Christmas at the NVA: The perfect venue for your Christmas fun

The National Videogame Arcade in Hockley, the world's first cultural centre to celebrate videogames opened its doors in Nottingham city centre in March this year. Since then it has welcomed 25,000 visitors to its three gallery floors of interactive and playable exhibits and games. Following the tenth GameCity festival in October, the team are now busy preparing for the Christmas holidays with extended opening times and alternatives to the usual office festive party. The NVA will be open to the public for festive fun from Friday 18th December until Sunday 3rd, closing only for 24-26th December and New Years Eve and Day. This week GameCity hosted Tech Nottingham’s Christmas party at the NVA. The event caused enough social media excitement that it trended on Twitter. Emma Sewell Tech Nottingham and Hack24 organiser said, “Tickets to the #NottTechParty sold out in under three minutes and we had a huge waiting list - a testament to the enthusiasm that the local tech community shows for these important events. The NVA opened up the entire venue exclusively for us for the evening and soon every floor was buzzing with activity. If you haven’t yet visited the NVA, go. Go with friends, go with your family, go with anyone - just go. It’s an AWESOME place. Floors and floors of fun and games, old and new.” There is still time to book Christmas parties at the NVA, where the crew at GameCity are poised to deliver your workplace scores with a full video game tournament! What better way to end the night than with an opportunity to fight a reindeer of your choice in the interspecies tournament at the NVA! Iain Simons, director says “We know that Christmas holidays can be stressful for everyone, parents included. What better way to relax than with some carefully managed virtual violence between friends?” Other Christmas events include; a return of Gamer Gamer, an evening of fun where award-winning comedians play classic, rare and and new videogames in the battle to become the Games Master! Streetpass East Midlands will host their end of year festive meet-up and there’s also special evening in the Toast Bar featuring Ingress - the winner of the Grand Prize at the 2015 Japanese Media Festival. For more information about the NVA and Christmas events Visit www.gamecity.org