For the first time ever, Dragonmeet took place at London Excel this year. After a few very crambed years at the Novotel Hammersmith, the organisers decided to take the plunge and move.
The location is good. Excel has plenty of accesses through the tube and the DLR, though, with London being a huge place, getting there requires some planning and just as much time.
I arrived from Spain the day before, so I can’t say how it compares to the Novotel because it takes me around an hour to arrive from wherever I am staying. In this case I was at Stansted Airport and it took me less than 90 minutes to get there. Mind you, transport costs… ouch!
And then I arrived at the show… I have to say something before I continue: I hadn’t planned anything. I didn’t plan meetings with friends, didn’t plan on talking to anyone in particular. I just wanted to go, for the first time ever, as a non-media person and just buy lots of games.
This means I missed a lot of friends. I didn’t stop at the Chaosium, Cubicle 7, Modiphius… booths and neither I did arrange lunch with friends or anyone else. I was being a free spirit seeing where the games might take me.
Let’s get the negatives out of the way: The place looks dull compared with how it looked like other years. The light is not the greatest and because the stalls are in the middle of a huge hall with no decorations whatsoever, it looks… well… dull.
I know there were rooms for gaming and also the seminars, but I didn’t visit them, so I won’t talk about them. Please let me know if you have an opinion on those as I’d like to know.
The thing is that soon after you get in, the dullness stops mattering. At least to me.
You see, one of the best things about this new venue is space. It’s huge.
In previous years, I have complained a lot about cramped spaces with too many people looking at too few stalls and not being able to see everything because by the time people had moved on and left a space for me to look, so had gone my interest and I had moved on elsewhere too.
Not this time.
Separation between stands was huge and you could walk between people without having to prove you know how to use your elbows. It was comfortable. Very comfortable.
This came with the added benefit of seeing people in wheelchairs going around without too many issues. No steps to go into the halls. Accessibility was good, as far as I could see.
This meant I could actually see a lot more companies than before. I focused on solo and indie RPGs and I only bought solo RPGs and maybe two or three supplements that caught my eye because they were weird enough and had a good price.
Even so, I could have spent a lot more money. And I spent plenty, I can assure you.
That made me happy. Not the spending, but the fact that I was able to see those people. People I have probably either missed before, or who didn’t get a chance to be there in previous years.
There were LOTS of companies doing different stuff. Dice, customized boxes, dice towers, 3D printed figurines and minis, clothing…
And I liked seeing Asmodee there. Please please please wait a second before you judge me.
Whether we like it or not, companies like Asmodee attract two things: people and money. And a convention needs both. People bring more attention and more attention brings growth. Money means other booths don’t have to pay more than they do to be there.
Conventions, roughly, get money from three sources: Booths, ticket sales and sponsorships.
Conventions, roughly, pay money to a ton of people, the venue being the most expensive (usually) and that is what drives the price people pay for a booth or a stand.
Having a large company paying out more money for sponsorship and a larger booth, means the rest of the people don’t need to cover that cost.
It helps.
Now, I have to say I also like that the organisers haven’t allowed for Asmodee (or Imagination Gaming, they were there too), or any of the larger RPG firms to setup more elaborated and sophisticated booths that would catch most of the attention. They were discreet and small like any other. A bit bigger, but small that you would not be just drawn to them, spend all your money and not going out.
It was a good move.
So, so I think this was a good idea, coming to Excel?
Yes.
The good outweights the bad.
Of course not everything was perfect. The food at Excel is mediocre (at best) and very expensive (mind you, the last burger I had at the Novotel was terrible too, so this is not worse than before). The toilets didn’t get the care they needed. After the show there is barely any places nearby where you can go for a drink or two…
But this is season one. We need to wait for season two, and three and four and so on, to see how this improves.
I know of a lot of people who are unhappy about this move. That is not a bad thing. There is room for improvement and criticism is a good thing.
Voice your suggestions. Tell the organisers what you want them to improve.
If you liked the small convention vibe Dragonmeet used to have, great! Maybe this is the moment to start organizing one to replace what Dragonmeet left behind.
But you know why I want Dragonmeet to get bigger and better?
For one, there were a lot of people who could do with the money. Lots of small creators and entrepreneurs with great ideas and even greater products who deserve to be exposed to enough people that they can make a living doing what they love. A larger Dragonmeet can help.
And secondly (and perhaps even more important) I have never seen so many Queer people being themselves and enjoying themselves at a geek convention before. The amount of Trans and Non-binary people I saw this year was heart-warming. The amount of people with alternative clothing and look, the sort of look that will mean some of them will be picked by and bullied… It was amazing.
And they all come because this is a place where they can enjoy themselves. They can be themselves without restrain and without concerns.
And I wonder how many more people like them could make it next year to a bigger Dragonmeet and be safe and be themselves.
And I am sorry, but that alone means Dragonmeet’s growth is worth it.
See you at Dragonmeet next year.