Tune in at 17:30 tomorrow, Friday 13th(!) to listen to the first broadcast of SGFR – our Festival Radio Show!

You’ll find us live on our Discord – just head over and join the Festival Radio stage channel (and #festival-radio for text chat).

“Teppic picked up his hat and checked its lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.”

― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

Yup, it’s time to start thinking of what you should bring along to the festival! Here’s our ‘top things to bring’ list, along with various additions submitted by the cool folks in our FB group.

• Camping Chair (great for chilling and impromptu games, and sitting on – pretty essential)
• Headtorch (for navigating around after dark)
• Table lantern (if you’re playing games late)
• a fleece or something (to keep you warm in the evening)
• a waterproof (for those pesky showers)
• Suncream (to ensure suitably slippy, and also to protect from sun)
• Bin bags (to collect and take your rubbish and recycling away)
• Water bottle (hydration!)
• Some cash (for the Bring & Buy and Craft Fair)
• Discord installed on your phone (for updates, Festival Radio and general chatter)
• your finest finery, dressing-uppiness, t-shirt and/or smile for Friday evening All-hands
• Games! All the Games!

Other crowd-sourced recommendations (not all to be taken seriously) include:

• Lanterns, a mug with a lid and pots to put game bits in
• Marshmallows (fyi the site shop sells these, and sticks!)
• ITS A FESTIVAL. Bunting, lights! All of the twinkly lights, silly decorations
• Sun hat! Black Bin liner for your dirty clothes! Sturdy shoes as Bushy does have uneven ground! Wash kit and towel!
• Battery back up for your phone
• Hammock for living the relaxed life
• Silver bullets, Stake, Cross & Garlic, Tin foil hat….
• Tent. Airbed. Bedding. Clothes (please bring clothes.. please…).

Got any more suggestions? Pop over to the FB group and let us know!

Hellooo Campers!

Damn, I’m getting excited… not long now. Meantime, have you joined our Discord?

If you haven’t then head on over and join up. You can chat about lots of Festival related things, and we’re going to use it during the Festival for updates, arranging adhoc meetups and so on. We mainly use it for text chat, but at the Festival (and possibly before), we’re going to have Festival Radio, hosted by our very own honey-voiced presenter!

So, what are you waiting for? Come join the fun!

Hello Campers!

Lots of news about the Festival (27th-30th August, Bushy Wood Activity Centre near Hailsham this year!)… so sit down, grab a cuppa and read on.

Firstly, we’ve put our schedule of events up, so you can start planning your Festival. We’ll have a more detailed programme with times out soon, and sign up forms for some of the events/rpgs and so on.

As always, the Festival is a fun sandbox for you to play in, the only (nearly) mandatory event is to come along to the arena/stage area at 7pm on Friday for our traditional ‘all hands’ intro meet. And, this year, let’s celebrate being back at the festival: feel free (entirely optionally) to dress up, wear your funniest t-shirt, or just sport your very biggest smile!

The Festival opens from 2pm on Friday 27th for a chilled afternoon of getting settled in and ad-hoc gaming. We’ll have new player meets and introductions to Werewolf and so on during the evening. There’s plenty of marquee, hall and table space for you to do your own thing as well.

Saturday onwards we’ll really get going – you can even sign up to shoot REAL bow and arrows (for free!), play life-size Twin Tin Bots, craft some bunting for your tent, or get down to some serious Werewolfery, roleplaying and boardgaming.

And Monday, you don’t need to be off-site till 6pm, so plenty of gaming time available!

Moving on to the Pandemic (sadly, not the board game)…. To keep everyone as safe as we can, we’ve updated our Covid entry policy to match that used by many big festivals. This means that if you’re over 18, at check-in you’ll need to sign a form to self-certify that you’ve either:

• been double-jabbed, or
• took and logged a lateral flow test in the last 48 hours, or
• have natural immunity, and have had a positive PCR test within the last 180 days.

You can find out more about this (and many other things) in our FAQs.

Food & Drink: this year we’ve got three (count em!) food vans, hopefully covering all needs. Sadly though we won’t have a bar as planned. Please bring your own alcohol if you want to (and drink it responsibly…).

Lastly (for now), and most excitingly, wehazmerch!

Pop over to our Merch page to see a range of festival t-shirts and other cool stuff from Redbubble.

More updates soon – join our Discord at https://discord.gg/RKSjwdg to chat and keep up to date on the Festival.

See you soon!

simonA

Hello Campers!

We accidentally buried our FAQs on the site, and they’re now proudly displayed in the top menu (sorry!).

So, if you want to ask some questions, frequently or not, pop over to: https://strangegamesfestival.co.uk/faqs and have a read.

If your question isn’t answered, or you think there’s anything we’re missing, email us at hello@strangegamesfestival.co.uk

Only a month’s sleeps to go!

Hello Campers!

The Strange Games Festival is getting closer, and before you know it, we’ll be gaming and chilling on a Sussex campsite. Bit excited… So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to fill you in on some of the things you’ll be able to do, eat, and drink.

Firstly though, there’s still tickets and pre-pitched tents available at https://strangegamesfestival.co.uk/tickets-tents. It’s always difficult to judge, as we often get a rush of signups close to the event, but if you definitely want to come, it might be worth getting your tickets soon.

So, food… always important at the Festival. As most of us choose to eat from the catered noms, we’ve expanded the options this year. We’ve got three food stalls to suit all tastes:

• festival favourite, the Farmyard Kitchen, back for their third year. They’ll be serving one main option each dinner (gourmet burger and chips, chicken and chorizo paella and chilli con carne with tortillas), a range of options from a lunch menu, and breakfasts, plus soft drinks, tea, coffee and so on
• Flux (not named after the game):  Californian-inspired street food, all 100% plant based! Options include a  Ranch “Chicken” Burger, Cali Burger, Chilli “Cheese” Fries, Paprika fries, a Chilli Bowl and breakfast
• Crepes de la Creme: freshly made sweet and savoury, vegan and gf crepes for lunch, dinner and in between…

And we have a BAR, Botanical Bubbles, who will have Estrella and Atlantic (ale) on tap, plus cider, wine, spirits and prosecco! (EDIT: Sadly no bar this year).

Games-wise we have plenty of marquee space, plus indoor tables for board-gaming. As well as the usual self-organising games, we’ll have ‘find some players’ and ‘new player’ type sessions, plus we can help you schedule and find players for bigger/longer games.

Role-players will find both pre-booked games, and plenty of cool spaces available to reserve for ad-hoc gaming sessions. And if you want to GM a session we’ll help you find a space that suits (Cthulhu in the woods?).

Werewolves will have some amazing campfires and other circles, including some specifically for late night play. We’ll have Christian Zoli, designer of Wherewolf, showcasing the new version, dedicated ‘new player’ games, and Blood on the Clocktower!

Since the site has an archery range, we thought it would be rude not to offer the chance to try your hand at some real-life bows and arrows. There will be an instructor running sessions on Saturday to learn the basics and progress to 20th level Ranger.

And in the ‘safer to shoot each other’ category, we’ll have a sixteen player Nerf Wars arena set up…

Phew. Quite a bit there. More news next time!

Don’t forget you can be part of the conversation ahead of the Festival at our Discord: https://discord.gg/RKSjwdg

See you in August!

simonA