Develop in Brighton - Day 1

Tuesday 11th July - Mobile Gaming Day

After being accepted as a Conference Volunteer (CV) I prepared myself for my daily pilgrimage to the Brighton Metropole, for the Develop Conference in Brighton.

The Brighton Metropole

The Mobile Gaming event was held on the 11th, the conference proper was from the 12th to the 13th, and the Games Education event was the finale on the 14th July. I wasn't the only volunteer. My friends Carl and Alex were there along with James - we all worked together at the Game Developers Conference Europe last year at Cafe Royal in Piccadilly. There were also some new faces as volunteers - Bill, Brook, Dominic, Ben and a few others. And yes, once again, I was the only girl which I always find mildly surprising but pleasant.


The only girly geek in the village

My first early morning. By tomorrow morning I'll have made the choice to stay in Brighton every night next year. I was up and out of bed and catching the bus by 6.30 a.m. which isn't too bad to be honest. I had to be in Brighton by 9.30 a.m. and I managed to catch the 7.50 a.m. train from King's Cross. It took an hour and a half which could be bad if you're easily bored, however if you carry a Nintendo DS, a selection of games, a good book, and an ipod around everywhere with you, it's not that bad and the time flies by. We met Susan who was our supervisor. Those of us who had worked at GDCe last year were given extra responsibility which was nice. The job of being a CV isn't hard but it does require you to be on your toes, always be helpful, know everything that is happening, and always be nice to people even if they're rude to you.


View of the sea and a Brighton garbage truck

There are many presentations in different rooms going on simultaneously. Therefore, there needs to be at least one CV in each room. First off, we have to cover all the seminars that are happening. When I say cover, I mean let the speaker know that you're there, hand out feedback sheets at the beginning of the talk, collect them at the end, take the occasional head count. Some speakers are quite nervous so they'll rely on you to tell them when to start. One of the nice things about the Mobile day was that my friend Steev was there with his workmates from Glu.


My friend Steev (far right)

We had a good gossip at some point during the day but missed each other at lunchtime unfortunately. The first presentation was the keynote speech by Kamar Shah from Nokia. You can read about what he said here. There were also a couple of people from Ideaworks3D! (where I do my game testing) there too. Tim Closs and Thor Gunnarson gave a very popular presentation straight after lunch. So there were lots and lots of presentations. We were lucky to have our lunch included as part of our work contract and some of us wandered around the Expo area, or what was going to be the Expo area. Lots of companies were there building up their areas with big flash TV screens, computers, advertisements, and freebies. Sony, who sponsored the conference, had set themselves up in the middle of the area complete with PSPs for conference attendees to play with.

The Sony stand

Brighton Beach and the burned down pier

Close up of the burned pier

Carl, Ben, James, and Alex at Al Fresco

The event was held at Al Fresco and drinks were courtesy of Autodesk. The view out to the beach was lovely. Although it was a blazing hot day we were still amazed that some people were out surfing. Although it did look impressive it was obviously for show. But even more impressive was the old burned out pier. A very stark contrast to the other pier which now has a funfair on it. Anyway, we all indulged in the free booze


Before the Autodesk party

The Autodesk party in full swing

and then Steev and I made our way up to the station (all the way uphill) to catch the 10.30 p.m. train, only to miss it, and go to the pub instead for half an hour. I fell asleep on the train and Steev very kindly woke me up at King's Cross. I then couldn't be arsed to get a bus home so I got a taxi and crawled into bed at 2.00 a.m., only to get up at ....


One last drink in here

To be continued ....