Thoughts on the weekend?

[Faerie Tanith]

Sunday hasn't begun yet but all the same.

How was everybody's weekend? I know there was a general feeling of disappointment among many but I still managed to have a good day and left happy today! How did everybody else do? Who did you meet? What did you buy from the stalls? 

[18blue78]

It's been about two years since I was last at an event and I had a great time on Saturday. Like everyone I was disappointed when Ruther Hauer cancelled but I've been going to these events long enough to accept cancellations. Guests will always prioritise their careers, and so they should.

That left only one film guest for me to meet. Dermot Crowley was excellent and I was able to spend time chatting with him about some of his experiences shooting Star Wars.
With the sports guests only arriving after 11:00 that gave me time to hit the stalls for Xmas presents (I realise it only June #$^%!!!).

Then I was over to sports guests area. I noticed Showmasters has teamed up with a sports memorabilia company. This may have happened a while ago (I'm nothing if not observant) and is good news for us sports fans as it will hopefully generate more new guests from a variety of sports at future shows.

For example, I doubt Curtly Ambrose would have been to one of these type events before. I'm glad I got to meet one of the most devastating bowlers ever to play cricket and I found him to be a very humble gentleman.

John Stracey was a bundle of energy and he suggested we take a photo with his World title belt. I only half believe he momentarily forgot who owned the belt as he passed it to me and walked away a few steps before turning back and taking it from me.

Alastair Cook was another new guest for me and he looked genuinely happy to be there, taking time to engage with everyone he met.

The big draw to this years event was Duncan Ferguson. Being a lifelong Evertonian, for me, meeting Dunc was the equivalent of a Marvel fan meeting Robert Downey Jr. It was priceless to spend a few minutes talking about our club and the future. They say you should never meet your heroes, well I'm glad to have met one of mine.

With that I was all done and on the train home by 11:30. Like all Showmasters events the show was excellently organised and all the staff and volunteers I spoke with were very friendly and helpful.
The space in Hall 5 is huge and the layout made the most of it. There is plenty of room to wonder around without constantly bumping into people.
I did feel numbers were down especially with the Early Bird tickets. That's possibly a reflection on the limited number of big name film and TV guests. But with that said, as I left the show there were still crowds flooding in, so hopefully the show is a financial success for the organisers.
As always it's a big thank you to Showmasters, the staff and volunteers and the guests for putting this together.

Edited June 2, 2019 by 18blue78

[chiefbrody]

Went yesterday not has many stalls as I would have liked it's the only time I enjoy "shopping".thought it was run really well by the organizers ,was an absolute thrill to meet and have a chat with John ratzenberger about his time on cheers,was great to finally meet Dermott Crowley and Mike Edmonds both absolute gents.my father in law was made up to meet the cricketers .keep up the good work