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=1315589898583261And 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.htmlAnother Slight Diversion Facebook page:
http://blog.belisarius.org.uk/2018/11/battleground-2018-show.htmlHerkybird's blog:
http://herkybird-richardbradley.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.htmlWargames in the Dungeon blog:
http://wargamesinthedungeon.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-successful-day-at-battleground-and.htmlMad Tin Hatter's blog:
https://themadtinhatter.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.htmlOne Man and His Brushes blog:
http://onemanhisbrushes.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-game.htmlZabadak's blog:
https://zabadakszombieworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-2018.htmlWesterhope blog:
http://westerhopewargames.blogspot.com/2018/11/battleground-show-report-2018.htmlBorder Reivers game photos:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNiONM0kvwk0ORbG3Kl-8iBnJ8VPWzCoer2PhOQcGKNomHr2pOhfhpHTGG1TD8i3A?key=QlB0akFKNE12cTdoemVoOVJzZXp4alFNbC1SRFJBWe'll add any more as they appear.
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