Insomnia Gaming Festival-Was it worth it?

The veteran theatre critic Richard Edmonds once told me that

“if you don’t tell the truth there is no point to your review”.

With that in mind here is my experience of the Insomnia Gaming Festival in Birmingham on the 7^th of April, and if it is worth the ticket price.

My first point is that the organisers and the people working there were great. Friendly, insightful and worked very quick in a busy environment. I got in with a priority ticket while being hassled by some very enthusiastic zombies, which is just the kind of show gimmick I love.

The show itself though was in the best words possible…not great.

Stalls

For starters there was very unorthodox stalls, like an opticians and a huge stand for the cyber division of the military.

The rest of the stalls were the usual things you find at any gaming or comic event. Pop Vinyls, Anime and overpriced figures.

I will admit that somehow, I have amassed a collection of Pop Vinyls, don’t know why but I now have loads. But seeing multiple stalls that sells nothing but Pops at a higher price just makes no sense. £25 was the cheapest I found for a Pop that I have that I know I bought for less than £10.

The overpriced figures as well is odd, it’s one thing when they are rare or vintage but seeing a £20 figure that you can find in most shops going for £45+ then for me it takes away from the community that used to come with these shows.

The anime thing I won’t say too much of, for me it’s always been a bit odd and not for me, but there is such a dominance of products on the stalls that it almost alienates people who aren’t into it.

Gaming/tech

At prior shows before starting this career I have been and there have been small developers there showing off their new game ideas or new tech ideas, this has also gone from what I saw. Which is just sad for that industry.

There were stalls there from the likes of Intel that were great and the staff working were great to talk to but there was no substance. New PC specs are great and all but nothing enticing.

There were probably 5 halls of the NEC being used for this show, 1 of them was being used for stalls. Just 1. The rest were computers set up so people could play Fortnite and Minecraft together. At the risk of sounding like an old man what is the point? I used to spend every weekend on Left 4 Dead with three of my friendos, and even now I have 5+ hour long Dayz sessions. But I really just don’t get sitting next to 60-70 people in a loud hall not even talking. It makes no sense.

Cosplay

If only I had the confidence to do this. The time and effort that people put into cosplay is nothing but incredible and the standard at this show was fantastic.

Not only were the public out in force in great costumes but the event itself has stalls showing people who make unbelievably detailed items for people.

E-Sports

E-Sports is an area I really want to get into and learn more about, but if it is anything like the brief contest, I saw on the day then i’m not so sure.

In a room with what I can only imagine has hundreds of plug sockets and extension leads you would think there would be more electricity in the air…rather than a dead crowd of people on their phones.

The highlight for me was the virtual reality showcases at the show.

As good as my Meta Quest is, the dream is having something like the Virtuix Omni where you actually need to run to move and have that increased immersion.

The ones shown here were a lot of fun buuuut cost an extra fee to use. £15-£20 extra which is less than a lot of the game rooms you can find now but on-top of a £30-£40 ticket would really start to put me off.

The phrase I heard the most was “you’ve gotta pay…not worth it”.

Overall, this show was not worth the ticket price, if I wasn’t there to do a review like this I wouldn’t have stayed longer than an hour. I hate to keep beating the Covid drum but the events like this I have been to since have seemed to not be anywhere near as good as normal. I really hope this changes.

Comment below if you have been disappointed by a show like this, or any shows that are worth the ticket price.

Cheers

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