Urbis, tha Manchester city centre exhibition centre currently have a video game exhibition which runs through to September 20th. I went along today to check it out, as well as to go to the talk by Introversion Software and found it quite interesting.
The exhibition isnt that big but the content they have is pretty good. They have things like original concept artwork, advertising, recorded interviews with members of the games industry, from companies such as Ocean Software through to newer companies like Travellers Tales. As well as all that they also have games to play on all formats including arcade machines. I spent some time kicking my brothers ass at Micro Machines on the NES and playing some Jet Set Willy earlier.
If you are in Manchester while the exhibition is running Id recommend stopping by, its only £3 and will probably bring back so many memories. The other option is to come up for one of the talks being given by industry veterans, the list of which can be found here (http://www.urbis.org.uk/page.asp?id=3332), which cost £5 and also grants you entry to the exhibition. Introversions talk today gave an insight into running an independant game company and the games industry in general and I have tickets to next weeks talk with Jon Hare of Sensible Software and as well as a talk there will be a Sensi Soccer tourny where the winner gets to play against Hare.