Today was a quick trip down to Middlesbrough for A Call to Muster 2013. This was at the same venue as Novembers SMOGGYCON and was a return to the show scene of the organisers of the Stockton shows which finished a few years ago. I really liked the Stockton shows and they were the regular shows I attended when I returned to figure gaming from 1997 onwards, making the twice annual trip by bus with Gary and Terry. Always a good day out.
So how does the new show compare? If I remember correctly the first Stockton show of the year was the smaller of the two and todays show was similar in size to that with the entire show contained in the main sports hall at the Southlands Center (SMOGGYCON uses another 2-3 smaller rooms in addition to this). I quite like single space shows but it does restrict the number of gamers and traders. There seemed to be a few empty tables, no doubt due to the weather (or threat thereof) but overall it seemed pretty busy for the three hours I was there.
There were a good number of demo and participation games and overall the standard was pretty good. I particularly liked the Guisbrough Gamers Wild West game. Some lovely figures on show:
The Section 8 gamers had a very neat 10mm WW2 games using Blitzkrieg Commander rules:
And the Brompton Bankers AVBCW game had some very interesting figures on display:
I only had a few hours at the show but it was friendly and enjoyable. And they had a good leaflet that gives good details on who is where in the hall so hopefully I’ve got all the pictures captioned correctly!
There is a gallery with more pictures here: A Call to Muster 2013 Gallery
As ever with these types of venue, the lighting is bloody awful! Most shots were yellowed out and I’ve tried to adjust them but accept that the colours may not be brilliant!
Purchases were very few, just six packs of MDF bases and a Vallejo paint. I’ve got plenty of lead to paint at the moment! There was a traditional Bring and Buy which although not large looked very well run and I hope it was a success.
So, although not a big show, and maybe missing some of the big name traders (I was hoping for Caliver books!), I had a good time, chatted with a few people and got the bits and pieces I went for. I hope the show becomes a regular fixture on the calendar and I’ll be there next year!
Hi – would you mind if use your photos of my old west stuff on my blog -( i will credit them) as i did not get as many tasken as i wanted to.
Dave – “U.S. Marshal” – Docherty. – Guisborough Gamers
Help yourself. It was a nice looking game and I’d have liked to have taken more but phone battery and terrible light precluded that!
Andy
Glad you had a good time, it was not a show I was going to anyway but even if it was we had to go sledging SALTS 😉
Ian
How you managed to get through the snow I don’t know but thanks for the report and the photos.
Nice to see the show second hand!..I had no chance to get there, even if the weather was better than predicted.
Hopefully see you at more shows this year?
As one of the show organizers it is nice to see an independent view of our efforts – we welcome all comments good or bad. Ironically but for the weather and some other factors it would have been one of our biggest shows ever. The jury is out about a show next year – there are a number of things to consider including how to attract the bigger traders, how can the lighting be improved and how can the advertising be better – suggestions welcomed.
May we have permission to put some of your photos on our website (www.teesshows.co.uk), they would of course be attributed to you. Thank you in advance.
David
Help yourself Dave. Email sent anyway.
Andy