Battleground 2025 Report!

[Leon]

I'm a bit late getting this up!

Last month was our annual Battleground show and it was our biggest yet!  The new venue is really proving to be a positive move and we've been able to grow the event with more games and traders than ever before.  And thankfully the weather was on our side this year, which definitely helped!

We had a few wrinkles as is often the case, with the tables arriving late and setting us back a couple of hours.  The canteen still wasn't up to speed so we'll be following up with them about that for next year.  But other than those, everything went to plan and we were really pleased with it.

This year we had 34 traders, 28 games, 4 living history groups, and 3 historical talks.  The tabletop sale had once again sold out by September and we didn't have a single drop-out leading up to the event.  There's not really much we can do to expand this as more selling tables means more money directed away from the traders, which we don't want to do.

The new traders reported a good day's sales, and several of our regulars had their best ever takings, which was fantastic to hear.  The event was quite noticeably busier throughout the day and our final total attendance was 971 people!  We're getting so close to that 1000 mark, so that's going to be our target for 2026.

One important bit of news for next year is that we'll be moving the show to a Sunday instead.  This wasn't something we were looking to do ourselves, but the decision was unfortunately taken out of our hands.  The venue is owned by the local council and they've got a long-standing contract with a roller hockey team for Friday night training sessions.  Recently they've been having most of their training cancelled due to events needing to setup, so they've raised a complaint with the council and the venue have had to respond. 

We did explore other options with them, but the only real alternatives were to get rid of Friday setups, which just isn't viable at all.  Or move the event to a completely different point of the year, outside of roller hockey season (Sept-May) which wasn't an option either.

I don't think it'll have any impact at all on the visitor side of things, as we can see with the Partizans and Vapnartak, Sunday events are well-attended elsewhere.  But it is going to cause a clash with the Reveille show in Bristol for some of our traders.  I can only apologise for this, I'd never step on another show's toes intentionally but we didn't have much choice here.

We've uploaded a load of photos from the day to Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1496802542449635&type=3


So, numbers for the day compared to previous years:

.	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Traders	56	59	68	62	62	64	64	37	48	53	58	54
Gamers	52	48	53	67	85	87	88	46	84	84	76	77
Living History	0	0	0	11	4	10	11	12	22	25	14	16
Visitors	498	517	469	427	607	567	596	472	664	705	539	824
TOTAL	606	624	590	567	758	728	759	567	818	867	687	971

So, next year's show will be held on Sunday 29th November 2026, so we hope to see you there!


If you come across any other reports please let me know and I'll add them below.

Carryings On Up The Dale blog: https://www.carryingsonupthedale.com/2025/12/battleground-2026-grand-day-out.html
Wargames in the Dungeon blog: https://wargamesinthedungeon.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-battle-of-nile-battleground-show.html
The Wargaming Erratic blog: https://thewargamingerratic.home.blog/2025/12/05/battleground-2025/
Balkan Dave blog: https://balkandave.blogspot.com/2025/11/battleground-2025.html
Ilkley Wargamers blog: https://colinthewargamer.blogspot.com/2025/12/jolly-good-show-waterloo-at.html

[Raider4]

... One important bit of news for next year is that we'll be moving the show to a Sunday instead...

Sunday events are well-attended elsewhere.  But it is going to cause a clash with the Reveille show in Bristol for some of our traders.

Can't imagine many people do a show on Saturday in 'Boro and then leg it down to Bristol for the Sunday? 

[fsn]

Great report. Good photos.

Nice to see the event maintaining.

I'm a bit late getting this up!

That's what she said?

[Chris Pringle]

Congratulations on another successful show.

Ilkley Irregulars' report is here:
https://colinthewargamer.blogspot.com/2025/12/jolly-good-show-waterloo-at.html

[steve_holmes_11]

Very nice to see a sharp rise in visitors.

[Leon]

Can't imagine many people do a show on Saturday in 'Boro and then leg it down to Bristol for the Sunday?

I think there were only two this year, Grubby Tanks (as he lives in Southampton so it's on the way home really) and Pit Gaming (who drives up from London).  In previous years I'm sure there were a few more.

Congratulations on another successful show.

Ilkley Irregulars' report is here:
https://colinthewargamer.blogspot.com/2025/12/jolly-good-show-waterloo-at.html

Excellent, I'll get that added to the list.