Infiltrating The Olympia

This was it, the moment I had been dreading all weekend, passing for an 18 year old journalist in order to get my ECTS pass. I approached the stewardess women next to the entrance to the press office and got her attention “excuse me, is this the press office?” she nodded, “oh, I need to collect my passes” I said trying to make a more ‘lad-ish’ voice, “I’ll need a business card please” she said in a standard ‘McDonalds cashier’ voice. I was absolutely blown by this remark “but, I wasn’t told I needed a business card?” I said visibly confused, “sorry sir” she said as she seemed to push me aside while seeing other journalists waiting to collect their passes.

I was shocked and disappointed. I had stepped back to the corner of the street by the Olympia building with Mo standing next to me as I tried to think of what to do, grabbing at straws to try and heal my huge disappointment. We stood thinking of what to do for about 30 minutes until Journalists were aloud to enter the Olympia and I turned to Mo and said “sorry for messing you about, yeah?” “It’s OK” he said quietly knowing I was disappointed.

I remembered my friend Aaron told me to try the back entrance if I couldn’t get in thought the front one so we walked around the building until we found a big better looking entrance with a big ‘ECTS 2000’ sign above it. We went inside and we were at a reception type area and I suddenly got a huge boost of excitement like a million Christmases at once, I was actually inside the building and there was a reception where I could collect my two passes. I went up to the counter, which was reasonably deserted and had four women in front of computers wearing headsets behind it. “Hi, can I collect my press pass here?” I said in an unchangeable happy voice, “No, you need to collect that at the press office down that way” (pointes out of the door towards where we came from.) Obviously this is where we had just been and couldn’t get into.

I once again had to step back and have a think. In the reception behind a velvet rope was a row of glass doors about 4 metres wide, behind it was the show floor where I could see journalists busy testing upcoming games. This only fueled my excitement to get into the show and in a desperate attempt to find out what to do I approached a man in his early twenties wearing a ECTS shirt “excuse me, I have not prepared well and haven’t brought a business card with me, how can I collect my passes?” I then discovered he was actually German

“Oh, you can fill out a form for £25 (about $33) and get inside the show as a visitor”

“Oh great, where do I get the forms?”

“There’s a booth outside”

“Thanks for your help”

“No problem at all”

I explained to situation to Mo and I needed to raise some more funds as between us we only had £30 ($45) and we needed £50 ($70). I phoned my dad on my mobile phone and asked very nicely if he could bring us £20 ($30), he was already most of the way home but he kindly agreed and brought us the extra £20. When he arrived he told me he didn’t want to make the trip again and told me to take the train home as the station was on the other side of the road directly opposite the Olympia.

The booth was very small and had two people inside selling blue visitor pass forms. I pointed out to Mo that this would be where we need to look older the most and he gave me his wallet so I didn’t look so young fiddling with my pennies. I qued up and paid my £50 and the two middle aged women inside the booth didn’t give me a second look.

We went back to the reception type area of the Olympia and started to fill out our pass forms. “What’s my job position and my company?” Mo whispered quite amused, “just put editor and htloz.com”. At the time I was an editor at the now closed htloz.com which was the best Zelda website on the internet and was around for three whole years, I decided to write a small feature about the games I played for the site. We took our forms up to the women behind the counter who then busily typed our information into the computers and told us to collect oure passes from the printers around the corner. We went behind the velvet rope and qued up in front of the women handing out the passes as they printed. “Who’s Andy Robinson” “Oh, that’s me” I took my pass and to my great pleasure realised the people at the counter put me down as press. “And who’s Mo…(edited for privacy)?” “That’s me” Mo collected his pass that to my amusement was a visitor pass.

We were now free to go. After a weeks worrying and an hours disappointment all my questioning and thinking had paid off, I was going to play the games I had been writing and reading about and the Gameboy Advance that was unveiled just a week before at the Spaceworld show in Japan. I pinned my pass to my shirt and opened the glass door to be confronted with a huge hall full of videogames I wanted to play and Journalists who write the stories I read. It was an explosion of excitement and I found it hard not to run around singing and dancing