Bespoke Arcades at the 2011 Gadget Show Live

So we’ve spent the last 5 days at the 2011 Gadget Show Live exhibition where we had a great time demo’ing our high end custom arcade machines, made new friends and all got sore throats from the air-con.

Amongst the surge of people flooding through our stand, I noticed a face from my youth. Big Boy Barry from Games World back in the day… He was a fantastic guy and I’m proud to say will be a recipient of one of our machines within 3-4 weeks.

Across the way from our stand was the 18 only zone where 4 of our Evo cabinets were demonstrating Mortal Kombat IV. Every single one withstood 5 days of feverish button bashing without any issues whatsoever. If this isn’t a testament to the build quality of a Bespoke Arcades cabinet, I don’t know what is.

We were privileged to spend our time alongside Andy from Console Passion and Dave and the rest of his team from the Replay Exhibition which is at Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre in Blackpool on the 5/6 November 2011. These guys really do love video games and if you’re a fan of the classics (let’s be fair, if you’re reading this, you probably are!), then put the date in your calendar. Between us, we provided a great experience for the show-goers. You could actually see in people’s faces- memories of when they used to play a certain game…

Another high-profile visitor to our stand was presenter, children’s author, pilot, inventor, actor, comedian and all-round cool guy Jason Bradbury. In his round-up on channel five, he is quoted as saying that the retro zone was his favourite part of the show. Here’s a picture of him immersed in our Synergy arcade machine.

So, within the last few hours of the show I was honoured to have a quick spar on Streetfighter IV with the World Record Holder Ryan Hart. It’s fair to say, bravado aside- I had the 7 shades kicked out of me… The first round was close— ish, but I fear he was merely playing with me.