With the torrential rain we'd seen in the days running up to this show, we weren't very optimistic about the weather on the day! But getting into the van at 4:30am, it was fairly bright, and fairly dry! Unfortunately, it wasn't to last, and the downpour continued as we trekked across the country. It had dried up a bit by the time we got to St Helens, so we unpacked quickly and got setup before the heavens opened again.
With us arriving at 7am, we were all ready to go by about 8:30, which was a good job, as the show opened a little early sometime just after 9-ish I think. I know this caused a few complaints from some traders, who were still getting themselves set up.
One piece of really bad news was that Andy Lyon of Ainsty's Castings had had his van broken into, and a whole load of stock stolen overnight. There's a few threads about this knocking about the various fora, but please keep an eye out for any Ainsty, Crooked Dice, or Rogue Miniatures stock appearing for sale on the cheap.
Numbers through the door were good, and up by 10% by the close of play, so somewhere around 650 people total. There were some Forum members knocking about as always, and we had chance to chat with fred12df for a while, along with some others (although no 'ian-MrTanks-rs54'! Unfortunately for us though, the 10mm sales just weren't there, and by midday Pendraken had taken the grand sum of £11...
It improved slightly through the afternoon, but by the end of the day, we were some 75% down on last year.
Despite the increased numbers through the door, our downturn seemed to be part of a similar trend among the other traders, with only 2 of the 8 I spoke with having had a good day. It's an odd one, as you'd expect the bigger footfall to mean more sales, but not the case it would seem. It's a real shame though, as the club/organisers always do a magnificent job with this show, there's great advertising, good organisation, loads of people there to help you unload, and get packed away again at the end of the day, so it just looks like folk weren't up for spending much unfortunately.
These things do happen though, and every now and then you get a random blip which can't be explained, so we'll just dust ourselves off and go at it again next year!
I grabbed a handful of quick pics of the games, but it was quite late on in the day, so I didn't have time to grab any captions unfortunately. I'll have a browse of some of the other blogs/reports online and see if I can fill in some notes.
AVBCW:
MAWS, 40k:
The Mailed Fist, The Battle of Edgehill:
The Battle of Amphipolis, 422BC:
East Lancashire Wargames Association, ECW:
Critical Mass Games:
Napoleonics:
Lance & Longbow Society, The Battle of Ravenna, 1512:
Warlord, Bolt Action:
Ancients, Romans vs Gauls:
And that's it for the first half of the year! Overall it's been a good run, and we're looking good going into the second half. Next up on the calendar is our very own 20th Birthday Bash, so make sure to check the full details on that one, and get along if you can!
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