Back at home now, after the COLOURS show in Newbury.
I do keep calling this the Reading show as it was in the centre of Reading for many years (Armageddon etc) .
The best part of the show is catching up with some gossip and friends.
Quite a few times I had to say "I did not know that had happened".
If I only have to stand around and chat; I can do a Colours show every weekend and would love it.
My "limitation" is the time needed to prepare for shows and the overhead costs to attend (Stand fee, wages, food, fuel).
For myself, distance and likely sales are limiting factors. Newbury was a round trip of 240 miles.
I left home at 6.30 am and got home at 8.30 pm.
Had a nice Mc Donalds in both directions.
By reducing "stock carried" drastically helped with the load and unload.
There are 39 steps (36 actually) from the flat ground up to the first floor.
We did that 5 times each for load and unload.
Quite enough.
Colours
There seemed fewer traders than normal but still more than enough to satisfy most gamers I think.
Plenty of attendees. See chat above.
The host club did a good job of organisation.
Another trader had collapsed our stand to give himself more space, but we found plenty of space to set up a new one elsewhere .
There was a lot of extra space on the first floor this year. That was a good thing.
I am embarrassed to say that I did not really look around the show because it was only Nigel and I in attendance.
This means that my observations are cursory.
I bought nothing but Nigel bought some Warbases coloured field templates, which looked nice.
That is our only show in 2022.
That compares with an all time high of 39 in 1995(?).
martin :)
What cheeky beggars other traders are!
Glad it was a good day. I agree on the standing around and chatting bit. Always a good aspect of any show. I wonder what Nigel is going to use those field templates for?
I hope shows survive. The number has certainly dropped from 1995. I doubt there are 39 shows left even if you wished to attend that many.
There are at least a couple of shows in each of the north, midlands and south that remain steadfast for gamers. Hopefully this means the spend with traders remains the same just concentrated across fewer shows to continue to make them worthwhile.
Paid a very quick visit yesterday (under 2 hours) to the show, it was good to catch up with Martin, Nigel, Richard and the Old Pikeys. Seemed busy, but did hear the footfall was down on previous years, not surprising with the Covid legacy. Bring and buy was heaving so gave it a miss, surprised at the reduced amount of display games on the third floor. Best game of the show for me was the Malta game as per Simon's photo's. Picked up a P/P order, but did not give in to the temptation of the new M113's, did get a couple of the knocked out M3's - very nice casts. Some nice eye candy on display, liked the new 28mm Vietnam ranges by Gringo and Empress but wrong scale for me, thought the M50 Onto's was a stunning model. Good morning out and a Mc D's as well
D&B
It sounds like you had a useful day, Martin, and I hope sales were good. I think that offering an incentive for pre-orders is a good plan, as it gets folk to commit.
Having most of the RFCM rules out on display (as well as the Piggy dice) made the stand colourful with plenty of talking points. And the M113s were of course the models du jour.
I hope you got a few MexRev games in during the day too?
Simon
It's odd what you hear. I was told by one of the organisers at the end of the show that the foot fall was quite a lot up on previous years.
It was good show either way.
John
No doubt your right John, I just heard it from a trade stand.
D&B