Vapnartaking The Piss?

 

 

 

It's 2022, and shows are going ahead.

With this in mind, I was planning the list of selected shows I'd like to visit this year, and or course, Vapnartak was high on the list.

So, I dropped the organisers a line to enquire about the tabletop sale area, which is a place that I can drop a grand on a good day and come home with new and interesting (but most importantly, table-ready) goodies to sit in a box or upon a shelf.

The response was thus:

"Covid has prevented us from doing it. It's impossible to do socially distanced. The show is on. It's just the tabletop sale and competition games that have had to slip this time. Plenty of traders are booked in and we have tinkered with the layout to help with crowding (we hope)"

Now, call me harsh if you will, but the competitions alons will free up space, so surely a tabletop sale, which genrates income for the traders and the sellers is possible. OK, You could put it closer to the doors upstairs I am sure, and have said doors open? 

Forgive me, but Vapnartak in any year is one of the tightest packed shows on the circuit, despite the fact that there is more floorspace in the venue and a bloody good restaurant ustairs, as any visitor to the model railway exhibition can tell you. 

Given that from this week, masks, Covid passports and all that jazz are officialy gone (the requirement for proof of vaccination at the very least should have remained, and YWS should have insisted on it as a T&C for entry if they want to follow through with the soocial distancing) they seem to be locking the stable door after the cataphract's smashed through it.

Speaking personally, pretty much anything I can get at the show, I can get by mail order and just as cheaply. What draws me is the chance to find something interesting that's ready painted, or an old game I want to play again. Withouth that, I am paying to travel to, and get into a show, with some of the greasiest catering since the trolleys at Triples in the Octagon Days. That money could be spent on more toys, bought by mail.

Fingers crossed for Hammerhead in a few weeks. If they are having a tabletop sale, that will be my first show of the year and what's more the space and catering will be much better.

Until things return to normal, I guess all I can do is think of the Vapnartaks past...

TTFN