Now I might just have been hearing things (it happens) but I’m convinced I heard something about epic maybe doing something at the Develop conference. Now I’m new to games dev and have no idea what happens at things like this but i’m intrigued and want to maybe pop down and have a look.
I guess what I’m asking is a) will epic be there? and b) what normally happens at these things?
Many thanks
Nobody from Epic will be at Develop unless they are there attending as a customer.
3-500 quid is a lot of money to drop on attending an event if you don’t know what it is? Develop is a conference aimed at developers - you sit down in lectures and talks for three days.
More a case that I live close by and if anything was happening I’d go.
They have an indie dev ticket for the 10th at £110 which whilst isn’t cheap isn’t too unreasonable a price if it’s a good day out of the office.
The indie ticket only gets you into the Expo part of the building and the smaller indie dev sessions. It’s not a bad ticket, but it’s not a entry into the proper conference, which is possibly the best in Europe (it’s our equivalent of GDC). Most of the talks will be exceptionally good for anyone serious about game development 
Develop tickets are too expensive imo . I’d love to go one day but can’t afford them atm.
Renting a building with several rooms suitable for lecturing large numbers of people and housing displays (ergo capable of housing a few thousand people) is expensive. Then there’s the costs of getting people to deliver talks, as well as logistical ****. Develop isn’t that badly priced, it’s similar to GDC and way better value for money than the smaller conferences in the UK like GameHorizon (which was about 300 quid for only one developer track over two half days, IIRC).
Nobody gets paid to do talks at industry conferences. At least I’ve never been paid for one. Usually you get “free entry” and the like. People generally do this for profile and/or for recruitment.
If i remember rightly, Mark Rein did develop last year? I seem to recall some issue between him and Cliff Harris (although I wouldn’t be surprised if Cliff deliberately stirred things a bit for more press coverage).
Either way, sometimes things like Develop have side benefits, like meeting people who you later work with, or generally getting your face out there. I prefer the US GDC for actual content, but even that is more about the networking and peer stuff (we generally have a big AI dinner before and after the main GDC so we can chat about the job etc).
So for Develop, there are a bunch of evening get-together’s for various things. Simon Barrett (four door lemon) does a good one, but you’ll probably find things by hanging round the bars near the venue (metropole bar had a ton of people around last time I was there).
Hi Folks,
We are not 100% sure who will be there, sorting that out this afternoon. Some Epic folks will be, and we would love to meet up with you 
Hey everyone! We love Develop, wouldn’t miss it. For us the value is always there.
Confirmed attendees
And most likely
We’re sponsoring a game jam and icebreaker drinks, and will host a demo booth in the networking lounge.
To those who can come, look forward to seeing you there!
Neat! I should have assumed would be there seeing as he’s only a short drive away…
You’re not doing any talks or anything though, just networking, I assume?
Look forward to hopefully meeting some forum folks there
Will recording from UE4 stage be available online ?
I’d really like to watch it ;).
I don’t think they’re doing any talks, just having a booth.
https://twitter/UnrealEngine/status/486818819231711233
This looks like talk to me. Though I might be wrong :D.
Anyway, we should get similar talk on Thursday I think.
Yep, they had some talks there 
(when you scroll down a little bit you will find Golding and Mark Rein)
://www.developconference/page.cfm/action=VisitorList/ListID=1/t=m/goSection=2_32
Ah neat. Epic didn’t have anyone in the speakers list the last time I looked!