VCF UK? (was Re: VCF West hotel)

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sun Aug 15 05:41:31 2004

On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 23:23, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Aug 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
>
> > Chris is definitely keen to do the same again next year as he sees it as
> > a success given it's the first year anyone's tried it in the UK; the
> > numbers attending were enough to show that people are interested.
>
> Do you have an idea as to actual attendance figures?

Unfortunately not; when I saw him at the end of the Saturday estimates
were looking to be somewhere around the 700 mark, based on the first day
figures. Not sure what the final total for the weekend was, though.

I suppose it doesn't sound like a lot, but then given it was the first
one of its kind in the UK and therefore under-publicised (plus both
exhibitors and public alike were taking a bit of a gamble on coming) it
did quite well. Various press and TV crews seemed to be there during the
weekend, so next year's should be a lot better.

>From an exhibitor's point of view the attendance figures were quite nice
though - busy enough to be talking for 95% of the day but not so
overcrowded as to be uncomfortable. Ratio of exhibitors to public was
about spot-on I'd say.

Actually, maybe combining the next CGE-UK event with the possible VCF UK
makes some sense in terms of costs, publicity etc. Certainly there's
some overlap between the two - we (as in Bletchley) had all sorts of
'static' bits and pieces at CGE-UK which weren't directly related to
gaming (bits of Colossus, old disk platters, card punches etc.) and they
attracted a huge amount of interest from the public. Seems like the
gaming public were keen to see the old stuff, and I imagine VCF
attendees aren't against playing a few of the old classics :-)

cheers

Jules
Received on Sun Aug 15 2004 - 05:41:31 BST