Aire Con is a favorite of ours partly because it's in Yorkshire, which means we can stay with family and also as it was one of our first, larger conventions we exhibited at back in 2000.
In 2000 this was the last convention before lock down happened and whilst we were driving there we were anticipating an email at any time, to advise that the event wouldn't be going ahead. Which it did and the organizers Mark, Ben and the team, ran an amazing event given that we didn't know at this time what pandemic restrictions would be, doors which usually would be closed, where held open and hand disinfectant and hand washing was carried out whilst singing, was it happy birthday - I can't quite recall.
Sadly we didn't make 2022 which would have been great, to celebrate the end of lock down restrictions but we opted to not exhibit, as it was close to Tim and me getting married, and there are only so many trips up the M5 we can endure.
2023 threatened to be cancelled due to weather warning of snow and although Harrogate was clear on the Thursday, as we set up and we felt optimistic. We woke to a blanket of snow, which would have made an exciting snow day.
We were excited to see that we were positioned close to our friends Claire Cashman, Kasasagi Jewellery and Cath Morgan, Honey Badger Games.
It's hard to not leave without picking up our own convention hoard and this year was no exception. We picked up a choose your own adventure book by Simon Birks, Innsmouth, The Stolen Child, I upgraded by dice earrings to a pretty pink set of D6s from Gelatinous Games, 2 bags of tea from Honey Badger games, one bag I gifted to Grandma Linda and Dad for having us, along with Ticket to Ride the London edition. Oh, I also picked up two mini's for painting again from Gelatinous Games.
We took with us the Jumbo D20 which was gifted to us from Udixi at Christmas and we will be taking on tour this year and it will be raffled at the end of the year (2023) - so watch out for this on Instagram.
If you weren't able to make it, Aire Con put on a great convention offering not only a wide variety of stalls to meet your gaming needs, but also guest speakers, interactive games and competitions. So its definitely worth attending if you are thinking about it.
We would like to thank those of you who came to visit us, it is always good to meet you and chat. If you are thinking of going to Aire Con in 2024, we'll see you there.
Selection of pictures from Aire Con 2023:
