Dublin Gamerfest 2023 reviewed

Review of Gamerfest Dublin 2023 by Aaron Faulkner

Dublin Gamerfest 2023 was a quite good experience, providing a lot of activities that attendees could participate in such as quite a  lot of consoles with game demos for games such as street fighter 6, lego 2k Drive, and apex legends. These dominated a quite substantial area of the convention, around half of the allotted space in the RDS main hall, and allowed for a relatively short wait time for anyone wishing to play these titles at the convention. The different individual demos and VR stands let there be quite different experiences for convention goers, which was very nice to see as it broke the trend in recent years of little actual gaming at Irish gaming conventions.

Dublin Gamerfest 2023 reviewed

A quite dominant part of the experience had to be the Irish e-sports stage that dominated the rear half of the convention hall. While the presenters themselves and the competitors were quite good, the esports stage would have benefitted from its own space, as how it was implemented dominated quite a lot of the hall and was at times quite distracting. From the parts I did personally view however it seemed to be well run with no noticeable hiccups or issues that stalled the show, so if you were interested in the esports competition specifically, it is most definitely recommended. 

A big part of the event, the Williams esports sim driving rigs were oddly arranged, with the 5 rigs seemingly being distributed at different stands around the hall. This led to a situation that I encountered where the queue for the rig I wished to trial took substantially longer to wait for than another one I could view across the hall. The VR setup itself was extremely engaging and immersive when I did get to experience it, Williams esports did quite a good job on the demonstration and I had some real fun on the sim.

The convention staff did quite a good job of ensuring that attendees were able to access the demos in a reasonable time, so the queues didn’t persist for long, which was quite positive.

Overall the convention was exceptionally well run and defined, with a clear vision of the experience they wanted to provide, and managed to execute that idea. As such this convention was a pleasure to attend and I will be looking forward to attending further conventions by these organisers.

https://gamerfest.ie/
https://www.williamsf1.com/esports

Aaron Faulkner is a writer for Irish Tech News, reviewing many Dublin based events in the past focusing around gaming conventions.

See more event reviews here.