UK Games Expo Packing List

Things Experienced UK Games Expo Attendees Always Bring

Nobody tells you the first time. You turn up to UK Games Expo full of enthusiasm, wearing slightly-too-new shoes, no snacks, and a phone on 40% battery. By 2pm you are sitting on the floor near a plug socket, regretting every decision you have made.

The second time, you know better. This is my UK Games Expo Packing List

After several years of attending the NEC in Birmingham, I have learned what to bring to UK Games Expo the hard way so you don’t have to. This list covers the essentials that experienced attendees pack without a second thought. Glamorous? Not remotely. Useful? Absolutely.

The Short Version UK Games Expo is brilliant, but the NEC is large, the days are long, and the Wi-Fi is unreliable. Pack a portable charger, a refillable water bottle, painkillers, hand sanitiser, a comfortable backpack, some snacks, and above all else, shoes you have actually worn before. Sort these eight things and you can focus on what matters: getting to the table.

Comfy shoes (yes, really)

The NEC is not a small venue. On a busy UKGE day, you will walk further than you think, queue longer than you planned, and stand at demo tables for stretches of time that felt short but weren’t. Your feet will know about it by mid-afternoon if you have not thought this through.

I made the mistake once of wearing a pair of trainers that I hadn’t broken in yet. They looked fine. They felt fine at 9am. By 3pm I was shopping for plasters at the Londis.

Wear shoes you have already put some miles on. Flat, well-cushioned, and familiar. It sounds obvious. Every year there are people limping by Saturday afternoon who clearly thought it sounded obvious too and ignored it anyway. If i was to only give one bit of advice it would be this, take comfy shoes.

A portable charger

The UKGE app, the hall maps, the demo schedules, the token-finding group chats, the photos of games you want to look up later. Your phone is doing a lot of work over three days, and the NEC is not generous with accessible plug sockets.

A portable charger is the single most useful item on this list. Get one with enough capacity to top you up at least once. You will use it every single day. Wifi and phone signal can be spotty in the NEC so phones connecting and reconnecting drains your battery fast

A refillable water bottle

It is warm in the halls. There are a lot of people. You are walking around more than you normally would, talking constantly, concentrating hard, and probably not drinking anywhere near enough.

Buying water at a venue like the NEC adds up fast. Bring your own bottle and fill it at the water stations. It is a small thing that makes a real difference over a long day.

Painkillers

Convention headaches are a real phenomenon. Noise, crowds, bright lights, dehydration, and three hours of concentrated spatial reasoning in a Twilight Imperium demo will do it to you. Have ibuprofen or paracetamol in your bag. You will either use it yourself or hand it to someone who is quietly desperate and too polite to ask.

A decent backpack

You are going to acquire things. Review copies, purchases from the trade hall, leaflets for games you want to look up later, a free promo card you got at a publisher stand. A bag that sits comfortably on your back and has enough space for a full day out is not optional.

Avoid anything with thin shoulder straps. By Sunday those start to hurt. A well-padded daypack that you can carry all day without thinking about it is what you want.

Deck boxes if you are playing in tournaments

If you are entering any of the card game tournaments or bring-and-plays, deck boxes will keep your cards in better shape than a rubber band and good intentions. Even if you are not competing, a small deck box is useful for keeping promos, tokens, and smaller filler games intact in your bag.

Snacks

Queue food at the NEC is not cheap, and by the time you have walked from Hall 1 to Hall 5 for the third time you will be genuinely hungry at a point when you cannot easily stop. Bring something that travels well and keeps you going: cereal bars, nuts, something with a bit of substance.

The food options at UKGE have improved over the years, but having your own snacks means you eat on your schedule rather than when the queues die down.

Hand sanitiser

You are going to handle a lot of game components that a lot of other people have also handled. Dice, cards, tokens, shared rulebooks, demo copies that have been through a hundred pairs of hands that weekend. Hand sanitiser is small, it is cheap, and it takes up almost no space. Bring it.

Comfy shoes (seriously, we mean it)

We have already said this. We are saying it again because it is the single most common UKGE mistake and the hardest one to fix once you are there. There is no emergency shoe shop in Hall 5.

Old trainers. Broken-in walking shoes. Something you have genuinely worn for a whole day before. That is all we are asking. Your future self, at 4pm on Friday with half the trade hall still to see, will be very grateful.

Cash

Wifi isn’t always reliable for card payments and Bring and Buy is Cash only. You don’t want to mss out on that bargain because there’s no signal

Your UKGE packing checklist

Print or screenshot this before you pack.

• Comfy shoes (broken in, not new)
• Portable charger (large capacity)
• Refillable water bottle
• Painkillers (ibuprofen or paracetamol)
• Well-padded backpack
• Deck boxes (if playing in tournaments or carrying cards)
• Snacks (cereal bars, nuts, anything that travels)
• Hand sanitiser
• Comfy shoes (checked again, just to be sure)
• Cash Wifi isn’t always reliable for card payments and Bring and Buy is Cash only

Final thoughts

UK Games Expo is one of the best weekends in the UK tabletop calendar. The publisher demos, the bring-and-plays, the sheer density of people who love the same weird hobby you do. It is worth every bit of planning.

But it is also long, hot, and relentless if you go in unprepared. None of the things on this list are expensive or difficult to find. Sort them before you leave home, not when you arrive at Birmingham New Street wondering why your feet hurt and your phone is dead.

If you are heading this year for the first time, our guide to getting the most out of UKGE as a newcomer is worth a read before you go.