Recap: The Gadget Show Live 2015

Introducing a new feature - the Recap! This feature will be used when we go to a gaming or technology event but don't have the time/resources to do a live blog so that we can still show you where we've been, what we did and what great tech is out there! So, without further ado, onto the Recap!

*Disclaimer: we are not, in any way, associated with the Gadget Show or Channel 5 (and have not been told to say the following things either ;)*
Last Thursday, the Games, Apps and Reviews team went to The Gadget Show Live! The trip was one organised by my schools GCSE computing course and one that I had very much hoped would be organised for a long time. Satamer and I had already been to the event about 6-7 years previously and so expected a good (if packed) event. This time, the entire Games, Apps and Reviews team (besides Olimg due to previous commitments) came and so this feature came about. Anyways, onto the event itself!

We arrived at 9:00 (after an early 6:00 start in order to get there in time) and had a ticket to the Live Show. We spent the first two hours wandering around and looking at all of the exhibits as well as playing some old arcade machines which had been brought in with an airplane shooter (which I couldn't find the name of and was pretty good at, if I may say so) and Street Fighter (which I wasn't so good at) as well as a ported version of Rayman Origins. We also got to see the Jason-Bot (a robot with Jason Bradbury's head... yeah, it's a bit odd) and the Power-Tool Speeder (a vehicle created by the Gadget Show team in order to win the world record for fastest vehicles powered by power tools - in this case some chainsaws). In addition we got a free energy drink sample, a free bag and some free codes to get money off merchandise (you can probably see a pattern developing here).

It's the Jason-Bot! Although, he looks a bit worse for wear now...

Who would have guessed that you could run a vehicle on chainsaw power?

At 10:30 we went to see a talk about the behind the scenes of the Gadget Show, held by one of the show's producers, in which we got to see some unseen footage as well as montages of the best bits (which brought back some memories, I can tell you). We also got to answer some questions in which we found out that there have been 285 episodes in 23 series as well as there being over 5200 pieces of tech looked at on the show in that time. In addition, £5 million worth of tech had been given away in their competitions and only 18 pieces of tech had been given 5 G's (their scoring system) including the Xbox Kinect (which surprised me slightly) and the iPad Air as well as a wood burning stove and a camera.

Next up was the hour long Live Show. The show was great and involved giveaways such as teddy bears (as it was the 100th live show), a £500 holiday to anywhere won by sending pictures to the Gadget Show's Twitter and Instagram accounts and t-shirts (given to some of the winning team of a crowd competition that involved us controlling which lane a virtual car was in by being louder or quieter. We were on Jason's team but just lost out to Amy by about .95 of a second), as well as some difficult questions asked to some of the younger audience (with some deliberately placed cheat sheets). Unfortunately, we didn't receive any of these prizes (mainly due to our seating and a mistimed attempted catch) as well as the bias to the younger members of the audience and those sitting on the front row. Later, we got to see a guitarist called Peredur Ap Gwynedd from an electronic band called Pendulum which led onto a challenge in which three of the presenters (Jason, Jon and Amy) had to rush around and try to get a selfie with a teenager (after guessing the name of the rock riff played by the guitarist) so as to not have to sing in the ending of the show (Ortis was singing anyway, of course). Jon lost the competition and so had to sing at the end (and he wasn't too bad anyway!). Other performances included Painting with Light (self-explanatory), an LED dance group whose clothes lit up as they danced and Afishal (I think, I spelled that right) who was a drummer with a DJ difference.

The super stadium is appropriately named

Here's Afishal! 

Later on we got to see a DeLorean Time Machine from Back to the Future recreated by Jason (perfectly replicated from the films) as well as a piece of tech used to create the slow-mo bullet scene from the Matrix (which included, once it got working, a live attempt). Finally, there was the main competition which contained £4000 worth of tech including a new ZX Spectrum and a 4K TV. Unfortunately none of the team (or anyone from my school, for that matter) won this either... Oh well, it was fun anyway!

Are you ready to go Back to the Future?

After the Live Show we wandered around a bit more and saw lots of tech ranging from vacuum cleaners to lights that changed colour and wooden phone cases (with an unfortunately hefty price tag). We also had a look at the merchandise section and saw lots of interesting stuff (including lots of gaming related hats, models, keyrings, jewelry, posters, monopoly sets and even framed Lego miniatures) that made me wish I had brought another £5000 (and perhaps another £5000 as well). But besides the price tags, we did manage to find some great stuff with decent enough price tags. Both Euan and Martin bought a bullet (matching the ones they use in-game) with their Counter-Strike names engraved on them and Euan also found an Elder Scrolls themed amulet. Satamer and I, however, found something we'd been looking for for a while - a keyblade from Kingdom Hearts! And with a price tag of just £15 (which, going with the prices of other Kingdom Hearts themed merchandise is pretty good, believe me) it was a bargain. Expect an unboxing to occur on the YouTube channel shortly.

Finally, there was a game demo stand in which we could watch some people playing indie titles such as Nidhogg (which looked interesting), Gang Beasts (which looked hilarious) and Horizon Shift. This last game was made by a one man dev team (with a little help from his wife) called Flump Studios. There was an interview with him and he had some good points about making games (essentially, don't give up and that it will take a while to make a good game).  

Overall, this was a great event and day out and I hope to go again (again) some time. I hope you liked the Recap and you should be able to look forward to some more personal posts soon (*cough* new feature hint *cough*).

Goodbye for now, Harry