USD ($)
EUR (€)
Monday the 1st of April, known for April Fool’s Day but more importantly the date the latest ZatuCon was held. While there wasn’t a prank in sight there was a jam packed day of fun!
Hosted at The Bedford Arms in Balham again, this marks the 3rd ZatuCon and I’m lucky enough to have attended them all. The venue is lovely. It provides lots of nooks with tables to try out the extensive games library. Groups of people enjoying their Bank Holiday with some board games, what could be better?
There seemed to be a very long queue of people ready to snap up some board game bargains at the ZatuCon pop up shop all day. The mystery boxes were very popular again!
There was one room dedicated to ‘Blood on the Clocktower’ all day ran by the wonderful Matt. A fantastic social deduction game where the good team try to find the demon and the demon tries to survive until the end. There was plenty of laughter, accusations and hoodwinking going on and the groups I had a chance to play in seemed to really enjoy it. If you haven’t checked out this game yet I highly recommend it, over recent months it has become my favourite game.
It was great to see some tables dedicated to showcasing upcoming Kickstarters like Kavanga and the card game trio Dino days/ Cat Days and Woof days along with other released games like Sky Team and Zookeepers. There was also a teaching table for Lorcana which was busy every time I passed. I overheard several people commenting that they had become completely addicted to Star Wars Unlimited of which there were multiple tables set up.
The highlight of excitement came when everyone crowded into the main room to see the raffle drawn. Everyone received a free ticket on entry but could purchase more throughout the day. The prizes seemed endless and there were some fantastic games given away.
ZatuCon finished off with a quiz hosted in the amazing mezzanine room and I was left feeling that the small ticket price really bought a wonderful day.
I spoke to lots of people throughout the day and everyone seemed very impressed with this mini con. There were lots of people from nearby but many had travelled a distance to come including from Paris and The USA! Ok, there may have been other reasons they were visiting the UK as well but it was nice to see that ZatuCon had captured them for a fun filled day of their visit.
Overall, I’m very much looking forward to the next ZatuCon. The raffle was a huge hit so I hope this will be repeated next time. A bring and buy sale would have been nice too, though it may be difficult to find an area left for this.
The best news is apparently we only have to wait until August for the next one!