Leeds Gaming Festival Set To Make Sell-out Debut

Leeds Gaming Festival is set to make its debut at the Royal Armouries Museum.

Although a new fixture in the calendar, the event has the gaming and esports community buzzing with excitement, with tickets sold out over three months in advance.

The festival will take place on the 17^th of August 2024, opening its doors at 11am and will remain open until 5pm, providing 6 hours of time for the community to have fun and meet fellow gaming enthusiasts.

The festival will be housed within the Royal Armouries Museum and New Dock Hall, providing plenty of room to meet with people, and for stalls to be opened with the work of artists and even guests such as game developers and content creators.

What to expect?

Cosplay

Attendees can expect to see familiar characters walking among the crowds as gaming festivals are notorious for the outfits that the people create or buy, ranging from a simple costume like Spiderman, to a more intricate and large costume such as a Space Marine from the Warhammer 40k games. The creativity of cosplayers is usually vast, which leads to many great outfits to keep an eye out for and perhaps take photos with as many cosplayers enjoy the impression their costume leaves on people.

Vendors and Artists

Festivals are a great business venture for artists and vendors due to the sheer number of people that attend them, so guests can expect to see many booths for artists selling their art of popular games or media associated with the gaming industry, but also vendors who sell either self-made or legitimately sourced merchandise from popular game franchises or other closely related media, which is bound to take interest of many of the people attending.

Retro and Indie Games

The Leeds Gaming Festival is not only there to celebrate the current games, but is there to celebrate gaming as a whole. People can expect to see many classical titles in gaming that have paved the way for gaming and making it into what it is, such as Pacman, Super Mario Bros and 007: Goldeneye.

However, these are not the only games that will be present, as people attending the event will be able to get a taste of the future of gaming in the form of indie games developed by smaller game companies, instead of the usual gaming giants such as Ubisoft and EA Games. Many games started out as indie games, such as the Risk of Rain franchise and the Hades franchise and then blossomed into the successful games and franchises which they are now, perhaps it could be a smart idea to keep an eye on the games found at the festival and see whether they achieve the same success.

Esports

Esports is naturally very closely intertwined with the gaming, as both industries focus on games and their gameplay, with esports playing video games competitively against others, similar to traditional sports like football and basketball. Due to how closely related both industries are, many festivals and conventions dedicate a part of their venue to esports in order to celebrate it and their players.

In this part of the venue, you can expect to see the festival holding gaming tournaments with a prize of cash or other prizes such as merchandise, and you can potentially expect guests from the industry to make an appearance in the festival as a speaker or to sign any pieces of merchandise that their fans might want.

Venue Access

The Royal Armouries Museum is easily accessible from the nearby Leeds Train Station, making it the most convenient mode of transport for those that are travelling from a faraway location in order to attend the festival. The venue is also only 10 minutes away from the city centre of Leeds, making it quite a short walk for anyone going by foot. There are many easily accessible parking spaces for those travelling by car, making it a quite easily accessible venue for all.

With the Leeds Gaming Festival’s already promised activities, performances and panels alongside with the Royal Armouries’ free exhibits to walk around an explore, there is undoubtedly a lot to see and experience for those that attend, which explains why the festival is so looked forward to by those attending.