Eurogamer Expo 2009! Article

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Eurogamer: What's the thinking behind limiting the number of attendees? Surely the more the merrier?

Rupert Loman: Nope! One of our founding principles was to keep the queue sizes down - so we cap the number of people that can come. The "consoles to people" ratio will be the same in London and Leeds.

Eurogamer: You've also got a retail partner sponsoring the Expo this time - why do that?

Rupert Loman: Two reasons: One, we actually had a lot of feedback from people last year who came down and played loads of games and then were disappointed they couldn't go home with one or two of them. Secondly, hmv are going to promote the Expo in their stores, which will attract more people to the show.

Eurogamer: Tell us about the venues. What's The Royal Armouries like in Leeds, and Old Billingsgate in London?

Rupert Loman: The Royal Armouries is a very cool setting - the new Saviles Hall (named after local legend Jimmy) will have the main Expo show floor, with the Career Fair taking place across the courtyard. Plus there's a Pizza Express on-site.

Old Billingsgate is about twice the size of last year's venue and is absolutely stunning. It looks out onto the Thames... although the best bit is the underground "vaults" which I think people are going to love.

There will be girls! Bring your own.

Eurogamer: What else did you learn from the first Eurogamer Expo?

Rupert Loman: It's loads of work! We got so much feedback last year (over 900 people filled in the exit questionnaire) and we've acted on a lot of it. We've added a weekend-day to the London event, we're trying to get a lot more developers to the show, we've added a retail partner...

And of course, most importantly, we're doing an event outside of London. The North of England is so under-served when it comes to gaming events so we're really happy to be working with Game Republic to bring the Expo to Leeds.

Eurogamer: Will there be any competitions, giveaways or other activities on-site?

Rupert Loman: Yep! We're talking to publishers about running various tournaments and activities on the site. There will hopefully be some decent freebies too, which was another thing people were asking after last year.

Eurogamer: Who from Eurogamer will be attending?

Rupert Loman: Almost all of our staff will be at both events! Not just the writers, but techies and sales people too! Don't be scared, come and say hello. We'll be the ones in the Eurogamer-blue shirts.

Eurogamer: And on a related note the readers may not care about, will there be more tables in the staff room?

Rupert Loman: No.