Here you can learn about the history of AmberCon UK, going back over twenty years, and see some of our previous gamebooks.
The Beginning
AmberCon UK was started in 1993 by Simone Cooper, however after a few years Simone moved to the US where she now runs AmberCon Northwest.
The first Con was held in a hotel no more than stone’s throw from Piccadilly Circus. The hotel doesn’t exist anymore and part of it has been converted to a Mcdonalds food outlet.
The second one was held in a hotel near Queensway Station, again in London. Again it only hosted one Con.
The third venue was the Hilton Hotel Croydon which held three conventions.
Moving on …
We moved out of London in 1998 to our fourth venue, the Ramada Hotel (now the Penta hotel) in the centre of Reading. It hosted the Convention up to 2007.
In 2008 the hotel changed hands and the new owners decided that they wanted to start afresh with its dealings with the convention , and wanted to raise the prices to the point where they were outside the price range that the convention and those who attended it could reasonably afford. No alternative venue could be found for that year.
A Change of Address
Since 2009, the convention was located at Harben House in Newport Pagnell near Milton Keynes.
Traditionally it had been a summer event, nominally held in July, but in 2012, it was pushed back to September because of the Olympic Games in London, and the change in date has stuck.
Covid19 – Cons cancelled
From 2020 – 2022, the Con was cancelled due to Covid restrictions. Afterwards, Harben House was unavailable.
The Con comes back!
In 2023, the Con returned. Unfortunately, Harben House was booked at the time we planned to hold the Con, so that venue was changed to Reading, where we have been gathering in different locations since 2023, with a year off in 2024. In 2025, we had a new model; rather than gathering in a hotel, we used shared apartments, offering a choice between bedrooms on site, or allowing people to select their own accommodation in hotels. This proved very successful, and will be repeated in 2026.
AmberCon UK 