Whenever I talk about Adelaide I always seem to be met with a certain attitude. You know that one. The one that says Adelaide is boring. The one that says nothing ever seems to happen around here. The one that says everyone knows each other because we’re so small.
I will agree with you about everyone knowing each other. I see Adelaide as one giant pretzel when it comes to knowing each other. But that doesn’t mean that Adelaide is dead. Sure, the shops close early but stuff happens around here a lot more than you might think. You just need to know where to look. I thought I’d go through some of Adelaide’s clubs, groups and hangouts that I know about so that you can never complain about being bored in Adelaide again.
How many if you are into gaming? Well, if you’re in the city on a Friday then you can head down to EVAC. The “Extremely Versatile Acronym Club” might be a bit of a misleading title, but it is a group dedicated to video games, card games, board games and Japanese Mahjong. It meets in the Harry Medlin North Room in the Adelaide Universities Union House from 4PM until 8PM every Friday. Although it is a University club anyone is welcome to attend. You can just bring yourself or you can also bring your gaming console. We have some CRTs and 1080p screens to accommodate for you. Afterward most people then travel down to the food court of the Central Market for some affordable yet incredibly tasty meals.
Taking the board game approach a bit further, the Adelaide Board Game Group meet up every Monday at the German Club from 6PM to 9PM. Entry is just a gold coin donation to cover the venue hire. The kitchen is also open so you can play euro games and eat Schnitzels! I don’t believe the club has an inventory of games but everyone collectively brings enough for everyone to play. I’ve only been to two of these last year, but I might consider going back now that I have some free time. The only problem is that nobody I know that well enough attends these things. But you never know what could happen.
Another community I have yet to attend are the Streetgeek LAN Parties. But I do know a lot of people who are involved in them. They meet once every month at the Colonel Light Gardens Uniting Church. The main reason is that I don’t do a huge amount of PC gaming. But then again, they also have a console area too so I probably shouldn’t use that as an excuse.
Here is one I only came across on Saturday night. Are you into retro arcade machines and Pinball? If so then you I must tell you about Gameroom Essentials. They do up and sell arcade and pinball machines. But most Saturday nights they have a lock in where you pay $25 and can play everything to your hearts content from 7PM until midnight. I haven’t seen a collection this big or satisfying since Magic Mountain closed down. You do have to check on their website in advance though as they might have hired the place out for a party in which case there will be no lock-in that week.
Are you into game development? If so then ARGGGH: Adelaide's Really Good Gathering of Game Developers meet up on the second Tuesday of every month at the Goodie Hotel where you can mingle with developers and other great people in Adelaide’s gaming industry. It’s all pretty informal so you can just rock up and have a few beers if you wish or even order a Schnitzel. Even if you’re not a developer you’re still welcome and I highly recommend that you do.
A really awesome group of people are the guys that run Retrospekt. It started as a retro gaming website where you can catch the latest news on all thing to do with retro gaming but has expanded to include some great events that they run including the Retrospekt Museum at AVCon, the Super Video Game Trivia Challenge and their Joypad music and gaming nights. Unfortunately Joypad is currently on hiatus, as we need a new venue. So if you know of somewhere suitable then please let up know so we can crank up the awesome again.
Jumping out of the Gaming realm and into Adelaide’s Anime community. Do you want to watch Anime on a big screen? Perhaps you want to discuss all things Anime. Well AJAS, the Adelaide Japanese Anime Society meet up every Tuesday night from 6PM to 9PM in the Centenary Building of the UniSA City Wast campus. It seems to be more popular nowadays to just turn up and talk about Anime then it is to actually go into the lecture theatre and watch anything. Which is a bit bizarre but still lots of fun. I may have transformed this group into a beginner Japanese Mahjong club as well. Afterward everyone goes to the Hungry Jacks on the corner of Pultney and Rundle street to complain about how bad the service is and debate about things. My suggestion is to ask Barron how his job is going.
In the end I guess community is what you make it. You could sit at home complaining that nothing happens in Adelaide or you could get out there and start something. AVCon only had 200 people at its first event and now it’s pushing closer to 20,000. That only shows that the people are definitely out there. So come out and have some fun and be part of our community. I guarantee you won’t regret it.
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