Game Talk - Alex Davis
- Mar 19
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 20
Edge-Lit. Sledge-Lit. U.K. Ghost Story Festival. Derby Quad. Museum of Making. Darkness in the Fields. If you've heard of any of these, let alone attended them, then you've probably heard of Alex Davis. Time to get into the game.
1. For those who don't know, who are you?
Hello! I’m Alex Davis and I’m probably best known as an event organiser and lecturer. I teach at the University of Derby and De Montfort University, and my annual events programme includes the UK Ghost Story Festival, Edge-Lit, the Darkness in the Fields programme, Spring Haunts, Winter Haunts and many more! As you’ll have noticed, a great deal of those have a focus on horror and the Gothic, with a smattering of fantasy and science-fiction to boot. I wish I had a neat and tidy job title, but that would probably need me to have a neat and tidy job. To be fair, there’s more than the above even, but I don’t want to go on too long…
2. Game talk – how do you organise and manage your game? How has it evolved?
For me, I suppose I try and plan everything to death – most events ultimately succeed or fail in the fine details. Marketing does of course make a huge difference, but once you have everyone there it’s about knowing where all your authors and staff should be, making sure the venue has all the tech info and generally just being on hand should anything go awry – which of course it can! I suppose that an illusion of calm helps too – people often tell me I look pretty calm, though that’s certainly not always the case. My last word of advice to anyone on this front would very much be to take care of your authors – we rightly put a lot of focus on audiences, but communicating information and checking in with all your speakers before and during your event is essential in my mind.
In terms of evolution, as much as I can’t quite fully let go of the ‘control freak’ in me where it comes to events, I have certainly tried to become more collaborative and work with more people, which has definitely opened up plenty of interesting new possibilities. Things like Lauren McMenemy’s Writing the Occult and collaborations with Writing Magazine like Spring Haunts and Winter Haunts have been really positive all around.
3. Talk us through one of your biggest achievements in your game – give us the story behind it. How did it play out?
This is sort of a weird question for me to answer, because in my mind as soon as one event is done it’s basically onto the next – I must admit I rarely take a lot of time to look back on things. On top of that, any event itself can sort of be a blur, and my recollection of things that have happened in the past sometimes blend together in a whirl of running around and organising. I also feel like in looking back I focus on the negatives more than the positives, so it’s just onwards and upwards to me!
If there’s a thing I like to see, it’s always a pleasure to see an event come to life after all the work that’s gone into it, and see people really enjoying themselves after all the energy and effort that has gone on paper to make it real, but I’m not really sure I could pick a single thing out.
4. Let's come back to the planning side of things. I know we discussed this before in terms of how the COVID pandemic helped usher in online programming and hybrid events. How has your approach to relaxation and rest changed over time, e.g., is it something you're mindful to schedule?
Honestly, I'm probably one of the worst examples you could hope for in terms of work-life balance - I think that's in part the freelance lifestyle, in that you never quite know exactly what's around the corner. So there's a bit of you that wants to grab the work and keep busy so there's the money for a 'rainy day', and also there's an overriding sense that if you don't take the work then whoever is offering it might not think of you for the next piece of work! I'd encourage anyone out there starting our freelancing - or thinking about going freelance - to try and do this much better than me. Online events do save some travel and logistics concerns, but there's still an awful lot of other aspects of work involved.
5. It's great if things go according to plan. Tell us about when it didn't; how did you handle it? What were/are those challenges?
One of the main things that can happen in my line of work – for a variety of reasons – is authors and speakers not being able to attend! I’m at a point now where I tend to have a backup session in hand, just in case I need to jump in – as much as it’s probably not quite what people wanted, or expected, I think audiences do appreciate the ‘show must go on’ approach. And honestly authors are at large such a cool bunch of people that if you ask nicely, the odds are someone will be able to help out. I always massively appreciate anyone who’s able to bail me out in those scenarios!
6. Give a pep-talk to someone on game in your field.
The best thing I can really say is do it because you love it, and because you enjoy doing it – for all the stresses and strains it can still bring, I count myself very lucky to do able what I do and to make anything resembling a living at. And there are so many exciting moments when you get to work with some incredible authors, and it’s a great pleasure to think that things you have done might have had some small hand in people’s successes going forward!
7. Promo for website / links:
You can check out my range of online events upcoming at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/alex-davis-events-17318878423
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