My Experience at UKGE 2024

For those unaware, UKGE is the UK's largest tabletop, hobby and board gaming convention in the UK. It's held annually at the NEC in Birmingham, and has been running since 2007.

2024 saw nearly 40,000 unique entries (individual people attending), With a total attendance (including people who came on multiple days) of 65,281!

With live events, game demos, tournaments and two halls worth of vendors, as well as family-friendly spaces, this is an event not to be missed by board and hobby game enthusiasts.

This was my second year attending UKGE as a seller, and this was my experience. Hopefully, this blog gives an interesting insight to the "behind the scenes" of such a massive event and inspires other nerdy businesses to attend in future years.

Booth Setup and Preparation

Caroline sat in the car, with all the stock and supplies for the weekend behind her!

Although the event opens at 9 am on Friday, vendors can begin setting up in the days beforehand. The largest booths can start preparations on Wednesday, while most brands set up on Thursday.

Exhibitors can book unloading slots, which gives us access to park our vehicles super close to the loading doors of each hall, and more-easily get all our stall items and products into the halls. After unloading, we move our vehicles around to the usual car parks (East 1 in my case), and wander back over to the halls to set up our stands.

Everyone involved in the set-up at this time is required to wear high-visibility jackets - leading to a very colourful room!

Your booking for UKGE only includes the space. Things like furniture and "shells/walls" can also be booked for additional fees. I find the furniture hire very fair pricing, so that's what I use! Below, you can see what you find when you first arrive at your space for the weekend.

After a few hours of work, my stall was all ready for the weekend!

It was then time to head to our hotel to check in, grab some food, and catch up with some friends.

The Tabletop Creator Hub

A massive highlight of UKGE for me, is meeting up with other members of the Tabletop Creator Hub (we like to call ourselves "hubbits"). The Tabletop Creator Hub (TTCH) is a collection of small businesses and indie brands from the tabletop gaming and nerd culture world. Each brand has been vetted, so you can shop safely.

There were over 60 TTCH brands vending at UKGE this year. We also had a booklet with exclusive UKGE offers from 53 brands.

We even managed to organise a group photo with a large number of us!

Highlights of the event (for me)

As a vendor, I didn't really have much time to go to any of the events or do much shopping. However, the highlight for me is getting to chat with so many passionate people with the same hobbies as me. Many conversations were had about people's D&D characters, as well as sharing tips for how to run campaigns or play certain character classes.

This year, I especially loved all of the attention and admiration my crocheted creatures received. There were many lovely conversations with people about crochet, and how people didn't know crochet could be used to create such results! It boosted my confidence and has made me much more driven to continue pushing the limits of my crochet skills.

I especially loved the people who asked for photos to help inspire their children or friends who are just starting their crochet journey. I love challenging myself when I learn new skills, so it's great to think I might have helped inspire others to do the same.

Of course, I managed to sneak in a bit of shopping at the very start of each day. The main highlights for me were Wrymspan (I was unable to back it, so really wanted to pick up a copy at UKGE), some amazing bubble bath potions from Bathkraft, and a painting handle and caps from Four Score Woodwork.