GameCity – A festival of games culture
NVM Curator at Large Iain Simons co-founded and organised one of Europe’s largest games culture festivals, which ran 10 times in Nottingham from 2006 until 2016.
This family friendly festival celebrated games culture across Nottingham. The festivals were attended by over 200,000 people and featured talks, performances, events, cosplay and games played on the streets and squares of the city.
GameCity returned in a different form to Sheffield in October 2021, thanks to support from Sheffield City Council’s Economic Recovery Fund. GameCity Adventures featured family-friendly games and activities in museums and public spaces, such as libraries, cafes and independent retailers across the City, including, of course, the National Videogame Museum.
The festival was an accessible experience for visitors to move through the City Centre discovering new experiences to play in different cultural venues and locations. There were nearly 20 different game sites, each with a different activity ranging from accessible analogue games, collection of clues to physical games. Each play/visit earned a stamp which was redeemable for discounts at the Museum.