This last weekend was Dragonmeet in London. It’s a 1-day convention, and probably my favourite; it’s a lot smaller than UK Games Expo, but it is much more focused on TTRPGs, meaning that indie TTRPG companies like ours don’t get lost amongst all the giant boardgame companies. It is the last year in Hammersmith–it’s outgrown the venue and moving to the ExCeL next year. @tabletopjess and I attended as EN Publishing.
Getting up at 5am, to pick Jess up at 6am then drive to London, build the stand, work until 6pm, take down the tsand and load the car, and then drive home again was a long, long day! I think in future we’ll go up the night before and get a few more hours of sleep before the show opens!
Trade was good; we exceeded last year’s takings, which was our goal. Due to the more focused TTRPG nature of Dragonmeet, we tend to do better in the one day than we do on any given day of the 3-day UKGE event in Birmingham.
It’s also wonderful to catch up with people I really only see at conventions. When you do these things regularly you start to build ‘convention friendships’. And occasionally I’ll also see folks I haven’t seen in a decade (hello Chris Pramas!)
There were a few odd experiences, but aren’t there always? The official photographer (I think? He had a Dragonmeet t-shirt on and was taking photos before the show opened) who appeared to us to be taking photos of every stand, but missed us out. The artist I tried really hard to buy a piece from but who just blanked me and talked to his co-worker; so I left. I was proud during the awards ceremony where we maintained our 25-year unblemished record of winning no awards. I feel like that’s an achievement in itself! The chap who told us he had no intention of buying a book and then spent 20 minutes flipping through a 600-page book telling us which art pieces he thought were ‘sh*t’. The guy giving us legal advice regarding our Level Up line. But those oddities are always rare, and the day was filled with meeting old friends, making new friends, talking to the folks who buy and play our games, listen to our podcast (it’s fun to hear somebody say “Hey, are you Morrus? I recognise your voice!”), or are part of our community.
We completely sold out of Mythological Figures and Maleficent Monsters! Sold plenty of Awfully Cheerful Engine books (they are a great little gift buy).
Thank you to everybody who made it a great day. We’ll do it again next year–this time at the ExCeL!
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