In 2024, Tabletop Scotland moves to the Highland Hall at the Royal Highland Centre.
Dates for the convention are 6th to 8th September 2024. More specifics will be shared in due course.
Why the move?
In March 2023, it was reported that the Dewars Centre was under threat of closure due to constraints in the budget required to operate the venue.
We were naturally delighted to see that this didn’t happen, but learned no decision on the future of the venue would be made until March 2024 at the earliest. As our event takes approximately 12 to 18 months to plan, this wasn’t a situation we were comfortable with.
In the run up to our 2019 event we were made aware of plans to demolish and replace the Dewars Centre with a modern facility at some point in the future. So, after 2019’s event we started to look at venues to understand what our options could be if we ever outgrew the Dewars Centre or if we were forced to move.
Then the pandemic happened, so naturally everything paused for a bit.
Once the risk of ‘no 2023 venue’ appeared, we dusted off those previous conversations and restarted the search for a new venue. This was both from the perspective of finding a contingency for 2023’s event, and to take a fresh look at our options in general.
What were the options?
What many of you may not know is that there are only five venues in Scotland that have more space than what we use at the Dewars Centre.
3,500sqm or ~37,750sqft is a lot of space.
What are those five?
- Aberdeen – P&J Live
- Edinburgh – The Edinburgh International Convention Centre
- Edinburgh – The Royal Highland Centre next to Edinburgh Airport
- Glasgow – SEC Campus
- Stirling – At the University Campus
We spoke with all of them, with the exception of the P&J Live in Aberdeen.
Why not the P&J Live?
Moving the convention to Aberdeen wouldn’t work. The venue itself is impressive and whilst it could host the event from a space perspective, the reality is that we would lose many of our exhibitors and indeed attendees from the Central
Belt and further South.
Of the remaining four, only three of them were viable spaces for us to use.
The Stirling Uni campus would require the convention to sprawl over multiple buildings. Whilst there is an appeal to having a ‘campus convention’, the setup involved would risk the feeling of being ‘one event’.
So that brought us to the conclusion that our only options were the SEC, EICC and RHC.
After detailed discussions with each, we have decided to move to the Royal Highland Centre.
Why the Royal Highland Centre?
Facilities of a venue are obviously very important, as well as the location from an accommodation and transport perspective. However the main criteria that separated the remaining venues was dates.
We wanted to have a guaranteed date not just in 2024, but also ensure we had the same weekend in 2025 and 2026. Only the Royal Highland Centre could give us that.
The Highland Hall provides the convention with significantly more space, essentially trebling what we have had in Perth. The venue is also a relatively modern facility which benefits from being close to lots of hotels, has great transport links, more than 5,000 parking spaces, and is next door to Edinburgh Airport. The latter being especially important from the perspective of attracting more exhibitors.
The Royal Highland Centre also has additional venue space adjacent to the Highland Hall, so if we ever need to grow beyond the space (!) we can integrate that into the event relatively easily.
Obviously hosting an event in Edinburgh meant that we couldn’t have the convention in August, and so we agreed to move the convention to the first weekend in September in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
The venue has an upstairs area with lots of space for RPGs and rooms for us to use for all sorts of things.
What happens next?
Lots and lots of things!
First of all, we have just finished hosting our amazing 2023 event at the Dewars Centre in Perth.
We are very sad to be leaving the venue. Without the Dewars Centre it’s fair to say that Tabletop Scotland almost certainly wouldn’t have started. The team there have been hugely supportive of the event and us.
In the background we have already had a lot of conversations with potential exhibitors to gauge their interest in coming to an event in Edinburgh, with the majority of those being incredibly positive.
We will have much much more to share with you when the time is right.
If you have any questions about our plans, please get in touch via our email address: info@tabletopscotland.co.uk