A portion of a Nintendo Life interview with group creator James Bowden...

Nintendo Life: This is your fifth event now, how did StreetPass Manchester come about?

James Bowden: Free time and a thirst for pink pieces! Well, that's the short answer. The longer answer would point towards StreetPass Edinburgh. Chap that runs that, Kerr Henderson, he was featured on Nintendo Life after his first meet, around this time last year, and it looked fun. He talked about just putting posters up and I was like, 'I could do that', so I hopped on Twitter and blurted to the void 'I wish there was a StreetPass thing in Manchester' and then I had a bunch of people echo my sentiment, so I took the initiative to 'start' the group by setting up a Twitter, a Facebook page, and throwing posters around town. Y'know, I just wanted to play some Mario Kart and Kid Icarus, and the console was still finding its feet this time last year so I wanted to help get people more excited to be a 3DS owner. That last part isn't so necessary nowadays, the console is deliciously stacked with titles, but people are always after multiplayer buddies.