UK Games Expo 2026: Running the Numbers
A second post-convention blog post makes something a tradition, right? Well, in that spirit of tradition, it’s time for me to Run the Numbers for UK Games Expo 2026!
For those of you who don’t know me / us, I’m George Francis Bickers and this is Three Sails Studios. I’m the Studio Lead and the creator and designer of our first two games, Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG and Gallows Corner - A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, and we’re a small indie TTRPG design studio and publisher based in Manchester in the UK. Alongside me are Jeremy Blum (editor, developer, co-writer, and designer), Joel Kilpatrick (illustrator), and — as of the last few months — Lou Fryer, who is coming on board (initially freelance) to take over editorial duties and provide operations expertise!
Following in the footsteps of the amazing Colin LeSueur of By Odin’s Beard RPG, I wrote a blog breaking down our expenses and takings at Dragonmeet 2025 (you can read that blog here). I’m carrying on now with an analysis of our time at UK Games Expo 2026, and will follow up with a breakdown of our Kickstarter campaign for Gallows Corner in a few weeks time.
So, with as much candour as I can muster on very little sleep and with aching feet, let’s get into it!
Logistics
UK Games Expo takes place in the last weekend of May, after the late-May Bank Holiday Monday (though next year, it seems, the convention is taking place on the first weekend in June). This was our fourth time exhibiting at UK Games Expo, though only the third time as a TTRPG publisher. Our first year, in 2023, was our first time there as an exhibitor, but that was back when we were still working on a miniature wargame. I learned a huge amount that year, but I count our first time proper as 2024, when we were there to promote Mappa Mundi ahead of it’s Kickstarter campaign in 2025.
UK Games Expo takes places at the NEC in Birmingham. Joel and myself are based in Manchester, while Jeremy and Lou are based in London, so we all have to travel. Birmingham, however, is located right in between the two, so we all get to meet in the middle. I drove down at 05:30 on Thursday morning, set up day, via Nottingham to pick up our Mappa Mundi and Gallows Corner stock from our UK warehouse (a huge thanks to my Dad for driving the van!), while everyone else travelled by train and car later in the day. Lou brought the materials for the newly redesigned stand with them, and we started setting up!
As regards stock, we brought a lot with us. In total, we had 20 cases of (delivered to UK backers THAT DAY) the Gallows Corner box set (80 copies), 8 cases of the Gallows Corner books (88 copies), 15 cases of Mappa Mundi (90 copies), and a case each of our Gallows Corner zines (4 cases, each with around 150 copies).
Costs
Stand Costs (6 × 4m): £2,431.80 including VAT. We are VAT registered, however, so I expect to claim 20% of that cost back, bringing our actual stand cost to £1,945.44. This total cost also included all of our furniture (2 6ft tables, 1 5ft table, 3 4ft tables, and 13 chairs. It also included £150.00 for a pallet in the stock room so we didn’t have to have everything on stand with us like last year).
Travel: £200 (this isn’t a 100% accurate figure, as it includes incidentals, but is about right. It includes van hire and train tickets).
Accomodation: £280. (We stay in an AirBnB whenever we do UK Games Expo as we need enough room for 5 or 6 people and hotels are completely beyond our budget. This year’s one was grim and we’re hoping for a refund.)
Meals: £100 (again, not a 100% accurate figure, as we were paying for a good amount of food for the team in the evenings, but accurate enough).
Staff costs (including stand redesign): £1,000 (and, for a third time, not a 100% accurate figure. But this includes two people running games on the stand — thanks Sam and Freddie! — plus Lou’s payment for redesigning the stand, plus the materials for that redesign. That redesign is a one-off cost that we were happy to absorb this year, though it does skew the overall numbers compared to last year.)
TOTAL EXPENSES (with approximations and after VAT rebates): £3,525.44
UK Games Expo is expensive, for sure, but our stand costs remain (I think) reasonable for what we want. They’re definitely on the upper end when it comes to cost, but being VAT registered means that the sticker shock is reduced each year. Of course, the total expenses of £3,525.44 also includes the stand redesign costs (nearly £800), so next year these expenses will definitely be reduced.
The Stand
In my Dragonmeet ‘Running the Numbers’ blog, I wrote:
‘…our convention operations are still very underdeveloped. Our stands are basic and barebones, though we do love our big banners, which always prominently feature the illustrations of our other co-owner, Joel Kilpatrick.
Our stand this year was no different. Two six metre tables, each with a black tablecloth, the 4 metre wide banner, featuring Mappa Mundi and our upcoming release Gallows Corner - A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, and a roll up banner for a new game we’re publishing, City of Espers - A Street-Level Psychics TTRPG, by Nathan Blades, which we publicly announced at Dragonmeet.
We’re working on our convention presence and I’m hoping to show you a much nicer looking stand at UKGE 2026, but for now, trust me when I say it was basic.’
Well, when I approached Lou to ask if they’d be interested in working with us longer term as part of the Three Sails team, with a focus on operations and editorial, the first task we decided on was making our convention presence more professional. And boy did they manage it!
As always, our stand was designed to be inviting and open (though less open than at Dragonmeet). I asked Lou to ensure that we had space at the front of the stand for people to ‘enter’ into it and out of the walkways while also maintaining our gaming tables, which have become a Three Sails tradition at UK Games Expo after we trialled them in 2024. (Note: I’m happy to say that more and more UK TTRPG creators are following suit now, and I’ve been happy to share our experiences with them. I know both Armstrong Games, Black Armada, Montford Tales, and SDR all did demos on their stands this year and I’m looking forward to hearing about their experiences.)
We also had soft flooring this year, both to help our feet (partly successful) and to delinate the stands edges (definitely successful), and we’ll use that again.
The only thing we didn’t change this year were our banners. We love our banners, as they get to show Joel’s artwork off to full effect and definitely draw people in. Next year we’re going to redesign them to fit the stand better, but we wanted this year to see how the redesign looked first so we can plan ahead effectively.
Sales and Signups
I know this is why most of you are here, so I’m going to provide as much detail as I can!
We were selling Mappa Mundi, Gallows Corner box sets and books, and collecting sign ups for our next game, the amazing City of Espers, by Nathan Blades, who we were thrilled to have with us on stand for most of the weekend, and who was rocking some amazing fits, as always.
City of Espers front cover. Illustration by Isa Happyfield.
Prices:
Mappa Mundi - £60
Gallows Corner Box Set - £80
Gallows Corner Book - £50
Gallows Box + Mappa Mundi Bundle - £125
Gallows Book + Mappa Mundi Bundle - £100
We sold 50 Gallows Corner box sets (and gave 4 away to reviewers and contributors). We sold 28 Gallows Corner books (and gave 2 away). We sold 53 copies of Mappa Mundi (and gave one away). We also had around 80 signups for City of Espers.
If all of those copies were sold at full price, I’d have expected a total of £8,580. What we actually took, after a few discounts for those looking to upgrade from PDF copies to physical copies, etc., was £8,502, which feels like a very healthy take.
TOTAL SALES: £8,502.
TOTAL EXPENSES: £3,525.44
PROFIT: £4,976.56
That represents a very health profit for us and I’m very happy with it overall. Of course, our expenses also include the nearly £800 for the stand redesign, and if we hadn’t chosen to do that (definitely the right choice to do it!), we’d be looking at nearly £6,000 in profit.
I should add that for three of us, our cost of attending the convention is part of our ‘salaries’ (if you can call it that), and thanks to some loving volunteers (including one of my best friends, David, and my ever supportive partner, Heather), our staff costs are minimal. This is a big point for us, though, and so from next year I expect to see our staff costs increase, which will likely wipe out the gains that not spending on stand redesign would have afforded us.
I said last year that:
‘We started doing conventions without anything to sell, exhibiting purely to drum up attention for our games, and it remains a significant part of why we do conventions. I managed this balance much better at Dragonmeet than I did at either UKGE or Tabletop Scotland this year, and I think the way we laid out the stand helped with that.’
For better or worse, I still see UK Games Expo as a marketing exercise (though it definitely helps having things to sell). We can’t afford to do it without making money, but having so many people exposed to City of Espers and really enjoying the experience was a big part of why we were there, and you can’t put a price (or, at least, I won’t) on that kind of exposure.
Analysis
This is the first time I’ve been able to compare a convention that we’re selling product at like for like, and I think it might be helpful for people, so I’m going to do my best to give a sense of how the experience differed this year to last and how our sales changed year on year.
At UK Games Expo 2025, Mappa Mundi sold unusually well. We shifted 115 copies of a single game, which I’m informed by people who have much more experience in these matters is highly irregular. So, we were starting this year from having had an anomalous experience last year.
In 2025, Friday was our quietest day in terms of sales, Saturday was the busiest by far, and Sunday was in the middle (though closer to Friday). Our numbers for 2025 were:
Friday: £1,855
Saturday: £3,250
Sunday: £1,905
We can see a pretty standard curve there, based on the busy-ness of the convention, and I expected to see the same this year.
What I actually saw was as follows:
Friday 2026: £2,850
Saturday 2026: £3,112
Sunday 2026: £2,540
Saturday remained our busiest day, but Friday took over as second busiest from Sunday. This might have had something to do with the trains being screwed up on Sunday morning, but from what I’ve heard from a lot of others, Friday seemed generally more busy across the board.
Let’s do some comparisons!
UKGE 2025 total take: £7,010 — UKGE 2026 total take: £8,502
Change year on year: +£1,492 / +21.2%
UKGE 2025 Friday: £1,855 — UKGE 2026 Friday: £2,850
Change year on year: +£995 / +53.6%
UKGE 2025 Saturday: £3,250 — UKGE 2026 Saturday: £3,112
Change year on year: -£138 / -4.2%
UKGE 2025 Sunday: £1,905 — UKGE 2026 Sunday: £2,540
Change year on year: +£635 / +33.3%
A slight drop on Saturday, and definitely not commensurate with the increases we saw on Friday and Saturday, which feel very significant, but an overall increase of 21.2%, which is significant even with 2025 being an anomalous year in terms of Mappa Mundi sales.
Summary
UK Games Expo 2026 was a very successful convention for us by all measures. We promoted our upcoming game well; we sold our new and existing games well; we made a good profit despite additional one off expenses; and we made our stand and operations much more professional. And, of course, we got to see old friends, make new ones, and see a lot of old and new customers!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this breakdown of our experiences. Three Sails Studios operates on the premise of radical transparency. I try to be as open with you all as possible and to share whatever knowledge I / we have acquired. In fact, there will be some more news on this topic soon, after a lot of encouragement from people at the convention. Your experiences will vary, of course, but everyone’s experience is valid and helpful.
As always, I’d love to hear how UKGE 2026 was for you, whether you were exhibiting or attending. If you want to share them, you can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, or join us on Discord.
You can also learn more about Mappa Mundi here (or buy it here), Gallows Corner here (and follow us on Kickstarter here), and about City of Espers here.
Until next time, be excellent to each other. A better world is possible!
In solidarity,
George
Studio Lead
