PlayersXpo: Here's what's on this weekend at Ireland's ultimate gaming event

With four sessions of six hours each running over the weekend (9am and 4pm each day) there's a tonne of stuff to see and do from checking out retro consoles and games to meeting the masterminds of past, present, and future gaming.

Gamers have the chance to meet five world famous streamers/YouTubers, the godfather of gaming John Romero, three video game music legends, and attend two exclusive concerts.

Here's our guide to what's on...

Gaming soundtrack stars

On Saturday night there's the Songs of Zelda: The Celtic Link’s exclusive album launch concert and on Sunday there's the Irish debút of Retro Games Live.

Songs of Zelda: The Celtic Link was crowdfunded via Kickstarter so the Zelda-loving public was clearly excited at the prospect of the queen of video games music, Eimear Noone, breathing Irish traditional life into the game series’ iconic score.

With Retro Games Live on Sunday attendees can indulge in a little nostalgia with the sounds of Sonic, Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda. Both events are conducted by Eimear.

Along with Noone and her husband, Emmy award-winning composer Craig Stuart Garfinkle, the brains behind (arguably) the greatest 16-bit soundtrack will also be there.  David Wise composed and then condensed the nigh-on CD quality soundtrack of Donkey Kong Country for SNES into a set of 64KB samples.

Gaming fans will also get the chance to ask the legend that is John Romero questions on his career, from Commander Keen, through Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom, Quake, his exit from Id Software, the Daikatana affair, all the way through to setting up Romero Games Ltd. in Galway city.

He will also take on the public in a Deathmatch tournament.  Attendees of the morning/afternoon sessions have will an invite to the Deathmatch tournament waiting in their inboxes. Places are understandably limited so are provisioned on a first-come-first-serve basis. Check your inbox now.

Speakers

Another high-profile panelist Paula O’Connor will be giving advice to gamers and parents of budding gamers on how to keep safe online. O’Connor’s experience as a teacher and mother of three got her interested in online etiquette ten years ago.

During her time at St. Kevin’s in Finglas, O’Connor began formulating CSPE and SPHE lesson plans in order to educate younger children about safe-sharing, knowing how to respond to bullying and the impact of their words online.  She is the leading figure in the country when it comes to cyberbullying and the dangers lurking online.

Streamers

YouTubers All-Cast Irish Gamers deliver a video every 2 days or so while maintaining a loyal livestream community. With their talent for quality and quantity and insane games-inspired attire, ACIG are in a unique position to inspire the gaming YouTubers of tomorrow, give sagely advice for those looking for a breakthrough on the platform or just tell us who their tailor is.

Antitinkerbell is more famous as a streamer, preferring to game live. Amassing 21,000 followers on Twitch before uprooting and gathering almost 16,000 on stream upstart Mixer.com, Anti-Tinkerbell has claimed her victor’s poultry meal at Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds on many occasions and once headshotted the pilot of a distant plane in Battlefield 1.

The three other streamers on the bill come to PlayersXpo from the Netherlands, Norway and Britain and have total of twelve million subscribers.

Jelle van Vucht AKA Jelly has over 2.4 billion views on YouTube. He delivers daily, whether it’s introducing his fans to indie games or exploring GTA V mods, the 21-year-old English-speaking Dutchman is a ‘like’ machine. As YouTube royalty, Jelly has his own dedicated online merchandise store.

Sanna’s iamSanna YouTube channel has almost one million subs and is a mixture of gaming challenges, real-life face-offs and that YouTube staple, watching hilarious videos and reacting hilariously. Sanna, like her frequent collaborator/boyfriend is a regular indie player, bringing her viewers some of Steam’s more interesting offerings like One Night Stand Simulator and Ultimate Stick Fight.

Josh Temple, better known as Slogoman hails from England and treats his 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube to an array on GTA V challenges and stunts mixed with top-tier collabs and trending indie hits. Slogoman’s sister, Amelia is an Instagram star in her own right, sharing her everyday life to 50,000 followers everyday.

Retro gaming

Ireland’s leading retro collector, Naoise O’Hare will be doling out advice on collecting classic video games and consoles from the original Japanese Famicom to the more modern classics of Xbox 360.

Thanks to his passion, he has carved out quite following on his RetroGamerIreland social channels, sharing his collection, his new buys or simply what retro delights he is currently playing.

Gamers can also try retro games like Space Invaders, Super Mario, Doom or Sonic the Hedgehog among dozens of classics at PlayersXpo too.

You can buy tickets here..

Read more: