In May 2024, the United Kingdom’s Insomnia Gaming Festival was thrown into disarray following a spate of layoffs at Player1 Events, the organising body behind the iconic event. It came on the 25th anniversary of the expo, which had become the biggest gaming event in the UK, even after COVID-19 threatened to wipe them out forever.
Insomnia’s latest iteration should have taken place this past weekend, but it’s now generally assumed that the event has fallen into an irrevocable pit. In recent days, similar concerns have surfaced regarding WASD London, a smaller but still cherished gaming expo.
Where is WASD London?
It was recently noticed that WASD London’s website has disappeared – when you attempt to access it, you’re met with a message that it has expired. This could simply be an effort to rebrand, overhaul the site, or perform some serious front-end work, but it gets a little stranger when you probe deeper.
WASD London is hosted by Roucan Events, and when you try to jump over to the company’s website, you’re met with a similar message of the site being expired. Furthermore, the social profiles for WASD London have stood mostly silent for just over eight weeks, which is uncharacteristic for the team.
I’ve frequented WASD London for years and can attest to how great of a showcase it is. It’s much more intimate and small-form and caters quite heavily to indie developers, but some big-name brands have made their way onto the show floor in recent years.
Looking back, I was one of the first people in the United Kingdom to play Dead Island 2 at WASD, and I got a hands-on experience with Lords of the Fallen weeks before it was released, to name a couple of great games.
We’ve reached out to representatives of Roucan Events to see if we can get a comment on the situation. Given that the Insomnia Gaming Festival has collapsed and EGX has merged with MCM to stay afloat, losing WASD would be another nail in the coffin for the UK gaming expo scene.
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