The future of wargaming shows...

[Prufrock]

Hi all, as an aside, I just wanted to apologise for my silly attempt at a joke in response to Tim's post on the previous page. Given how hard you in the UK have been hit by COVID it was a tasteless comment to make, and posts since by Holly and Doug have made the continuing seriousness of the situation for you all very clear.

Again, please excuse my thoughtlessness. You have all been (and are still going through) through the wringer.

Aaron

[Holly]

well on a related matter, I have done my bit last year and this year to help keep the wargaming hobby afloat with my purchases 

Well done! -  and another positive note might be that some traders who attend shows but have no web presence or abysmal ones, may want to expand their channels.

Personally, my purchases this year have been quite restrained (by comparison to other years), and the 3d printer is keeping costs down, by letting me print some stuff I would otherwise have bought. (Or not..)  - but restrained mainly because I have so much in the unpainted pile I should try to catch up a bit.

Purchased 2021
14 x 28mm Cavalry
4 x 28mm AFV
127 x 28mm Infantry

Completed 2021
3 x 28mm M/C Combo & M/C
4 x 28mm Gun & Crew
43 x 28mm AFV
158 x 28mm Infantry

impressive considering 28mm 

[DougM]

I've underestimated the purchases and the painting I think, as I haven't included any markers or terrain even when they include figures...

But steady this year, and I have another 100 or so nearly done.

[Tim]

For me shows/shops are a very important part of my spending decision process. I think I have spent less in the past 15 months than I would normally do in half a year. I have made a few 'risky' purchases but only because I had a nailed on game sorted on some form of virtual tabletop. Now that I can play in person I have spent more this month than in the past 18. I would be spending about another 90 quid on rules but to lay out that much I would have to see the physical product, either at a show or a local shop (I checked and neither of mine have it in yet). Others may feel differently.

[Holly]

I've spent far more in the past 15months than ever....oops

[Ade G]

I help run a club that was set up specifically to support gamers who experienced mental health issues past and present. We have not had a meeting since the start of lockdown1. Our club website has been the only point of contact and support. We seem to have lost our venue (nobody answers e-mails etc). The long-term knock-on effects will be  felt for a very long time.

[Holly]

that is a real shame Adrian and I can only imagine the potential knock on effects for those who benefited from the club. I hope you can restart at some point

[Baldie]

I help run a club that was set up specifically to support gamers who experienced mental health issues past and present. We have not had a meeting since the start of lockdown1. Our club website has been the only point of contact and support. We seem to have lost our venue (nobody answers e-mails etc). The long-term knock-on effects will be  felt for a very long time.

The two gaming clubs I go to are very much a chance to meet chums and hopefully play as well.
I love shows as a chance to meet pals from further afield, see the great work the demo guys do, chance to grab something on B&B and walk past something I had never considered and turn it into another obsession.

[McNelly]

Here in New Zealand our “shows” are mostly about competition gaming with the occasional demonstration games. A trade stand is almost never seen as they are so few on the ground.

We of course have many freedoms currently, and our wargame shows continue. Yet a small leak of COVID from our border will quickly run rampant with whatever variant is current. I hope the rest of the world recovers some freedom but in my mind your freedom may be more limited for the foreseeable future. Ours could end tomorrow.

[Holly]

good point Keith, hope the vaccination programme in NZ does the job and quickly

[Jim Webster]

Four of us met at our wargames club last night and cleared away and tidied up a lot of stuff that the church had accumulated there in the time were weren't there. So we're geared up to start playing next week.

As one chap said as we left, "Now we need a wargames show to go to!"

[DougM]

I confess I'm still not ready to go to a show. Being double vaccinated doesn't confer immunity, and I know too many people with serious issues after Covid.

And I know there are plenty of people, some of them wargamers, who have never taken this seriously. Are organisers going to insist on masks? Just seems all too precarious for my taste.

[Jim Webster]

I confess I'm still not ready to go to a show. Being double vaccinated doesn't confer immunity, and I know too many people with serious issues after Covid.

And I know there are plenty of people, some of them wargamers, who have never taken this seriously. Are organisers going to insist on masks? Just seems all too precarious for my taste.

It's interesting, I did the 'Greggs run' for the foodbank yesterday evening (when Greggs close on an evening they give a lot of what hasn't been sold to charities)
So my experience of this town, which has been hit hard several times by covid, is that the vast majority of people have abandoned masks when they could. Its not that they don't know what it can do, a lot of them will have had it.
Of the four of us who were tidying up the club room, only the youngest came in briefly wearing a mask, I think he was a bit worried that we old ones might be nervous. But the two oldest had both had it, both been double vaccinated and both been in industries what worked straight through without lockdown.

I think it's a matter of perspective. For me, frankly, I might have ten decent years left. (Judging by the males of the last two generations of my family. I could squeeze a couple of years more, but let's say ten. )
I might die from covid, or flu, but frankly statistically it's more likely to be cancer or perhaps heart. Given the nature of my job and lone working, if I do have a stroke or a heart attack there's a fair chance that I'll be found dead because if I have one, nobody could miss me until the next meal time and even then they wouldn't know where to look. As for phones, signal isn't good so I rarely carry one.
So given I could have ten decent years left, how do I want to spend them?

[Erpingham]

From the show organisers point of view, though, its not just about personal risk tolerance but their duty of care.  How do they reduce risk to the punters of poor ventillation and overcrowding and to traders having people bellowing at them in noisy halls from way under "1 metre +" all day? 

[DougM]

From the show organisers point of view, though, its not just about personal risk tolerance but their duty of care.  How do they reduce risk to the punters of poor ventillation and overcrowding and to traders having people bellowing at them in noisy halls from way under "1 metre +" all day?

Not to mention club members putting on games, etc. Yep. I organise a small regional show scheduled for start of November,  and I'm not sure I want the headache.