This year, GEEK will take place at Dreamland (Image: © Dreamland-Margate)
When: 17th – 19th February 2017
Where: Dreamland, 49-51 Marine Terrace, Margate CT9 1XJ
£: Tickets in advance cost £12-£14 for adults, and £7-£9 for children. Tickets on the gate cost £15-£18 for adults, and £8-£10 for children
What is it?
This year’s GEEK festival will take place at Margate’s Dreamland during the half term holiday, from 17th to 19th February 2017.
The festival will be held under cover, in the iconic and newly refurbished Hall By The Sea, the Ballroom, Roller Disco and the arcade.
GEEK 2017 will be focused on multiplayer and interactive gaming, bringing people together to meet, make and play. The event encourages everyone to participate in all genres of gaming; board games, computer games (retro and next generation), card games, and real world games. Plus, guests can discover all the creative magic that goes into the games, including coding, storytelling, music composition, special effects makeup, translation and localisation.
The family friendly festival will also mark the 25th Anniversary of Mario Kart with an official tournament. This year, GEEK will also be celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Judge Dread’s 2000AD comic book world, with an exclusive exhibition of covers and artwork, some of which have never been shown before. The new Demystify Bar will be showcasing app creation, Warhammer, and Raspberry Pi coding workshops.
For the Mario Kart official tournament, guests will not only be able to participate and test their metal against some of the most formidable Mario Kart Champions, but also play the game sat in real Dreamland bumper cars. Guests can play their way through every incarnation of the game, from the Super Nintendo to the Wii U, and compete in a tournament to win prizes from Nintendo.
Festival visitors will get the chance to play the award-winning game Renga, a live, 250 player game with a difference. Those brave enough can also sign up for events in the Dreamland Tournament of Games. This competition will require guests to master both digital and analogue skills, in order to see off the competition.
ESports and Games Tournaments will take place over the three days of the festival, accompanied by commentary from Sky Sports’ Matt Andrews. Saturday will see a spectacular cosplay competition, and Story Sunday will return on the last day of the festival, encouraging parents to get involved with challenges just as much as the kids.
The GEEK Dreamland compendium of games will also include new board games, cosplay, Live Action Role Play and the indie zone, where guests can meet the makers and tell them what they think would make their games better. The Minecraft cave is also back, along with a virtual reality treadmill, and coding workshops. Visitors will be able to test their skills on hundreds of playable video games, on hundreds of consoles. Tracing the development of games from the 1970s, to the latest next generation and VR releases.
Every element of GEEK is saturated in play, and for this reason 2017 sees the introduction of the GEEK House Cup. Fancy yourself as a bit of an all-rounder? Then the Iron GEEK tournament is for you. A fiendishly difficult array of games to test your skills across multiple platforms and genres of gaming, there can surely be no more prestigious title in the gaming world than the Iron GEEK?
More info: www.dreamland.co.uk/geek