Going to ZX Spectrum events back in the day
Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2023 10:24 am
After getting a +2 in Oct 1987 and slowly integrating with the scene by buying a few magazines, I noticed an advert for the ZX Microfair being held later that year (November or December I think) and begged my parents to take me to London to see this thing. My mum took me over and that can't have been much fun for her, as she had absolutely no interest in computing, never did.
I didn't know exactly what to expect, having never been to any computer exhibition event. It was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls near Victoria Station, and looking back, it resembled a large indoor trader market. Lots of people with wallpaper pasting tables set up with Spectrums, TV and various gadgets.
It wasn't that game-centric. If you were expecting the likes of Ocean, US Gold or Elite to be there, you'd be disappointed. A lot of it was hardware-based. Romantic Robot showing off the Videoface - that blew my mind. I hit the BREAK key to see how it worked and that just crashed the machine, sorry, Romantic Robot! Datel were exhibiting their stuff, including the light pen but didn't want people to actually touch that (oh, how I later learned why).
Your Sinclair had a stall selling back issues, manned by some of their staff. I remember recognising Phil South. Having come into the magazines pretty late and reading the letters pages filled with readers' praise for Batty, I managed to get one of those from Phil, an incredibly enthusiastic guy. Some guy was selling a load of games from the barely-known K'Soft label. I picked up Skuldugery (sic) and A-Maze for a couple of quid, and they were probably the most obscure games I owned at the time.
Overall though, quite a spoddy event, very much like a church fete with a BBC Micro Live vibe about it, but I was still happy about it. (Also, I recall being ticked off by my mother for rapidly wolfing down a plate of chips at lunchtime as I just saw eating as a distraction from catching up on what these new-fangled home computers could do.)
Over the next few years, the big annual ones at Earl's Court found favour with me, dedicated to all computers and very game-centric, with all the big labels there (including a few that were barely known to us Speccy users, with the 16-bit computers gaining traction). A vastly more professional set-up, you could tell proper money had been invested to really show off the new releases, especially with Ocean having "the largest video wall in Europe" as their live PA boasted (12 x 12 CRT TVs, IIRC). Met Whistlin' Rick Wilson at the Your Sinclair stand and, unsurprisingly, he declined my request to sing his greatest hit. EMAP had a huge stand to promote C&VG, Sinclair User, Commodore User, The One and various other publications (still more dominant than Future at that time, but only just), but absolutely nothing on it other than a few staff members sitting there behind a huge yellow desk, expecting fans to meet them. Nobody was bothered. I recognised Tony Dillon, but had nothing to say to him.
Right in the arse end of the Speccy's life, probably 1992 or 1993, my brother's friend (who had just transitioned from his 48K Speccy to a Sega Master System) insisted we go to GamesMaster Live! (yes, themed around the hit Channel 4 gaming show) at the Birmingham NEC, and I, being the responsible (near-)adult accompanied him on the bus there and back. I mean, I was always ludicrously optimistic about the Speccy's commercial standing but at this point, the dust from the Chicxulub asteroid impacting the 8-bits had long settled and you didn't see a trace of anything Speccy related.
It was quite console-centric and at that point, I was vehemently anti-console (still am in a way), what with them offering no creativity, just play these unhackable cartridge games at £20-30 a throw. Even the Atari ST and Amiga felt like they were in the back seat. It really was for the arcade/console kids, the shellsuited types you'd see crowded round Street Fighter II in your local arcade. No Speccy/C64 playground rivalry, it was very much Nintendo vs Sega. Still, got to hear Dominik Diamond swear as he hosted a couple of presentations.
Anyway, that's the end of my waffle, so what was your experience of them?
I didn't know exactly what to expect, having never been to any computer exhibition event. It was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls near Victoria Station, and looking back, it resembled a large indoor trader market. Lots of people with wallpaper pasting tables set up with Spectrums, TV and various gadgets.
It wasn't that game-centric. If you were expecting the likes of Ocean, US Gold or Elite to be there, you'd be disappointed. A lot of it was hardware-based. Romantic Robot showing off the Videoface - that blew my mind. I hit the BREAK key to see how it worked and that just crashed the machine, sorry, Romantic Robot! Datel were exhibiting their stuff, including the light pen but didn't want people to actually touch that (oh, how I later learned why).
Your Sinclair had a stall selling back issues, manned by some of their staff. I remember recognising Phil South. Having come into the magazines pretty late and reading the letters pages filled with readers' praise for Batty, I managed to get one of those from Phil, an incredibly enthusiastic guy. Some guy was selling a load of games from the barely-known K'Soft label. I picked up Skuldugery (sic) and A-Maze for a couple of quid, and they were probably the most obscure games I owned at the time.
Overall though, quite a spoddy event, very much like a church fete with a BBC Micro Live vibe about it, but I was still happy about it. (Also, I recall being ticked off by my mother for rapidly wolfing down a plate of chips at lunchtime as I just saw eating as a distraction from catching up on what these new-fangled home computers could do.)
Over the next few years, the big annual ones at Earl's Court found favour with me, dedicated to all computers and very game-centric, with all the big labels there (including a few that were barely known to us Speccy users, with the 16-bit computers gaining traction). A vastly more professional set-up, you could tell proper money had been invested to really show off the new releases, especially with Ocean having "the largest video wall in Europe" as their live PA boasted (12 x 12 CRT TVs, IIRC). Met Whistlin' Rick Wilson at the Your Sinclair stand and, unsurprisingly, he declined my request to sing his greatest hit. EMAP had a huge stand to promote C&VG, Sinclair User, Commodore User, The One and various other publications (still more dominant than Future at that time, but only just), but absolutely nothing on it other than a few staff members sitting there behind a huge yellow desk, expecting fans to meet them. Nobody was bothered. I recognised Tony Dillon, but had nothing to say to him.
Right in the arse end of the Speccy's life, probably 1992 or 1993, my brother's friend (who had just transitioned from his 48K Speccy to a Sega Master System) insisted we go to GamesMaster Live! (yes, themed around the hit Channel 4 gaming show) at the Birmingham NEC, and I, being the responsible (near-)adult accompanied him on the bus there and back. I mean, I was always ludicrously optimistic about the Speccy's commercial standing but at this point, the dust from the Chicxulub asteroid impacting the 8-bits had long settled and you didn't see a trace of anything Speccy related.
It was quite console-centric and at that point, I was vehemently anti-console (still am in a way), what with them offering no creativity, just play these unhackable cartridge games at £20-30 a throw. Even the Atari ST and Amiga felt like they were in the back seat. It really was for the arcade/console kids, the shellsuited types you'd see crowded round Street Fighter II in your local arcade. No Speccy/C64 playground rivalry, it was very much Nintendo vs Sega. Still, got to hear Dominik Diamond swear as he hosted a couple of presentations.
Anyway, that's the end of my waffle, so what was your experience of them?