The aim was to “bring together 15,000 of the UK's gaming community.” But when To The Moon Expo opened at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham on November 12, it quickly became clear that those hoped for attendance numbers wouldn't materialise.
Pictures soon emerged of empty spaces in the NEC hall and sparsely attended talks. The organisers have not confirmed attendance figures, but attendees that GamesIndustry.biz has spoken to estimate that the number of visitors on each day of the two-day event were in the hundreds, rather than the thousands.
So what went wrong? Attendees, speakers, and others involved with the event paint a picture of poor organisation, negative marketing, and overambitious goals – with some fearing the event could cause reputational damage to the UK gaming events space.
“I’ve been told by multiple people about a comparison to be made with the infamous Willy Wonka experience, as though this were gaming’s very own equivalent,” said one attendee who works in the games industry, but who asked to remain anonymous. “And to be honest, between the not-very-decorated, almost minimalist-looking NEC when you look beyond the stalls, and the barren attendance, I can see where they come from. At the price point that was charged to attendees, the consensus I’ve heard across indie, AA, and AAA sources is that people expected better.”
“We got inside, and the first thing I thought of was Dashcon“, said attendee Holly Pye.
GamesIndustry.biz has contacted the organisers of the event for comment, and we will update this article if we receive a response.
Red flags
To The Moon branded itself as community-orientated and pitched – initially at steep prices – to exhibitors as something that could fill the gap left by the Insomnia Gaming Festival, which was an NEC regular until it ceased operations in 2024, and EGX, which was absorbed into MCM Comic Con. The name To The Moon belied its crypto origins: early versions of the show website on archive.org (as reported by Esports News) billed it as “The UK's first Web3 gaming expo” although by this summer the crypto references had been removed and it was simply “For the Gamers”.
It promised both a large consumer area and a smaller industry-only section, featuring a line up of talks from industry professionals. Niki Head, people and development director at Stellar Entertainment Software, was one of the speakers lined up for the business section of the show. Red flags were raised for her ahead of the event.
“A lot of the lead up to it was quite chaotic,” she says. “There was a lot of us having to chase for information about the day and what to expect. The information that we needed to be able to plan our hotels, plan our trip, came very late. That side of it was a bit disappointing and gave us a little bit of unease.”
Head was also worried about the timing of the event, sandwiched as it was between the more-established consumer shows of MCM Comic Con London at the end of October and MCM Comic Con Birmingham at the end of November, with the latter also taking place at the NEC. In addition, various people we contacted questioned the wisdom of hosting an event with a consumer focus on a Wednesday and Thursday during school term time. “The number one day in any consumer event will be Saturday,” said David Lilley, who previously led the team behind the EGX and EGX Rezzed shows.
Late start
Multiple attendees reported a delayed start to the event on Wednesday. The doors were due to open at 10am, but many people we spoke to reported queuing for 90 minutes or more before they were able to enter the show. “There was only one man scanning tickets and giving out wristbands,” recalled Pye.
The venue staff also appeared to be taken off guard by people arriving in costume. “They were not prepared from a security standpoint for people in cosplay,” says Head. “There were a lot of guys dressed in SWAT [outfits] with guns, and a lot of people in the NEC got a bit nervous about that.”
Twitch streamer LilacNightshade reports a similar experience: “Despite a voice actor from Call Of Duty being in attendance, and the likelihood of cosplayers in tactical gear, the staff of the venue were not made aware. This led to the venue staff threatening to phone armed police.”
Empty space
Once Pye got inside, she wasn't impressed. “There was black panelling everywhere, to act as different sections, but it made it look really dull. We walked around to try and find something to do, but the hall was very empty.” Pye ended up leaving early, returning the following day in the hope that the turnout would be higher. “But it had even less attendees,” she says. “I probably could’ve counted the number of attendees on one hand, it was that empty.”
“The retro zone was eight to 12 arcade machines dotted around, with around six consoles set up,” says LilacNightshade. “The esports panel had a single person in the crowd, and I believe he was filming. I feel sorry for the panelists, as that must have been incredibly disheartening.”
The esports zone suffered from problems throughout the event, with participants reporting that the organisers attempted to run a League of Legends tournament with a £50,000 prize pool over the venue WiFi. This was eventually switched to a wired network connection, but issues persisted and the Grand Final was eventually moved online after it became impossible to complete at the venue, according to reporting by Esports News UK.
The stage left much to be desired, says Pye. “The tournament was projected onto a pretty small screen in the ‘esports arena' and you couldn’t see anything on it unless you were at the front of the stage. But the expo kept having issues with their connections throughout the two days, so we couldn’t even enjoy the tournament.”
Bad weather on the opening day didn't help the event's attendance, with trains being delayed or cancelled. However, one anonymous exhibitor isn't convinced that the weather made much difference: “There might have been a bit of extra traffic at the event if the weather was good, but it would still have felt oversized for what was on display.”
The business area also came as a disappointment to some. “It really felt like a consumer event and not one built to accommodate much B2B,” says Adam Perry, senior recruitment consultant with Aardvark Swift.
Others praised the content of the talks, but said they went almost unheard. “I had a lot of second-hand embarrassment from seeing the empty seats,” said one exhibitor. “I couldn’t look at them as I felt so bad for the people speaking to one or two people, or sometimes to nobody at all.”
Head adds that there was “really no point” in the different coloured wristbands for industry attendees, since there was “no real monitoring of who was coming in and out” of the business area. “Anyone could essentially have come in.”
Lilley thinks that To The Moon aimed too high. “If you're going to do events, you have to understand your audience, and I didn't see any audience development work,” he says. “When we built EGX, we had a massive existing audience in Eurogamer, and Rezzed came out of Rock Paper Shotgun.
“You should start small and go and build sustainably. You won't be successful if you go big immediately. And you shouldn't put an event together like that if you're not taking up the space. You should bring the walls in, make it cosier.”
“There are fundamental things that To The Moon got wrong. And the most simple thing is: if you don't fill the space, just make the space tighter. Every event person in the world knows that. Don't put a small thing in a massive hall, it just feels awful.”
Silver lining
Not all feedback was negative. The Indie City showcase received praise, with Alex Reid, founder and creative director of Mancunium North describing the company's public debut of its title No Man's Land as a “tremendous success”, and the Indie City area as “by far the busiest area of the expo… across both days we got 35 players, all of whom provided invaluable feedback.”
Another indie exhibitor (who asked to remain anonymous) also said that Indie City was the highlight of To The Moon. “I was able to network with many lovely indie developers. I had various people play my game and say nice things about it, but honestly that was the only bright spot.”
“The Indie City was by far the best part of the day,” said Lilac Nightshade, “The indie devs were all absolutely incredible, but by the end of the day, most of them seemed really disheartened. They had spent a lot of money, and time away from developing, to attend an event that was truly poor.”
Freelance audio designer Will Scoones judged his experience at the show was valuable enough to justify his ticket cost, but admitted “I know many people didn’t quite have the experience I had when attending.”
LilacNightshade had additional praise for panel sessions run by Lost in Cult, but in the end, that wasn't enough. “All in all, the day was only fun as I got to see friends and connect with new people. The event itself was a wash and a complete waste of money.”
Reid says that event's organisers were “visible around the NEC, and they sent constant communication via email.” But others report a different story, saying the organisers were notable by their absence.
“I feel like by the end of the day there should have been someone from the event teams or the organisers themselves coming over to us and showing some leadership,” says one exhibitor. “They should have apologised to us for the bad attendance or tried to boost morale, but nothing.” Head “didn't see the person managing the event at all.”
To The Moon Expo was organised by Animus Group Limited, which lists Monty Stewart and Robert Myers as directors Both men were pitching the show to exhibitors this year, supported by Cass Freeman, a partner with Stewart in a separate business and who lead the show's marketing. However, Myers resigned on September 7, according to Companies House – although the resignation was only filed on November 14, the day after the event.
Negative marketing
“To The Moon Expo is made by a small team of gamers who are tired of overpriced, corporate-first expos,” read a press release sent out ahead of the expo. “We're putting money back with the creatives.”
The combative tone didn't go down well with others in the UK events space. “The marketing was quite negative with obvious criticism of other events, which is just not how things roll in games, where the sector is typically more collaborative and supportive,” says Jamie Sefton, MD of Game Republic, which organises around a dozen UK events each year.
“We feel disappointed for the studios and indies that may have wasted money on this event when it is costly for them to attend and sponsor. As we run lots of events a year, we know how important it is to manage expectations and deliver for attendees, sponsors and partners. I am concerned about how easy it was to overhype an event.”
“The worst thing that they did is they attacked competitors before they even had a product to talk about,” says Lilley. “The golden rule is never ever rubbish your competitors. Especially before you've even started.”
Others felt the promised community focus didn't manifest, either. “It didn't feel like it was something supposed to be representative of the gamers and the gaming community,” says Head. “It just didn't really represent us at all.”
Room for a return
For all the criticisim, many of the people that GamesIndustry.biz contacted said there was a need for the UK to have more major games events, and many were united in the hope that the To The Moon organisers might learn from their mistakes and try again.
“I'm in general supportive of these initiatives, since I hope that the UK will one day have a games tentpole event like Gamescom, Paris, or Milan Games Week,” says Wouter Sleijffers, co-founder of ELO, who was a speaker at To The Moon. “I will be supportive of those who take the mammoth effort to do this, as long as the effort is genuine and calculated.”
Scoones expressed a similar sentiment. “When you’re a student or recent graduate and seeking work in games, like me, you really want new projects like this to succeed and breathe more life into the UK’s indie gaming scene. I hope that this expo is able to grow, get more traction, and aim to be bigger and better next year… if they managed to achieve that it would be a good thing overall for game dev in the UK.”
“I hope that they can grow from it, and that they can take feedback and they can do it,” says Head. “But so far we've not been asked for that feedback.”
“I think their intentions were positive,” concludes Perry. “The organisers wanted to support the community and just bring people together, I couldn't knock them for that, and as an industry, I don't think we should. They tried! They had strong panels, they just needed marketing to the right people.
Lilley's feedback is blunter. “Don't promise what you can't deliver,” he says. “Learn from the past. And understand the landscape of the business. The fact that everyone ‘should' support events is not the same as them actually doing it.”
