Salute 2016

So Salute has just passed, and I just want to say that it was a blast. Tiring, exhaustive, and quite time consuming ( both during but also before hand ).. but in the end worth it. Worth it for the people who we met, the conversations we had, the beers afterwards that were shared, but also for all that came to our booth to support us throughout the day! A huge thank you to you people!

This year was different from the past 2 years.. and we have seen quite the escalation on how I am now going to Salute. In 2014.. I came to Salute for the first time as a punter.. wide eyes, and with a massive hole in my wallet that all the vendors seemed to be able to notice! Many mistakes were made that day, but it was still such a great time.

In 2015.. I came to Salute again, but this time to help Alan out at ModelMates.

And was pretty chuffed to see some of my work blown up to massive proportions to show off what you could do from their products.

And it was amazing to chat to everyone about both my own works, but also to explain the way to use Alan's products at a figure painter level was fantastic!

So it was only natural that while chatting with Kris Toad over what our plans were for shows this year... Salute came up and the idea of a table for them also came up.. Well.. lucky for us, we got a space! And this is what it looked like!

Basic in all respects, but a place to start all the same. We did at least have quite a bit on display, and once I showed up we then put up the figures to display what we had along with a few more pieces for the rack there. We were not in the best location ( quite far from the entrance ) but in a space that had lots of space around it for the queues that happened to both stalls near us. Allowing people to see us still within the people, and come and check out our wares!

The sexy beasts that ran the stall.. Kris Toad on the left, Normski in the middle, and yours truly on the right there. Between the 3 of us we kept the stall manned throughout the day.. though Kris had a bit of difficulty with that at times due to not having a voice left to speak to anyone with! Made it a bit hard to explain the pieces to everyone!

I did get to sneak off for a bit to check out parts of the show.. one thing that I just made it in time for was the big Blogger meet up near the center section. Caused quite the commotion when we all tried to pile in for a photo.. can you spot the Canuck within the crowd? :D

While away from the booth for a bit, I had tried to find a few others that I knew had stalls.. such as Mat Hart from Guildball.. but damn if his booth was not jammed fully!

A huge expansion from last years 1 or 2 tables they had available to begin with. Great to see this, and wishing them all the best on their new kickstarter to come for their Dark Souls boardgame coming..

Not many selfies this year though as there were last.. mostly due to pure craziness that surrounded the table or the people that we were with.. but we did get one from Spud himself with Kris and I..

Handsome devils that we are... :)

I want to thank everyone who came by and chatted though. All that supported us while at the show. And to all those that joined us afterwards at the Fox@Excel pub around the corner for a pint and food later on that evening. I have to say that we will be back next year.. hopefully bigger and better than this year.. and that I am going to be working on not doing the full drive down the day of, and head home the night of.. but instead book and stay over the Friday/Saturday night to enjoy a bit more of the community aspect that this show is building up!

Hope to see you all next year... but for now.. we get back to building up for the next show in September.. Euro Militaire! See you there hopefully!