Now this might not mean much to most gamers across the world, but in a small corner of the UK there’s a lovely town called Harrogate — it’s technically a borough as well, covering a decent chunk of North Yorkshire in the north of England at the centre of a Manchester, Sheffield, Middlesbrough triangle. Most of the residents are considered reasonably well-off, and it’s pretty easy to get to from most parts of the country, sitting just north of Leeds.

Harrogate also happens to be the home of AireCon, a boardgames convention around the middle of March that’s been going on for over a decade — it’s a bit of a mecca for gamers in the north, and easily reached from places like Manchester and Newcastle within a couple of hours, less than 90 miles away from both.

Over the last few years, the convention has been growing, with more attendees requiring ever more space to play games… last year it had 3 or 4 halls and spread to the Hilton Hotel next door. To cut a long story short, it’s usually a pretty big deal for the locals, especially for those in the York and Yorkshire area (my neck of the woods), and as it happens Harrogate is also a popular tourist town. Mix the two together, and you get a bit of a pile-on with people drifting in from all over the place — the town gets really busy, with the local bars, cafés, restaurants, and eateries absolutely heaving well into the late evening, and the shopping areas aren’t exactly quiet either. The FLGS (Friendly Local Game Stores) do rather well out of it as well, I believe…

I wrote about last year’s event in TSM31, which you can download and access here: Tabletop SPIRIT #31

As one of the UK’s most popular boardgames conventions (10,000+ attendees), AireCon has been a foundation for helping to grow the boardgaming scene in this part of the country, appealing to a core audience of analog boardgamers, whole families, and celebrating the physical act of actually sitting down at a table and playing games with friends or strangers (who would subsequently be considered friends) — it was a very big annual attraction for gamers in the north of the country, and the latest news has rocked local tabletop gaming communities…

Next year’s AireCon will be the last and final event in Harrogate from Mark Cooke and the rest of his team, citing a variety of reasons for the decision. Reading between the lines, it’s easy to surmise that various behind-the-scenes headaches and the venue team at Harrogate Convention Centre are making it increasingly difficult to run the convention in the spirit with which it was intended — TL;DR I believe the venue itself is experiencing upheaval which isn’t making it much easier for Mark and his team to run the event, despite all the business and tourism the event brings to Harrogate around this time of year. This is purely my personal opinion, and the Convention Centre has played host to plenty of other big major events, but they’ve also struggled with procuring future investment, although reports suggest work to modernise the centre did finally begin earlier this year.

Anyway, not to be outdone, Mark and his team are going all-out for next year’s event, and have already started referring to it as AIREMAGEDDON… and they want to give next year’s AireCon the kind of send-off it really deserves.

For me personally AireCon is a regular event on my annual calendar that offered the perfect excuse to visit Harrogate — I always loved the games, the huge bring’n’buy sale (which I always felt deserved its own hall), the event as a whole, but more importantly, it was the people, the local gaming community, the team, the volunteers, and the warmth and generosity they oozed from every pore that really kept me coming back for more. Actually, some of the attendees could be sweaty and smelly little oiks too, and although that might have been a barrier to sitting at the table with some of these people, it never stopped anybody from being anything but ridiculously polite all the time!

My fondest memories of AireCon were back in the pre-COVID days when the event took place in the main hall and what I always referred to as ‘the solarium’ (a stupidly warm but smaller room surrounded by windows that looked out onto the high street — I played a lot of games in there!)… the stalls and stands were more of an afterthought back then, and demonstration tables and small craft stalls were still rife, albeit somewhat contained. The emphasis was always on the open gaming areas and sitting at a table to actually play games with other people —be they friend, foe or orc— and the character and feel of the place was something very special.

If I’m being brutally honest, AireCon had lost a bit of its shine for me these last few years, not least because as the halls got bigger, the distances needed to walk from one to the other also increased, and this year’s debacle with the food and beverage huts was almost laughable — you could buy food but not bring it into the main halls! That’s not to say there wasn’t acres of open gaming space, because there most definitely was, but the overall vibe and feel had started to feel a bit more commercial, which is probably what Mark and the team might have been thinking when they decided they wanted next year’s final event to go out with a big fat bang.

Such a big bang, in fact, that they don’t have a clue themselves what they’re going to do yet, although we’ve been promised that everything will be bigger, busier, and even more memorable than anything they’ve done previously… This really will be a cause for celebration and solace for gaming communities across the country, but most especially for those for whom AireCon had become an annual gathering of friends, of community, and their first and only regular big gaming convention of the year.

I would never underestimate Mark or his team, so I’m very much looking forward to whatever the hell they do come up with… Regardless of what it is, I’m sure it will prove to be a celebration to remember, and a descent into hell might even be an interesting diversion if they can get planning permission for it!

AIREMAGEDDON will take place from 11th-14th March 2027 and tickets will go on sale next Friday, 11th Sept 2026 at 5pm BST, and they will understandably shift very quickly…

Buy Your AireCon Tickets Here

— Alex Bardy, 02Sept26