Small press, zero corporate fluff: Inside Edinburgh’s TAGS Fest 2026

Edinburgh’s Tabletop & Graphic Storytelling Festival (TAGS Fest) took over the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith on Saturday 17th October 2026, delivering an open, free-to-enter marketplace dedicated to self-published zines, comics, and roleplaying games. Organised under the Small Press Scotland banner, the gathering offered a quiet counterweight to commercialised convention halls, swapping corporate spectacle for creator-owned craft and direct community exchange.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall Marketplace

The main hall housed over 40 small-press creators under the venue’s skylights and suspended primary-colour buckets. Tables were deliberately spaced wide, keeping foot traffic calm and accessible rather than crowded.

• Handcrafted physical media: Hand-stapled risograph zines, limited-run comic anthologies, screenprints, patches, and bespoke dice sat directly on maker displays.
• Independent game designers: Micro-imprints turned out in force, including Grave Goods showcasing their fully human-written and illustrated TTRPG systems, and Palleon Press with handmade storytelling zines. Yorkshire game co-op Furtive Shambles brought along Small Town Skeletons, an inventive teen-drama roleplaying game built around cursed, skeletal youths, alongside their punchy song-inspired “Mixtape” party games.
• Peruvian cyberpunk and underground press: Comics stretched across eclectic styles, from Gustaffo Vargas displaying Peruvian cyberpunk books to the Underground Kingdom Comix collective running copies of The Gullet and Retail Park.
• Community and student voices: Tables featured projects like Dundee-based charity Comics Youth SCIO, the DJCAD Comics Module, Kutty Press, and ENNIE-award-winning designer Chalkdown.
• Dedicated play zones: Ancient Robot Games ran an adjacent Board Game Zone in the connected studio, while dedicated TTRPG sessions ran in separate, quiet workshop rooms to protect players from hall noise.

Friendly Spaces and Camera Policies

Prominent notices posted throughout the Drill Hall set an uncompromising baseline for mutual respect. Signage clearly outlined the festival’s Friendly Spaces Policy, but the explicit ban on hidden cameras stood out. As smart glasses with embedded lenses increasingly creep into everyday social spaces, public events face genuine consent issues. TAGS Fest took a refreshingly direct stance: any secret, disguised, or hidden recording gear brought an immediate ejection, ensuring attendees and creators could browse without being non-consensually streamed or logged.

The relaxed atmosphere reflected an Edinburgh tabletop scene that has only grown stronger since the lockdowns of six years ago. With a rising number of dedicated board game cafes, independent shops, and club spaces across the city, the local hobby network has matured into an active community. That foundation made TAGS Fest feel genuinely cooperative: creators, artists, and players mingled to talk layout craft, print costs, and game mechanics without sales pressure.

Antidote to Corporate Conventions

Big gaming trade shows increasingly prioritise corporate sponsorship, algorithmic engagement, and sterile trade booths. TAGS Fest demonstrates why micro-events matter.

Locally based Tettix Games was on the floor with copies of cartoonishly spooky board game Personal Demons. Fresh from completing its crowdfunding push, the title is now likely headed for retail release, giving backers and new players a chance to see final physical copies up close. Meanwhile, if you missed out on picking up horror releases at the Blue Fox Comics stall, you can still grab their solo mythos titles through the Bundle of Holding deal currently running.

Every pound spent at the Drill Hall went straight into the hands of the people who wrote the words, drew the panels, or folded the booklets. By focusing on accessible spaces, diverse artistic voices, and tangible physical media, TAGS Fest proves that community-run tabletop and comic fairs remain essential for independent creative scenes. Details and future dates remain hosted on tagsfest.co.uk.