Kenilworth's Holiday Inn to be turned into arcade for major retro gaming event
By James Smith
1st Aug 2024 | Local News
Kenilworth's Holiday Inn is set to be turned into a retro arcade this August for the return of a major gaming expo.
ZZAP! Live will head back to the town centre hotel on Saturday 17 August for a day of nostalgia, talks and retro gaming.
The event is a celebration of Commodore gaming systems and takes its name from the computer game magazine first launched in the 1980's, which has since been brought back to life by Kenilworth-based Fusion Retro Books, which is hosting the expo.
ZZAP! Live was held at the Holiday Inn last summer, followed by the Crash expo in November, and this August's return promises to be even bigger than before.
"It will be a great opportunity for parents to bring their children and show them pieces of their own childhood, and say 'I used to play that game' and so on," event organiser and Fusion Retro Books founder Chris Wilkins told Nub News.
"And of course we will have PacMan and Space Invaders and lots of other arcade games which also have a great nostalgia element to them.
"So it's a fantastic chance for people to come and relive their youth, and also an opportunity for mum's and dad's to show their kids how they misspent their youth!"
Running from 10am, the event will completely take over the ground floor of the Holiday Inn.
There will be over 60 Commodore systems to play games on as well as a 'Fusion zone' featuring other consoles including Playstation, N64, Saturn and more.
And key to the event is also the wide range of talks and Q&A's from industry experts, and the creators behind a range of the games and systems on display.
"When we were looking at organising ZZAP! Live for the first time, we thought how amazing would it be to get lots of people to a venue, to use all these retro machines," Chris continued.
"We wanted to showcase Commodore systems as well as more recent gaming machines like your Sega, Nintendo and Playstations. This as well as featuring popular arcade and pinball games.
"We also wanted to include guests who developed those games or created the music and so on.
"It is unique in terms of being so targeted. I don't think anybody else in the UK or Europe is doing anything like this.
"People want to come and meet their childhood heroes, and meet the people who created the games which meant so much to them growing up."
ZZAP! Live is expected to draw hundreds of guests to the Holiday Inn; last year people came from across Europe and the USA.
The day will also feature competitions, a raffle and there will be a fully licenced bar available throughout.
Then from 7pm the second part of the event - 'An evening with Jeff, Giles and Dokk' - will get underway, featuring a full blown VLM light show, a showing of the film Neon (a documentary on the gaming company Llamasoft) and a Q/A with Jeff Minter (the man behind Llamasoft) .
And as well as being a day of nostalgia and gaming, ZZAP! Live will also raise money for charity.
"We will give a percentage of the money from the raffle to the Motor Neurone Disease Association," Chris explained.
"This is because Roger Kean - who helped create Crash and ZZAP! 64 magazine during the 1980s - passed away from MND in January 2023.
"So we have given about £7,000 to them so far, and they are our chosen charity again this year."
Run in collaboration with the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester and South West AMIGA Group, tickets for the event cost £18, and can be purchased online here.
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