On Saturday I travelled 50 miles down to Plymouth for the wargame show. I was alone, the reason for this was that the rest of our group thought it was so poor last year it was not worth the petrol and admin fee!
What was so bad last year?
Well, we all go to shows for different reasons.
- Buy new figures
- See demonstration games we can only dream of aspiring to
- See old friends
- Try out some participation games
- See what is new on the scene
- Get away from the family
Unfortunately last year Plymouth lost a lot of hall space, the huge bring and buy was relocated into the main hall where possibly 4 trader would have been, last year being the first since covid they focused on participation games with no demo games to speak of, a big mistake especially if you do not control the quality. Too many traders had similar stock. Local stores having a trade space, is never in my opinion a great thing as I would have used the shop rather than pay the entrance fee to visit and travellers will never use the shop as they live too far away.
In my opinion while this years show was better, it still felt like a dying show. Nearly every trader I spoke to said the takings were slow. Now Plymouth is a 2 day show but Sundays is normally dead. I think it is a two day show just to allow completion of the completion games as I believe the entrance fees support the majority of income. Year ago I use to stay over and put demos on but not anymore.
I do believe show organisers value the demo game. For many years I put on demo games at my local show, Legionary. Each year I would do something different so people saw new figures. Normally 300 to 500 figures on a 12×6 table but more and more show started saying only room players free entry. I get it if I turned up with 10 but to put a large game on you need players. One of the last shows I did was a 240 mile round trip, £12 a day parking and a £10 entrance fee per day. So the five of us spent £30 on fuel, £60 each on a hotel room, £30 each on food, similar on drink, £24 on parking and £60 on entrance fees to put a game on for the punters. Never again. Not even a free coffee!
Many of the previous bigger traders had started to only attend on Saturdays and this year all were missing.
The bring and buy – a great opportunity to pick up a deal or not. Unfortunately much of the stuff this year was on the stand last year and over 50 % of the 30 foot stand was given over to sci fi with warhammer 40k tanks aircraft etc in various states of build and paint. The historical half had tool boxes of 15mm 70s style figures with paint jobs of the day asking silly amounts in my opinion. People fail to present their sales. Opening a box marked ECW £100 I found a pile of minifig 25mm not sorted and stood in regiments, a pile! I bought nothing but did sell some rules.
The games this year were better. Here are a few shots of them.
While I spent over a £100 , mainly with a local trader who paints figures I couldn’t buy much more as many traders preferred cash.
Shows need to get with it and have card readers at entrances, as should all traders and so should the Bring and Buy.
Think Tank II 