Battleground 2018 Report!

[Leon]

Our Battleground show was this past weekend and it was another great year!  The Free Entry promotion had worked extremely well last year, so after a chat with our traders we'd been able to put that in place permanently.  Hopefully this will become a real plus point for our event and we'll be able to continue growing the event.

Some of you might remember that we had some issues with the table company so this year we'd switched to a different supplier and the tables were succesfully delivered in the morning, allowing us to get going as soon as we got there at 2pm.  Setup was quick and we were soon ready for the traders and gamers to start setting up.  The remaining stands/games arrived on Saturday morning and we were ready to go!

Our other main concern for this year was the catering.  The Aroma cafe onsite had been closed due to a reduction in the number of students on campus so we'd brought in an outside catering van providing sandwiches, butties, pies and more.  This proved a real success and the van had sold out of everything by about 1pm.  They'd even restocked 3 times from their main shop so they'll be bringing a lot more stock next year!  Inside the venue we had a couple of people providing hot drinks as well.

Once again, the gamers did us proud and brought along some fantastic games this year.  This is one of the highlights of the event for us, we always do our best to squeeze in as many games as we can and it gives the visitors a lot to both look at and get involved in.  Thanks to all of the gamers for coming along and supporting the show.

For this year, we had a big expansion to our event with the addition of three talks by the Battlefields Trust.  Based on the 3 main ECW actions in our local area, Phil Philo did an excellent job of the presentations and we've had a lot of positive feedback from everyone who attended them.  The talks were backed up with the Trust's model of the Battle of Piercebridge, put together by Mark Hornsby, which looked fantastic.  We're hoping that we can work with the Trust in future years to add more talks and presentations on a variety of subjects.

The Tabletop Sale was another big plus and despite us adding another 2 tables to the event, we'd sold out almost all of the slots before the doors even opened.  We'd increased the slot price from £1.00 to £1.50 per half-hour but this didn't seem to put people off in the slightest.  Trade was brisk across most of the tables and the folks doing the selling seemed to be having a good time.  The slight negative was that with all the tables sold, there were several people who were wanting to book a slot on the day and we had to turn them away.  For next year I don't think we'd put the price up again, but we might look at limiting the number of slots a person can book, so that people aren't booking a table for the entire day.

The only negative was that our visitors numbers had dropped slightly from last year, but it didn't seem to affect the atmosphere in the show.  Numbers for this year, compared to previous years:

.	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Traders	56	59	68	62	62	64
Gamers	52	48	53	67	85	87
Visitors	498	517	469	427	607	567
Re-Enactors	0	0	0	11	4	10
TOTAL	606	624	590	567	758	728

Thanks to everyone who came along, the traders, gamers, re-enactors and of course the visitors.  The 2019 show will be taking place on Saturday 30th November, so we hope to see you there!

All of our photos have been uploaded to our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BattlegroundShow/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1315589898583261

And here's a selection of the feedback we've had so far on the blogs and social media:

Carryings On Up The Dale blog: http://www.carryingsonupthedale.com/2018/11/battleground-show-2018-and-battle-of.html
Another Slight Diversion Facebook page: http://blog.belisarius.org.uk/2018/11/battleground-2018-show.html
Herkybird's blog: http://herkybird-richardbradley.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.html
Wargames in the Dungeon blog: http://wargamesinthedungeon.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-successful-day-at-battleground-and.html
Mad Tin Hatter's blog: https://themadtinhatter.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.html
One Man and His Brushes blog: http://onemanhisbrushes.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-game.html
Zabadak's blog: https://zabadakszombieworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.html
Westerhope blog: http://westerhopewargames.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-show-report-2018.html
Border Reivers game photos: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNiONM0kvwk0ORbG3Kl-8iBnJ8VPWzCoer2PhOQcGKNomHr2pOhfhpHTGG1TD8i3A?key=QlB0akFKNE12cTdoemVoOVJzZXp4alFNbC1SRFJB

We'll add any more as they appear.

[Techno]

There are some absolutely cracking photo's in (on?) the different links.....and I haven't looked through all of them yet.

Cheers - Phil

[Steve J]

It's a show I would love to attend one day, as it seems to have a good mix of games, with the re-enactors and battlefield talks being a nice bonus.

[pierre the shy]

Looks like a very successful show......all the games look well presented and many different periods represented 

I always look wistfully at the number of traders at UK/US shows and think how much stuff I could acquire on a "nice to have" rather than "must have" basis 

It would be great to actually meet the people who run various gaming outfits I have bought stuff from over the years for a bit of a chat and to thank them for their service to gamers "down under".   

Thanks for the report Leon.

[kabrank]

Leon

On slots perhaps keep a table available that can only be booked on the day?

[Leon]

On slots perhaps keep a table available that can only be booked on the day?

That's another option, definitely.  We've got 14 tables available so we could pre-book 10 of them and leave 4 open for on the day.

[CV10man]

Great show as usual. I really enjoyed the day but I do have a complaint - the show was not long enough! I only got to play one game whereas I had planned to play two games - but also needed to go shopping, chat to friends and have a quick lunch. Roll on Battleground 2019.

[Terry37]

Leon,

A really great photo report, and what looks like a great con!!!! I am amazed at some of the truly awesome looking games presented! Some of those guys put more work in their table dressing than I do for an entire army!!!!

Thank you so much for sharing and wish you continued luck in the future!!!

Terry

[Leon]

Great show as usual. I really enjoyed the day but I do have a complaint - the show was not long enough! I only got to play one game whereas I had planned to play two games - but also needed to go shopping, chat to friends and have a quick lunch. Roll on Battleground 2019.

Glad you liked it David, I'll see what I can do about warping the space/time continuum to stretch those 5 hours out!

Thank you so much for sharing and wish you continued luck in the future!!!

Thanks Terry!

[CV10man]

Leon - As a Star Trek fan I would have thought that if you try to warp the space/time continuum you would make the shoe go faster not slower! I await your next proposal to deal with my complaint with interest.

[Leon]

You just have to be in perpetual motion around the hall and time will pass slower for you...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8lBIcHre0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8lBIcHre0</a>