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First off apologies if this has been posted elsewhere or isnt considered newsworthy. From GW Maidstones Facebook:

UK Gamesday tickets are limited to 4000 this year rather than the 8000 available on previous years.
Tickets will be available fro 29th of June
Gamesday will be held on 29th September
Tickets will be £35 a pop.


Short and sweet but atleast its news on Gamesday UK

I'm just seriously pissed off that they aren't bothering to show us the miniature before we get there! It's normally part of deciding if I go or not.

On the plus side the US/Germans will have had theirs first, so I'm sure we'll all know what the GD figure is by then

Ugly Green Trog wrote:
I'm just seriously pissed off that they aren't bothering to show us the miniature before we get there! It's normally part of deciding if I go or not.

It's the only reason we went last year, if I'm being honest. For people getting into the hobby with 2nd edition it was a pretty significant miniature.

This year, even if it's a great one, I'll just scoop it up on eBay after a month or 2.

I wonder if they're going to a smaller venue if they've halved the ticket count?

Great news - now I've plenty of time to make sure I'm doing something else that day.

Seriously though, I haven't been to a GD for a long time, and can't see myself going to one any time soon.

They used to be good, now it's more like paying to go to a bigger, more crowded GW store.

Talking of crowded, I too wonder if it will be in a smaller venue - surely having less people in the same sized place makes the event look poorly attended??

How did the ticket sales do last year? Was it all sold out?

Yup they sold out fast

Not sure what the rational about cutting the number of tickets is this year

it could be they have fewer redshirts to co-opt into doing setup due to changes in store staffing levels,

it could be they could not get enough space in the venue (or the venue may have had to reduce the numbers it holds for fire safety or similar reasons)

it could be for random super secret GW reasons

who knows

Hoping to pickup a ticket when they go on sale, took my brother/father last year, now we've all moved out its a nice way of spending some time together and browsing the stands. Plus the compulsary entry into golden daemon despite being outclassed many times over.

Herzlos wrote:

Ugly Green Trog wrote:
I'm just seriously pissed off that they aren't bothering to show us the miniature before we get there! It's normally part of deciding if I go or not.

It's the only reason we went last year, if I'm being honest. For people getting into the hobby with 2nd edition it was a pretty significant miniature.

This year, even if it's a great one, I'll just scoop it up on eBay after a month or 2.

I wonder if they're going to a smaller venue if they've halved the ticket count?

Yes. UK Games Day moved into the Birmingham city centre: http://masterminis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/games-day-rumors-v-nec-mia-nia.html

And this year's Games Day figure will be the parting gift of Juan Diaz: http://pinsofwar.com/sculptor-juan-diez/

Could be pricey on eBay, if it's up to some of his previous work, such as Lelith, the Terminator Chaplain, etc.. .

Ah, I guess that makes it handier for people travelling by train.

Whilst Juan Diaz is a talented sculptor I'm more interested in the actual mini, as I've gone off the idea of collecting limited editions for the sake of having limited editions.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Yup they sold out fast

Not sure what the rational about cutting the number of tickets is this year

it could be they have fewer redshirts to co-opt into doing setup due to changes in store staffing levels,

it could be they could not get enough space in the venue (or the venue may have had to reduce the numbers it holds for fire safety or similar reasons)

it could be for random super secret GW reasons

who knows

I'm sure it's purely cost cutting measures, both directly (cheaper venue) and indirectly (less available staff). There's no other reason they could halve the capacity of a sold out event.

Herzlos wrote:
Ah, I guess that makes it handier for people travelling by train.

Whilst Juan Diaz is a talented sculptor I'm more interested in the actual mini, as I've gone off the idea of collecting limited editions for the sake of having limited editions.

Very sensible of you. But I doubt it'll stop other people from driving up the price for it on eBay.

Hard to tell. If it's fantasy, rather than 40K, it could be cheap. If it's not a great sculpt. It could be cheap. But if it's a great miniature, up there with the best of what Diaz has done, for a popular army (Dark Angels are all over the GD tickets these years, just like Blood Angels were last year), etc.. it could be an expensive miniature to get through the second-hand market. All I am saying.

Much cheaper than paying £35 to queue up for it though!

And being honest, beyond the exclusives and the FW stuff I didn't really find much else to do there last year.

Herzlos wrote:
Much cheaper than paying £35 to queue up for it though!

And being honest, beyond the exclusives and the FW stuff I didn't really find much else to do there last year.

True.

Though, perhaps, a smaller event might make it a bit more .. sociable?

It depends on how they scale it down. The cynic in me is imagining they'll cut down on the gaming, display and social spaces as much as possible whilst trying to keep the sales, FW and Golden Demon areas as big as possible.

They could also surprise me and come out with some incredible even though.

It's not impossible that they missed a deadline to book the NEC. They seem to have been slow getting things in the USA sorted but folk thought it was because of the venue change, but maybe they were dithering on Gamesday worldwide

(or that the space they normally had is being refitted/repaired)

and the smaller size is just because the NIA is what they could get in Birmingham at short (for this sort of thing) notice

First gamesday i went to was in the nia. Must have been about 96. Nice venue but a bit small.

Give it a miss this year i think.

I'm still undecided whether to go or not.
I'm not that bothered about the miniature... unless it's an Eldar one (doubtful), and even then, you can get one off ebay if you really want it. My only real incentive to go is for Golden Demon, but I fear that with the loss of the European GDs, their competitors will come over, and they are truly stunning painters. I don't really feel like paying £35 entry fee for a painting competition plus £20 for the coach just for that. Other than the Dark Eldar showcase, I think the GDs I've attended were pretty lacklustre.

An interesting point about staffing levels, and something I commented on in a previous thread. If I can bore everyone with a story, years ago I worked for GW - this was back when you had 3-4 full time staff plus a part-timer in a tiny store! All of the stores (AFAIK) were tasked with completing various bits of the GD displays - banners, terrain, miniatures etc. Basically you got an order from Nottingham saying "OK guys we need 150 odd Bretonnian Archers for GD, these colours, on this style base" to give an example. We'd be working late evenings trying to get everything finished (sometimes even co-opt a regular or two) into getting everything finished - the downside of this was that you weren't paid for it, there are a few models even now I can't look at without feeling nausea (after painting so many of them), but it was tremendous fun and a great team effort. Even better when you saw the stuff at GD and in the pages of WD.

So now that the staff have been reduced by at least two-thirds, and its just some poor guy on his own all day trying to man the phone and put stock on the shelf, who does all this stuff? Furthermore who mans all of the displays, the demo games and workshops, when in the past 4 of the 5 staff would go to GD and the one who got the short straw would stay behind? I think we have the answer right there as to why the venue size has been reduced and ticket count severely limited.

To be honest I can't understand why anyone would want to go these days. You will always have the hordes of migraine-inducing screaming kids, but at least before there was recompense - the new product launches with massive fan fare, the incredible displays, even cheaper stuff at one time! Now there is none of that - For anyone who loves 40k/WFB the FW show does it for the connoisseur, and otherwise why anyone would choose to go to GD over something like Salute is absolutely beyond me..