Another Digital Nationz expo next year is a possibility, says Vector Arena business development manager Peter Hall.

About 7000 people attended Digital Nationz over the weekend, which Hall said was a very strong showing.

“Very few events would be able to get that amount of people through the doors first time round,” he said.

“My guilty pleasure though was the History of Gaming Museum, it outdid my expectations and Mike and Mark executed it perfectly, we just need to ensure we can get more people through it as the queuing was not a great experience for people at all.”

Hall said that while nothing was confirmed, he already had ideas for another event.

“The biggest improvement will be that we now have 12 months to plan for the next event.

“Just imagining what we can do in that amount of time is kind of mind boggling.

“Seeing the reaction of the people on the day and hearing all the chatter, it was extremely rewarding and also gave me ideas for new concepts and improvements... stay tuned.

“I want people to be able to look back nostalgically at previous events and remember how special and different each expo was, instead of feeling that we got boring and tired, just the same way I saw them look at the History of Gaming Museum consoles and games with a huge smile on their face.”

Last weekend’s event was a success but there were some headaches, said Hall.

“I’m extremely proud of the event,” he said.

“[But] we definitely have a lot of room for improvement, I don’t want anyone thinking we aren't aware of the issues.

“I'm guided by my own experiences as a user, punter and gamer, so I'll never be okay with a part of Digital Nationz not living up to that benchmark, and I feel some areas let us down, which is why we didn’t do the LAN – I would rather not do something at all then do it poorly.”

Hall cited a need for better speaker audio and an upgraded VIP lounge as two things that immediately sprang to mind.

He also addressed the expo’s 4:30pm closing time, which was erroneously advertised as 6pm.

“There was a bit of confusion regarding this and I'm very sorry about that – the last speaker finished up at 4:30pm.

“We will work hard over the next 12 months to get those elements right.

“An event like this would usually be a 8-12 month planning cycle, so when you consider that the whole event went from idea to plan to creation in only four months, I think we got a good result.”

“Overall though I feel we got more things right than wrong.”