Well another year is over for The Asylum and I must say it seems like it was a roaring success with my personal congratulations going out to Major Tinker and the rest of the volunteer staff involved.
This isn't to say it didn't have its share of problems such as the typical British bad weather (a surprising first for the event as all previous years had the fortune of bright sunshine), a bomb scare in early hours of the morning Lincoln castle and the staff at The Venue causing all kind of issues, its to their credit that practically all of these problems went unnoticed by those attending.

Of my own experience there is three items I wish to highlight:

First of all the sad departure of Kit Cox, stand-up comedian, leading exponent of Steampunk and counsellor for British soldiers returning from war zones. Mr Cox has previously taken part in hosting events at the Asylum under his alter ego Major Jack Union  and is particularly know for his lectures and book both known as "How to Bag a Jabberwock: A Practical Guide to Monster Hunting". This is not to say Mr Cox will not be attending the events at all in the future but it will be as a visitor rather than as a member of staff.
For those interested there is a well written review of the book written by Magda Knight and a copy can be purchased from Amazon here.

The second point which was actually my most enjoyable experience of the Asylum was meeting Mrs Lynne Hardy the creator of Cogs, Cakes & SwordSticks, it is rare I purchase a roleplay game (or indeed anything) purely on the personal impression of a writer upon me but Mrs Hardy has genuine love for Steampunk and roleplay which can't help but make a person smile. The game itself does not disappoint and I was fortunate enough to take part in a short game with Mrs Hardy and she really brought out the strengths of the extremely simple system, in the near future I intend to write and post a small series of adventures for the system which Mrs Hardy has offer to read herself so I hope you look forward to this.
A free preview of the system is available from RPG now and for those interested in Mrs Lynne Hardy beyond Modiphius her own blog is available here.

The final highlight of the event which I wish to share is the excellent 7 piece band The Mechanisms who performed the grim tale of  "Ulysses Dies at Dawn" at The Venue on the Sunday and put on an amazing show, I could tell you more but that would spoil the story but I highly recommend a listen here and to give them some support.

And lastly a bit of personal news I discovered today as I wrote this I am the fortunate winner of the Prize Promenade and will be shortly receiving a rather fine deerstalker hat, the free contest entries were provided with the event guides at sign in for the event and consisted of a mix of questions and a scavenger hunt based around the various venues of the event. Completing all the questions and finding all the stamps would allow your form to be entered into the prize draw, amusingly from the various stamp holders I spoke to during the weekend I may of been the only person to fully complete the event.

So if you attend next year and find a small competition form with your event guide, feel free to put it in your back pocket or purse and forget all about it, I would quite enjoy another hat.