The Family Zone at UK Games Expo - Not Just Another Year!

After a very busy and exciting weekend at another massive UK Games Expo, Nigel was interviewed by Chris Bowler of the UK Gaming Media Network to find out how it had all gone. You can watch the video and then see what we thought of this years Family Zone, and what it takes to pull it all together. (Quite a bit!)

That was Sunday, the last day of this year Family Zone... then came the aftermath!

OK, we’ve got back home and started to wade through the paperwork, games and boxes we’ve got back with. We have managed to have a day to simply recover from what is always a very enjoyable, but also very long weekend and a chance to reflect on another year organising and running The Family Zone. So, what worked and what didn’t?

At Imagination Gaming we are always looking for something new or different and we often find that games inspire us with new ideas we can implement in either the classroom or at events, whether played as they are, or as integral part of something we create especially for the occasion.

Preparations for this year's Family Zone started earlier in the year, or in October last year to be precise. We headed out to Essen in Germany, holder of the world's largest hobby games event, with the aim of finding games and companies that might be interested in either submitting games or attending the UK Games Expo.  Although we didn’t find a huge amount this year there were still a number of great finds.

Aigar Alaveer from 2D6 is a prime example of this with his games Roundhouse Kick & Making Money. He came along to the Expo this year and we hope he had a great event.

Things starts picking up pace early in the year where we begin looking at the range of games in the awards and which of our standard range would complement them.  We had over 70 games in this year’s awards, all of which are available to play over the weekend. Combine this with all of the regular games we bring down means a range of well over 150 games available to play, more than enough to keep any family happy.

Then there's the organisation and planning, the immense attention to detail that makes everything run smoothly as possible. The better that is the less you notice it and the easier everything moves on the day. From volunteers to vans, signage to the shirts on our backs, months of preparation goes into the Family Zone but it's all worth it everytime you show someone something new and their response is... 'that's cool'!

As always, we make sure we have something new on offer. We've managed to keep pushing what we do year on year and pride ourselves on coming up with something different or a twist. This year we introduced our Creativity Zone. This focused on two great activities, primarily for younger members of the family but which was eagerly attempted by several parents as well. Rory’s Story Cubes has become a bit of a global phenomenon in games and in this along with the new release from the company, The Extraordinaires Design Studio, we have a couple of terrific activities for those that like to push the imagination.

This meant this year our offer consisted of this new Creative Zone, the children’s RPG run by Richard Law and his team, our B.I.G area with a range of giant games from a number of companies and one so big you could be part of it! Of course our family gaming space where people can play a massive range of family classic games and brand new games. This was all situated in our new room in the Warwick suite.

It's early in the year that we also find out who is available to come along with us and help out the team. We’re very choosy when it comes to staff as I think people often underestimate just how much work is required over the event. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable but really long weekend of constant gaming, and running around with a huge smile on your face! We expect a lot from our volunteers but are never disappointed. We had a larger team on the Saturday this year and it made a big difference. We don’t think that anyone in the zone had to wait to get one of the team’s attentions and resolve their question or problem.
This year’s giant games came in three forms. Coiledspring games kindly gave us a range of wooden games by Gigamic. These include the puzzle Katamino, along with several of their fiendishly clever two and four player games, including Pylos, Quarto and Quoridor. Esdevium games then let us use their giant versions of the favourites Pandemic and Ticket To Ride. All of these proved really popular and helped provide a stepping stone between some of the more educational games we use to the more gamer type of offerings. Last but not least our own version of Retsami, with a carpeted board 5m x 5m, big enough to use really giant counters or to put on colured t-shirts and become the pieces yourself.

As a special treat this year we had a number of games designers pop over and spend a little time demonstrating their games and lend a helping hand. Matthew Tidbury came along with the fantastic City of Zombies game and spent several hours on Sundays training our families to hold off the Zombie hordes using some clever maths! In the creative zone Rory O’Connor popped in to join in and tell a few stories of his own. He even had time to stop and choose a couple of winners from our story and design competitions. The results of these will be released shortly!

One of the biggest differences we found this year was also the most positive thing about the family zone... the room! When we first looked the room over there were concerns. We weren't sure how we were going to fit things in, if there would be enough room and more importantly if anyone would notice us! These fears were quickly allayed however. The room turned out to be ideal, providing enough space to accommodate all of the activities whilst at the same time providing a great atmosphere, never becoming too loud, even during peak times and allowing enough space for our customers to move easily from game to game.

When located in the Kings suite last year we were extremely busy throughout the weekend with families and gamers alike. This year was similar in terms of numbers, suggesting we had well over a thousand people in the zone over the weekend, but this year the majority were families. In fact on Saturday I would suggest that over 90% of attendees to the zone were families. The number of familiar faces that we see year to year keeps increasing and now includes their friends and families too. These familiar faces make working the weekend a real joy and its reassuring to us that they keep coming back each year for more game fun. We had our fair share of the gamer crowd stick their heads in the zone and more than ever they spoke of how they ‘Wish I’d brought my kids along.’ In that case make sure you do next year, was always our reply!

From the moment the Family Zone closed on Sunday we knew it had gone very well in every sense, and with time to reflect and soak in the feedback, it seems we were right! So often there is something that didn't quite go right and we are often self-critical but this year it all seemed to go to plan. Of course we have learned a lot yet again, and yes there will always be tweaks but nothing broke or exploded, everyone seemed really happy and they told us as much repeatedly, and everything we set out to achieve happened. In truth everything exceeded our expectations. We were busier than ever, had more new faces than previous and have had nothing but brilliant feedback from everyone that got in touch. What we can do to improve on this next year might be a bit of an issue but it’s a problem we relish.






It was busy and at times a little frantic but there was a great, relaxed atmosphere this year and it is so rewarding to see so many people returning year on year and having such a good time. We thoroughly enjoy it and are always touched by the generous comments we receive. We are hoping that by doing this we are creating the next generation of gamers and are confident that we are giving many young people and families their first glimpse of wonderful hobby and a pastime that brings people together and pushes creativity and imagination. It’s the tip of the iceberg and we are there to whet the appetite!


We have a few new blogs coming up shortly looking at different areas of the curriculum and how games can really help so keep your eyes open for those shortly and If anyone reading this has any comments or thoughts on the weekend or would like Imagination Gaming to come in to their children’s school to run a games day then please let us know.

We are always happy to hear from anyone... and look forward to talking to you soon.