AireCon 2025 Roundup
Cripes! Harrogate is a long way from West Sussex! With a detour to pick up my son and two charges for my EV, I was in the car for about 9 hours on the way up to Harrogate. This was compounded by four road closures on the A1M! The way back was comparatively better at least, and was boosted by a legendary pork pie from Stanforth’s butchers in Skipton for lunch. Those that read my preview to the convention will know this was a childhood memory of mine and the warm pies did not disappoint!
On arrival I was greeted by my friends whom I was sharing a house with. We immediately got Rebirth to the table and the long journey washed away like the sea over pebbles at low tide. AireCon had started for me, despite the venue not opening until the next day.
The following day we gamed and hung out. We even allowed enough time to explore the delightful town of Harrogate, with a pitstop to Betty’s, before the halls of AireCon opened.
AireCon 2025
Arriving at the convention itself, I was faced with the iconic bulb lettering of the event. Behind which were swathes of tables ready for excited boardgamers to sit down, unplug, and play. At the far end was a beer van whose offering was very good. Although nothing was quite dark enough for me, others were raving about it!
The next hall offered oodles more tables to sit and game at and had the additional benefit of the games library. Not knowing what to expect I took a little array of games, so I didn’t utilise this as much as others. My exploratory wander discovered it was well stocked and I found a few games I would’ve liked to have tried.
The third hall housed another plethora of tables and the Bring and Buy section. The exhibition hall and the bring and buy weren’t open on the first evening, but I made a bee-line for the hall on the next day. Here, I discovered some exciting upcoming titles. Australis from Kosmos Games immediately grabbed my attention with its colourful presentation. An introduction to this family-weight dice drafting game got me even more interested. This was followed by an introduction to Marbleous which also looked tactile and sounded fun!
Australis from Kosmos Games
Focus from Hachette Board Games UK
Hachette Board Games UK, had plenty of demos running. The Temple of Amytis is a two player only board game and was the one that particularly enticed me. My friends played Focus and enjoyed that co-operative card game as well. I was lucky enough to be gifted a copy of Strange Worlds above the Clouds by Hachette for review too – more about that soon! Asmodee’s demos were a bit more predictable and a lot less interesting for me sadly.
Also in the hall were a range of more indie game developers and stalls selling board game adjacent wares. My son was very enthusiastic over a filled cookie he purchased! I was equally pleased to demo Hive at last, instantly buying the Ultimate Travel Edition so that I can play it more!
Oscar Wilde once said that he could resist everything except temptation and that was me in the Bring and Buy section. I was doing well until I saw a copy of the out of print Yamataï up for grabs. It was a game I had wanted to try for some time and so I decided to take a punt on it. The offering here was very well organised and I later discovered that there was even a way of searching for titles online which I thought was impressive.
Me and my AireCon haul
The AireCon Bring and Buy
I also purchased a new copy of Hungry Monkey after demoing it, although akin to S**thead, the beautiful art and better name made it so much more appealing! The only other item added to my haul was some Ticket to Ride promos for filling out a questionnaire.
The slight disappointment for me was the Food Hall. This had been raved about by previous con-goers, but apparently had changed and scaled down from previous years. It was also a ridiculously long way away from the gaming. The in-house catering was somewhat disappointing, with burgers and no chips, and solitary pies, one of our pizzas was also undercooked. The few independent alternatives looked delicious, but the queues for these were prohibitive for me and a hungry teen. It was no problem, the offerings in the town were plentiful and nearby, so we utilised that on subsequent days.
Hungry Monkey
Stanforth of Skipton Pork Pie
AireCon was a great success and I love the emphasis the convention puts on actual tabletop gaming. They offer an ingenious lightsabre system that makes it easy for those travelling solo to find or instigate games to play. I also never struggled to find somewhere to sit down and game either. It was also easy to share your location as there were posters on the wall by every row of tables for food deliveries (these could’ve been bigger but they worked), Overall, I did probably prefer it to the UK Games Expo, but mostly because of its smaller more intimate size and the emphasis to actually play games. If it wasn’t quite so far away I think I would make it a yearly pilgrimage.
Overall, I played 28 games a total of 48 times including seven new-to-me titles. I also chalked up a satisfying amount of victories! As always though, it is the people that make these events. Laughing over dinner, bantering around a board game, and just generally hanging out with friends was just the happy tonic I needed. I was sorry not to game with more people, but it was lovely meeting and chatting to faces old and new. The people were always going to be the highlight.
Thank you AireCon, you were very well organised and I had a blast! I can wholeheartedly recommend going if you have the opportunity!
