I've wanted to attend UK Games Expo for years, there had always been an excuse to stop me attending the third largest gaming exhibition in the world, this year I didn't back down and finally attended. The event, from Friday 30th May 2025 to Sunday 1st June 2025 saw 72,000 people attend to meet up, make friends, and play games! I was so happy to finally be part of this. This blog post is a recap of the event. We set off on Thursday afternoon from Newcastle to Birmingham, having secured a spaces in our friends car. They were UK Games Expo veterans, attending for around 6 years in a row! We were in safe hands. Picking up our tickets on Thursday evening before the event officially kicked off on Friday was a breeze. We took a quick wander around the empty exhibition halls, the eery silence in such a large space, following the noises of humans playing board games a small distance away. We had stumbled across the Press Event and somehow managed to walk around and meet a small selection of games on offer. We had no idea this was the Press Event, instead wondering why everyone was so overly friendly! We had a quick whip around and called it a day, heading back to our studio apartment in Birmingham. ### Friday: The first day The whole weekend was a whirlwind, but Friday was the most intense of the days! We arrived a little after 9:30am, having missed the train that would have got us there for the official opening time. We rushed to see two vendors we had met the previous evening, both offering games we were eager to play! We started with [Brickskrieg](https://www.brickskrieg.store/), a miniatures war game that asks the bold question: What if a WW2 war game was made with bricks? You assemble your squad, take actions (move, shoot, etc) like a typical war game, but when a unit is damaged or destroyed - You can physically destroy it because it's all bricks! Incredibly fun, it was an absolute blast. Me and Aurelia loved it and purchased the two player starter set. We followed that with an introduction game of [Shug](https://www.shugthegame.com/), the best social board game I've ever had the pleasure of playing! Two brothers designed this game when they were 7 years old and promptly forgot all about it in their attic for twenty years, Shug blends a fantasy setting with follery, shenanigans, and an all around certified Great Time. They're launching on Kickstarter soon and I'll be backing them as soon as physically possible. We broke for lunch, met up with our lovely friends, and somehow through a series of random encounters were introduced to a medium sized group of the nicest nerds. I stopped by the Netrunner stand; they had multiple tables running introduction games and it was so good to see new potential players engaging with the game. It made me even more excited to attend the World Championships later this year! Foolishly we had booked tickets for an evening entertainment; we considered not going because we were knackered but pushed ourselves and had a great time! We saw [Knightmare Live](https://www.facebook.com/KnightmareLive) on their 10th anniversary tour. Both of us had no idea what we were stepping into but had an absolute blast, they smashed it. We also met two very lovely people in the queue outside; thank you for making our evening so wonderful! ### Saturday: The second day We'd heard horror stories of the Saturdays at UK Games Expo, as this was usually the busiest day. The multiple halls, hundreds of vendors, and thousands of games were hard enough to manage on Friday so it was likely to be Hell on Saturday. Thankfully, we'd both booked ourselves into events - Aurelia played in the UK tournament of [7 Wonders: Duel](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/173346/7-wonders-duel) and I played in the [UK Crokinole Championship](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/521/crokinole), a game I'd never played before today! We both had a blast, met lovely people and enjoyed all of our games. Aurelia played 6th overall with 4 wins and 2 losses. I placed in the bottom 3rd of the tournament and was thanked for being the nicest player to play against - A big win in my book! I attended a seminar on folk stories in games and took notes on behalf of Aurelia, as her games hadn't finished in time for her to go. The seminar was short and I'm not sure I learnt much. Alas, can't win them all. We had dinner outside in the last of the sunshine watching 50,000+ games leave Birmingham's NEC, whilst simultaneously watching hundreds of Kylie Minogue fans stream into her nearby concert - it was a true meeting of different worlds! We stayed up late chatting away to our new group of friends and had a truly lovely time. For the first time in my life, I had to ask if a group would walk us back to our accommodation as, unfortunately, we didn't feel safe navigating Birmingham on our own. I'm sure Birmingham has something going for it but in my three days there I didn't see it. We felt unsafe there, even in the daytime. We won't be going back to enjoy anything Birmingham has to offer. ### Sunday: The third day Feeling crushed and defeated after a weekend playing games we went into the third day with low expectations of what we might do, and were pleasantly surprised! We finally sat down for a demo game of [Fallout Factions](https://www.falloutfactions.com/). The lore and mechanics worked together so well, I did really enjoy it. Ultimately it wasn't a game I think I'd enjoy owning but would be down to play if someone wanted it. Aurelia physically jumped with excitement when she saw the [Gwent card game](https://www.hachetteboardgames.co.uk/gwent) stand! Bringing a card game out of a video game, in this case Witcher 3, is mechanically easy but hard to capture the Vibe. This game nailed it - We'll be picking up a copy when it launches later this year! We stumbled across the [Buy The Same Token](https://buythesametoken.com/) stall on Sunday afternoon; Aurelia spotting they had tokens for the best card game in the world, [[Sorcery TCG; A Fresh Take on Card Games]]! I had a lovely chat with the team about everything Sorcery, and picked up a set for me and one as a gift for a friend too - They've been marvelled over at our local game store in Newcastle - Thank you! ### The verdict The UK Games Expo 2025 was a fantastic experience. We saw games we'd never have come across otherwise and met some lovely people. If you like board games or card games, I'd recommend you check it out!