few people were annoyed that he didn't show up, as they'd missed his appearance at the 2004 event and wanted to make up for it by catching him this year. Matthew is always a crowd puller at these events, but given that he's not too reliable I wonder if Chris and Christine will advertise him as appearing at the 2006 event. The best bet would be to invite him, but don't advertise the fact. If he turns up - great, if not, it's not been advertised, so nothing's lost.

One of the main sponsors of the CGE for 2004 and 2005 was retro magazine Retro Gamer. A publication that had given the event strong support since it was first announced in early 2004. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties at Retro Gamer publishers, Live Publishing, Retro Gamer had to pull out only a week or so before the event. However, all was not lost. GamesTM Retro Editor Darran Jones had managed to persuade his publishers Highbury to give him the go ahead to have a stand at the event, which meant that at least one of the two commerical retro publications (yes, I know GamesTM isn't 100% retro) had a presence at the show. Keen-eyed showgoers may have noticed that members of the Retro Gamer team still put the effort in and made it to the event under their own steam.

Retro journalist Shaun Bebbington gives his upgraded C64 a run for its money

The Retro Passion stand not only looked good, but had a mountain of wonderful stock on sale

Hopefully Live Publishing will be able to rectify their financial troubles and ensure that Retro Gamer continues to go from strength to strength in the coming months. Meanwhile, ex-Retro Gamer staff writer, Shaun Bebbington could be seen manning the GamesTM stall along with Darran Jones. Shaun recently joined the GamesTM retro team, bringing his vast knowledge of systems with him. This was Shaun's first official `airing` since his move from Live Publishing, and he seemed to be enjoying himself a lot. One nice piece of kit he'd brought along and had on display on the GamesTM stand was an expanded Commodore 64 which had (amongst many things!) a 20mhz processor!

The idea behind the CGE is that each year it will get bigger, better, and hopefully one day rival that of the long running Stateside Classic Gaming Expo. Although the UK event is only the second, already the arcade machine section had doubled in size since the one staged just over 12 months before. Thanks to the efforts of Andy Welburn and Ravage of Retrokade, as well as Archer Mclean, the arcade area was kitted out with classic after classic, including (among others) Galaga, Galaxians, Q*bert, Asteroids, and a restored Missile Command which looked like it had jus been un-wrapped. It looked that good! To the right you can see the machine in question. Notice the poster stuck to the side of the cab. This was attached with tape by Pacman World champion, Billy Mitchell. Archer almost had a fit, but thankfully no damage was done. The photo here really doesn't do the machine any justice at all. Trust me. It looked stunning.

RLLMUK forumite Jim Miles experiences the joy of Archer Mclean's Missile Command

A few gamers experience the joys of Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo

One of the major complaints from attendees of the 2004 CGE was the lack of schedule of events, and unfortunately it happened again this year. The event I was most looking forward to was the question and answer session with the ladies and gents from Twin Galaxies. Not wanting to miss this I enquired as to when this would take place, and was told 3:00pm. I went for lunch, made it back with time to spare only to find that the session was almost over. Thankfully a friend of mine did get in to see this and has recorded it with his video camera. I'll still get to see it, but it would have been nice to have seen it with my own eyes. Still, you can't have eveything I suppose, and the lunchtime venue recommended by RLLMUK forumite SeanR was superb!

This year's guests at CGE were a mixed bag. The Twin Galaxies gang were undoubtedly brilliant, and I'm still amazed at how organisers Chris and Christine managed to persuade them all to come over. However, they did, and after speaking with a few members of Twin Galaxies it seems that they are already looking into coming again next year, this time with a larger group! There was also a mention of getting sponsorship from The Guiness Book of World Records, so start practicing now! Some of the other speakers were certainly `different`. Jonathan Thompson seemed to steal the show in the second session and often butted in when a question would have been better suited to being answered by someone else. Still, the whole thing worked very well, and at times it turned into a debate between a few ex-Bullfrog programmers, which turned up some interesting topics. Many people were expecting a number of ex-Ocean employees and Jeff Minter to turn up. Rumour was that Jeff had returned from his hols and had lots of work to do, but I don't know why the Ocean staff failed to make an appearance. Next year perhaps.

Surely this must be one of the smallest Space Invader machines ever created

Apart from a couple of small niggles, the event was simply fantastic. Considering that only a few months previous the 2005 CGE was looking in doubt, the fact that Chris and Christine had managed to pull off the event mustn't be underestimated.

Feedback about the event which quickly appeared on various internet forums has on the whole been excellent, and already people are planning next year's event. Now, if we could only have the dates.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a collection of links which point to the photos I took over the weekend.

Enjoy!

Robert Hazelby

(Click on the yellow links to view the photos)

- A couple of gamers pose for a quick snap at Jury's Inn the night before the CGE.

- Darran Jones (left) speaks to Twin Galaxies founder, Walter Day

- Andrew Fisher (Merman) attempts to hide from the camera

- It all got too much for some people

- One of the US challengers turns his back

- Billy Mitchell (left) talks to the UK Missile Command champion