Galactic Gathering – National Space Centre – Leicester – Jun 2025

Another sell out event at the National Space Centre this year for their Galactic Gathering. Once again we were well looked after by Malika and the team, free parking, green room with refreshments, lunch provided on both days and dinner in the form of pizza provided for the social on the Saturday evening. They were really helpful with tables as well and storage of stuff, the area we had to set up was not the best area we could have asked for but given the lay out of the centre there weren’t any really ideal spaces that we could have occupied.

It was a very busy event with loads of very happy people wandering around, as a Star Wars specific event everyone present is a fan with made us even busier. There was also a fabulous showing from the Steam Team which, while amazing and supremely popular, it did mean that they were lighter than ideal with people manning the Droidbuilders stand, and the Droidbuilders were light with bodies manning the Steam room. Wives were drafted in and did a stunning job filling the gaps, alongside some dedicated builders that pretty much never left the stand all weekend.

The weather was a scorcher on both days so Doug’s rider of mint Cornettos (other ice-creams were also available) was finally realised (on both days). Look how happy he is.

The venue itself is always fun to visit with a Douglas Thor IRBM parked in the middle of it, along with sections from the ISS and various other exciting space stuff. Not that there was lots of time to get around and see everything but it does make for funky photo ops.

The evening entertainment consisted of a very enjoyable sit down with all the builders, costuming groups and some of the other exhibitors. Pizza which was closely followed by karaoke made for an interesting evening, sadly (well possibly sadly) none of the builders were sufficiently brave to take the microphone, however, there was a (in some cased forced) group rendition of the time warp.

Once again there were some good backdrops for photo ops and opportunities to interact with the public with the various costuming groups there which always adds a little to the excitement of the paying guests.

And even managed to find myself a couple of padawans, complete with braids, for the weekend, one slightly less impressed than the other.

Overall this is one of my favourites (I think I might have said that in my last 3 event reports) and would highly recommend it to everyone. We are well looked after, the public is really appreciative, there is a parade through the Space Centre and mass photo op at the end of each day (yes I know I should have taken photos of that) where all of the cosplayers and droids meet for a group photo at the end of the parade.

Many thanks to all those Droidbuilders, WAGs and everyone else that worked their backsides off all weekend to make the event what it is.