Heavycon – an announcement and reaction from traders

Heavycon, the event formerly due to take place in London, then in Birmingham and which then went suddenly quiet, has finally made an announcement on their (broken) website:

Exciting changes are happening to Heavycon. Heavycon is going to converge with another leading entertainmnt festival, Insomnia60, to create the UK’s largest ever music and gaming event. This will take place on 13-17th April 2017 at NEC Birmingham.

Clive Morton, Heavycon organiser, said: “We will be communication with all Heavycon participants personally to explain the changes in detail and the new website will be coming soon.

The following message was sent to those exhibiting at the event:

I am writing to confirm some important changes to Heavycon due to be staged at the NEC 30th Sept – 2nd Oct 2016.

As the organiser of Heavycon my primary concern is to ensure success for all participants. As such we have decided to converge our event with another important event, Insomnia60 and the date will now change to 13th – 17th April 2017, remaining at NEC Birmingham.

This decision will ensure a much larger attendance and introduce new elements to the overall show.

The organiser of Insomnia60 have now issued the following statement: “Parallel Contemporary Music Ltd. will amalgamate elements of Heavycon in to the Insomnia60 gaming festival taking place over Easter 2017. As part of a partnership with Multiplay, rock fans will still experience the Vinyl Village, Rock stars sports cars, the Play Music Live sessions and more but will now also get to experience the thrill of Insomnia, the UK’s largest gaming festival. Insomnia features a huge line-up of gaming tournaments, main stage entertainment, a major retail exhibition and a whole host of gaming related zones and activities for all types of gamer, including both novice and professional, of any age.”

The general consensus from numerous people who have been in touch is that the announcement came far too late (the merging with Insomnia60 was leaked out to various press sites ages ago, with no effort to inform customers/traders directly until now), changes the festival beyond all recognition (“some aspects” of Heavycon are being merged, not the whole thing) and a lot of people are out of pocket having booked travel and accommodation for an event which has now been moved by several months… and isn’t what was originally advertised. A new website is well and good, but it doesn’t excuse the existing one being taken partially offline with most of the pages on it simply disappearing for a couple of weeks.

Insomnia seems like a good festival in its own right – it’s a long-running regular event – but does it seem like a suitable partner for Heavycon? We genuinely can’t find a single punter or trader who thinks so.

One stallholder who contacted us is out of pocket for hotel, train fares and promotional materials – all non-refundable – and understandably annoyed.

Another was somewhat more vocal. These are his words and express their opinion, not ours (just in case anyone feels like suing us), though they asked not to be named. His issue is being fobbed off so that he doesn’t have to have his deposit refunded, and that he’s a metal fan not a gamer – so why would he want to partake in a gaming event?

“They are a bunch of scavengers nobody can get hold of and all their partners have pulled out and nobody’s getting paid. Gene Simmons says that changing a 3rd time is like cancelling – he won’t join, no-one will because it’s not gonna happen.”

If anyone else is affected by this huge change in the event, please get in touch. We’d be happy for information on any further developments and opinion. Is anyone out there glad about the changes?