Gamesfair '86 (Reading UK)

[RevTurkey]

Well…once upon a time I went to a game convention in the UK at Reading University. I was only fourteen and somehow managed to convince my parents that I could be trusted to go with a few adults from the local gaming club. I had a blast and loved it. Stayed up all weekend rolling dice and eating too many pizzas and drinking my king sized Cokes (remember those?). I have been wondering for years what convention it was I went to and which year it was that I went. Well…I found a pdf of White Dwarf Issue 72 and low and behold…it was GamesFair ’86!
I can rest easy now lol. It was the only big convention I have ever been to. I was chaperoned by two blokes called Peter and Steve and a lady called Barbara (if you read this please say hi) I remember playing all sorts of things…Spanish Maine board game, Railroad Tycoon, Mega RPG (rare one that), Call of Cthulhu plus many many more which become a blur…


I entered the Ad&d competition and got booted out in the first round (so did my friend Steve)…I was robbed, they didn’t award points for doing interesting things and trying to role-play only for solving stupid puzzles and boffing monsters on the ‘ed


Anyway, it was great. Maybe I will get to another convention one day, it’s only been over a couple of decades since my last!

(this is a copy of a post on Triple Ace Games Forum I did earlier but hey what the heck it may interest somebody on this forum too...)

 

[Iamoutofhere]

Well...Revturkey was my old account that I dumped and I’m back to haunt my own thread! Further investigation has revealed to me that it was actually Gamesfair 88 in Reading and I was 15 a wee bit older. I figured it out when I remembered I took home with me WG7 Castle Greyhawk module which wasn’t published until 1988. Also Concepts magazine which was released that year as well. Regardless, it was a great convention and I enjoyed it

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wow, I'd forgotten King Size Cokes existed, except in that modern glass coke bottles always seem unreasonably small and I'm never quite sure why. I still haven't been a convention, despite having played AD&D since about 1988 myself.

 

[Fenris-77]

All my conventions have been GW ones. Games Days, Grand Tournaments, Adepticon, that sort of thing. Comes of having been a hyper-competitive GW gamer and painter for many, many years I guess.