Gaming Retro-bution in Brighton!
Most of you probably know by now that Brighton is my home away from home. I love the city and I’m always on the hunt for new geeky events to tell everyone about at The Geek Lyfe. So I was stunned to discover Gaming Retro-bution in Brighton! They are a fantastic couple of people who organise retro gaming nights at our local Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar and The Hare and Hounds, totally free!
I got the chance to briefly interview them about their events, and I can’t wait to go to the next one! If there’s one thing Brighton needs more of, it’s events like these!
1) How long have you been running and why did you start?
Gaming Retro-bution was set up by Chris (my partner) who has been collecting retro games and consoles for years and wanted to start doing something with them in a social pub atmosphere.
We set up last October (October 2015) and have been expanding ever since. We started as a fortnightly event at Sticky Mikes and then we got boosted to weekly. We were then offered a weekend day every fortnight at Hare and Hounds. We’ve just got back from doing festivals this summer too so its been a bit stop start but we are happy its September so we can get back to our weekly events at Sticky Mikes (Wednesdays 7- 11pm) and Hare and Hounds fortnightly (Sundays 4- 8pm) We’ve missed doing these events in our home town!
2) What typically happens at one of your events ?
The events work on a pick and choose system with multiple retro consoles set up for the duration of the evening (NES, SNES, N64 , Gamecube, Sega Megadrive, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 1 and 2). People can select any game from a list of over 500 on our “menu” and they are free to (and encouraged to) change as often as they like. We have all the old popular classics and lots of obscure titles too, people tend to mix it up and like variety but you do get those people that only come to play one particular game too!
What we love is that people can come with a group of friends, as a couple, or alone and just get sucked in, it’s cool because you can come away with having met some really great new people. We have folks come in who are die hard gaming fans, and we also get partners and friends come along who have barely held a controller in their life. It doesn’t matter, it’s all about having fun!
People also tend to rotate around the different consoles, joining in with others that they may not know so there is never that feeling that one particular console is being hogged by one group of friends the whole night.
Our games list is also growing constantly, and we hope to add some new retro consoles to the list soon!
3) When is your next event?
The next event is Wednesday, September 28 at 7 PM – 10 PM at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, and Sunday October 2nd, 4 till 8pm at The Hare and Hounds.
4)The best event you’ve had so far ?
In terms of our best event, it is hard to say really as there have been some great ones, we’ve personally met so many new people and made some great friends doing what we do. The festivals have been amazing for us and so much fun .
We had a great night at Sticky Mikes before the summer where we did a tournament in conjunction with ‘Yelp’ in which we gave away a GAME voucher, retro sweets, and other Yelp goodies. We are hoping to get some more of these going in the future!
More recently we have also tried to tie in to the Pokemon Go craze and have been putting “lures” down at our Hare and Hounds events and putting Pokemon stadium 1 & 2 on the projector which has been really nostalgic! Great to see everyone catching Pokemon on their phones in between games, battling it out on the projector and getting all excited in sharing the nostalgia together.
Thank you so much to Kat Morgan for taking the time to answer these questions for us!
For those of you based here in the UK, these type of events seem to me so rare to come by, especially without charge, and what a fantastic way to connect with others over some beers and old school games! Be sure to check it out if you can and give their page a like! https://www.facebook.com/gamingretrobution/
-Freeplayfrenchie
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