141 Northern Toy Fair – 17th March 2024

	Location
	Rainton Arena, Houghton Le Spring 10:00 – 14:00
	Mission Report
	Fret not faithful reader, although Julie is wont to oft tell the story of that one time we drove 8 hours and a 400 mile round trip to be out in costume at a two hour event 10 or 15 years back when we were younger and stupider like it didn’t just occur the once and was  regular occurrence, we did not make the trip to the North East of England solely for this event. No, rather, with the requirement to use a hotel stay gift voucher prior to the expiration date it was something of a bonus to find a (relatively) nearby troop on the same weekend which offered the opportunity to catch up with Paul and Jase again and meet Simon for the first time.   The troop was fairly similar to the BCGP events albeit on a larger scale and with an almost exclusive focus on vintage toys and model railways in comparison with the formers art and craft remit.  Like them it was a great little relaxed event, with a crowd attending slightly less familiar with our appearances.  If there has to be a negative, the “early birds” had been in an hour (or more some were leaving when we arrived just prior to 09:00) by the time we got out in costume and after lunchtime there were a miniscule amount of new arrivals coming in through the door.  Then again the event takes place in the same venue every alternate month and there was as far as I could see no massive impetus for anyone to come out to the business park on the slightly damp St Patricks Day weekend it was taking place that was going to give them an experience they could get the next time it ran…   Some of the vendors had begun packing up by the back of 13:00, which fortunately meant I didn’t have the opportunity to spend too much money on the way out.  Hopefully the three local troopers make it up here at some point; I would advise them, that unlike me, they fill up with petrol before departing so they’re not paying motorway prices because they’ve underestimated the fuel requirements for the trip though..!
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139 Big Feed Glasgow – 12th August 2023

	Location
	Golf-It, Glasgow 11:00 – 16:00
	Mission Report
	I know, I know…  Last time I really gave the impression I was done after three successive bland events, but this one was a rare chance to go Red and the real short notice made sure there wasn’t the time to think about how not doing it at all would be a much better idea. Admittedly there may have been some confusion on my part, I had it in my head that this was a sort of a food bank charity and this was some sort of open day with street food samples to demonstrate nutritious meals that could be made on a budget that they were holding to raise funds, instead we arrived to find a sort of outdoor food court at a golf driving range.  This made the venue an odd fit… At 11:00 o’clock on a rainy Saturday morning the people at a golf course are there to golf, not play with plastic spacemen, so they largely walked straight past us (or more precisely *they* walked past while their bags full of golf sticks collided with any costumer within three feet) and spent their time knocking balls from their basket of 150, off of a balcony ledge with their backs to us. So, the morning passed, somewhat quiet and boring but not offensively and it got to lunchtime.  Declining to de-kit I was going to forgo eating any lunch, but the organisers had issued us vouchers to use at the vendor carts.  “Street food from a cart”, being literally my idea of personal Hell, owing to the single worst hotdog I’ve ever had in my life falling into that category.  (I’m not even talking about the Rollover one that resulted in this situation incidentally, but a hotdog from a cart outside the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. which I purchased, bit into, spat out and binned in less time than it took to type those verbs describing it.  That’s right, the single worst American-style hotdog in my life was in America and traumatised me so much with its filling of boiled pink slime that it was literally more than a decade before I could even eat another hotdog.) Obviously then, I ordered a hot dog. To satisfy your curiosity…  It was… okay.  It wasn’t the best (this would be the New York Dog at Bread Meats Bread) and it wasn’t the worst as previously discussed.  It was somewhere below most cinema hotdogs and above that Rollover one.  Mostly, I think it was down to the thick Bratwurst-style sausage which was too big for the bun.  This made it messy to eat and the bun soggy even with only basic ketchup and mustard on top, bacon and onion being “extra toppings” in a underhanded move that, with hindsight, anyone charging £2.50 for a 330ml can of Pepsi Max is obviously going to pull.  Quite how you’re meant to eat one topped with salsa and siracha sauce without a change of clothes for afterwards I’ve no idea… Anyway, sorry, this Field Report appears to have detoured into the chart rundown from the Top of The Pops, Hotdogs Edition; Perhaps the weather had changed, perhaps Sci-Fi fans are inherently lazy, but whatever the reason the afternoon session brought an influx of actual Star Wars fans, both old and young.  On that note I had been aware of the presence of a photographer all day, who seemed to be there in some sort of official capacity, but presumably from the charity and not Golf-It as I never once saw ask anyone to sign a release after taking pictures of their children.  Either at his behest or the Golf people we were asked to move down to the…  (crazy golf..?  mini golf..?  I’m not sure what you’ve call it..) ‘non-grass-based ball hitting obstacle area’… for further photos, which again didn’t seem to be overly charity related and more with the purpose of promoting the Golf centre, so I made sure to stay out of sight in them. Having apparently lost weight since the Scouts last outing in 2019, the commute there and back caused the belt to slip down requiring a quick pit stop to adjust the buckle position and back out.  As it drew towards 15:30 they elected to take a more general break before venturing out and finishing for the day with our presence at the drawing of the raffle at 16:00.  Ironically, I missed this sole concession to our presence being for the benefit of a charity, as having experienced such a thing before I had, to coin a phrase, made my excuses and left!
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133 Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023 – 7th-10th April 2023

	Location
	ExCeL, London 10:00 – 19:00
	Mission Report
	Star Wars Celebration is a curious beast and depending how you approach it, either the worst thing in human history or a reaffirming festival of a shared fandom.  After firmly swearing off it a day and a bit into a four-day ticket back in 2017 I was not in the least looking forward to enduring it again. The only thing to make me tolerate it last time was the presence organized fan groups who added a value and entertainment far beyond what the organizers provided (unless you take some sort of perverse pleasure in standing and queuing for 6 hours and rampant disappointment) so somewhat consoled by the thought of experiencing that again we decided to attend. Oddly though the area set aside for this was minute in comparison to the space in Orlando.  While I accept that the Orange County Convention Centre rather makes ExCeL look like a local church hall, there was so much empty unused space it seems on the surface like a missed opportunity by ReedPop to not take advantage of the fan groups presence but in fairness this is an area I’ve come to have thoughts on recently and maybe the very existence of some of those groups create a problem for them all.   Friday was the first day and having lucked out in the opening Lucasfilm Showcase lottery we elected to attend just as punters.  I’m a fan of Star Wars, I have been since I was four years old, but I make no claim to be its biggest.  My consumption of it has reduced over the years from spin off comics and novels to only the films and TV series and spend very little on collectibles these days, a far cry from harassing the staff in the local Woolworths in 1995 to go into the stock room and retrieve the unopened cases to ensure I could buy the entire figure wave, not just the selection of half a dozen hanging on the peg. To find myself then amid 4500 other people running an entire gamut from “I’m only here because my other half promised me a weekend break in London” to “I hope they announce a film featuring Therm Scissorpunch” and at least one of whom suggested that without their discovery of the franchise they’d have had no reason to go on living, was massively uplifting. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn’t to last.  Squeezing our way through the North exhibitor’s hall reminded me of the worst of this type of experience.  Quite why people were queuing for hours to get into the scant few shops for the possibility of buying merchandise freely available elsewhere is something that I find baffling.  The Lego stand was one of the most egregious, even as a non-local I can think of brand three shops in the vicinity that you could just walk into and likely make the same purchases.  The Hasbro stand was entirely irrelevant and the appeal of the landfill that are Funko Pops almost entirely escapes me.   Oh, hey and it turned out there was a second vendor hall on the south side, which all the signage referred to as the Autograph Hall, which is why it was nearly 15:30 before I realized it existed…   As mentioned the fan area did not allow those groups to show themselves at their best with probably the Rebel Legion making the most effect use of their space.  With so many overseas visitors lacking any sort of branding it was difficult to make any real determination, but I suspect the understandable downplaying of the changing area capacity had made many people think twice about attending in those regards.  The space itself was satisfactory and indeed bigger than we get an many events, fairly well managed but seemed little used during the times I was present, albeit I ensured to avoid it as far as possible around photo time on the Saturday.   Following our short-lived attendance of the standing room only, no allergy friendly food options of the 501st Bash the night before we bowled up later the Saturday.  While this masterfully avoided most of the crowds getting into the place, being the Saturday, the venue was at its busiest, thus it was something of a relief to head back outside to try and get near the group photo session. Far better organized than our previous experience, by dint of organizing the costumers into relevant groups before marching them to the photo location instead of having a guy stand on the next floor and vaguely point to someone and gesture to a vicinity to which he’d like them to move but prone to the general public wandering into shot which led to the detachment photos being moved into the spare south halls where the area could more easily be controlled.   Thus, it was into the changing area us for easily the highlight of the weekend.  During the 2017 expedition we’d chanced upon The Running of The Hoods, an event that I’d been aware of but never experienced in person, during which homage is paid to the “Ice Cream guy” who makes a brief appearance in Empire Strikes Back.  Having mentioned as Celebration weekend approached that Julie and I had, moustaches aside, most of the requisite costume items to take part we embarked on a hurried exercise to be approved for the unofficial detachment and in my case manufacture a passable replica of the screen used prop. The group (forgive me, I’m unsure the collective noun for a bunch of Willrows) assembled at the east end of the building growing some 40 strong before setting out to amuse and bemuse the assembled masses throughout the facility with our medium paced ice cream preservation agenda. It was interesting to be a participant on our second and this tenth anniversary occasion of the run and frequently see members of the public explain the reference to their fellow attendees. As a coda to this, afterwards we were asked to appear on and around the Celebration Live stage.  The fluctuating schedule of the live event meant we were standing backstage awaiting our queue for longer than we eventually appeared, but it was certainly memorable, not least because of the damage to my right shin caused by a floor light which nearly took me out at the second corner.  Despite having been warned to watch out for them I was glad to see that I clearly hadn’t been the only Willrow to run afoul of one of them as we reached stage right as a jobbing spark made a brave attempt to right another knocked over lighting unit as we passed. We made a early departure back to the hotel to drop off the costumes, Camtonos (Camtoni?) and bags before heading off the farce that was the Rebel Legion Sail Barge event, almost literally setting foot on the deck before turning around and disembarking again as there was no space to stand nor sit and around 70% of the attendees were still to come aboard when we got to the front of the queue.   Sunday saw us attending the Look Back at Obi-Wan panel and in a startling stretch of odds found us seated two rows directly behind Lynn and Brian from the ISG. I had volunteered to supervise the entrances and exits from the changing area late afternoon, which had the potential to be tedious, but conversely turned out to be a great opportunity to talk to various members of the costume clubs from across the world.  The duty also allowed me the opportunity to determine how busy the space was and that costuming on the final day would be without complication…   Having dragged the Jawa costume down on the plane with me I was glad to get the opportunity to appear in it.  With the vision issues of that outfit, I’m not going to pretend the walk from the changing area in the south halls to the 501st stand in the north across the packed concourse wasn’t a fraught experience due to having no peripheral vision, but the place was surprisingly well lit and having looked around a few times on the previous days it went off without any hitches. My time in the vicinity of the stand passed quickly, more so than at some previous events and I found I was a lot more interactive than I sometimes am.  Whether that was because I was a lone denizen, or the crowd was overly receptive to shenanigans or simply because my hands were occupied with the ion blaster which I’d left behind to avoid security issues at the airport.  The only slight niggle was that I hadn’t expected to have any need for sound over the weekend because of the nature of the event and I really should have made more effort in that regard…   Although we managed to get into the closing ceremony, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.  With the next event in two years being in Japan and no doubt back to the US before there’s any thought of it returning to London, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever attend again but at least this time it’s for better reasons than when we ruled out any return five years ago…
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123 Capital Sci-Fi Con 2020 – 15th February 2020

Location
Corn Exchange, Edinburgh 09:00 – 17:00

Personnel

DZ-18250	Leo Humphries	Jawa
SL-77314	Alan Dalgleish	Darth Vader
TD-35500	Brian Hannah	Sandtrooper
TI-8322	Mark Billen	TIE Pilot
TK-6084	Stuart Thompson	Stormtrooper
TK-19767	Douglas Mullen	Stormtrooper
UK-6275	Mark McCreadie	Spotter
UK-41076	Alisdair Gilbert	Spotter
UK-89909	Jenn Mair	Spotter

Mission Report
Having arrived an hour early only to find that the wrong start time had incompetently been published on the UKG forums it meant that there was plenty of time to set up the empty table which had been provisioned for us once the PR material was finally delivered. Since no provision had been made for a duty rota for the table it rather meant that Alisdair was stuck there for the majority of the day with his static BB-series droid display. The poor organisation almost meant there was sufficient time to go over the standing orders for the day with new inductee Leo who’d be debuting his Jawa that afternoon after only almost 6 years of wanting to join us.

Despite the majority still being in the middle of getting dressed, the press requested our presence for a 09:30 photoshoot with the two Doctors in attendance, which meant only Vader could take part. I mention this only because later that day one of the photographers would ask for the TKs to pose with products which I wouldn’t allow, leading to him questioning me why it was okay for them to lean on each other shoulders but not hold a box.
When I asked when he’d witnessed this behaviour, he replied he hadn’t, which made it a rather random argument on the whole!

Throughout the morning I heard repeated comments on how the bad weather was keeping people from attending, but the entrance area where we were stood was mobbed consistently and at least one attempt to take the squad round the dealer hall had to be immediately aborted due to how crowded it was (the queue for David Bradley snaked away from his table round the side of the hall and out one of the doors we were positioned near more than once and several autograph tables had to be relocated because of the disruption their queues were causing) so if all these people put off by the rain and wind had turned up, I’ve no idea where the organisers would have put them…

With the lunch schedule having disappeared in a huff of smoke, we took a break at 12:00 to allow Leo to get kitted up for the afternoon and perform his branding. Although slightly reticent at first after a few words of encouragement from Nu-Stu and myself he took to Jawaing like a desert scavenger to a hairy egg, poking his head into the back of pictures, stealing the property of passers-by and generally getting a lot of attention from folks wanting photos.

While the weather didn’t really improve the flow of punters remained consistent through the afternoon, only slightly dying down once a raffle draw in the hall had taken place. This did mean the dealer hall was easier to navigate with the squad, to relive the tedium of standing in the one spot but as the troopers drifted off one by one to dekit due to aches and pains and armour pinching we were left with resident stalwart Chewie from the Filthy Rebel side and our Duracell Powered Jawa as the clock wound to 17:00. With even Paul calling it quits at that point, I’m fairly sure Leo would still be hanging around the Corn Exchange in his brown robe and glowing yellow eyes even now had Jenn and I not forced him back to the changing room.

Only a buffet dinner on offer and bleary eyed drive home after 18 hours now stood between me and my bed…

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117 Glasgow Science Centre, Science Lates 2019 – 26th October 2019

Location
Science Center, Glasgow 18:00 – 22:30

Personnel

IC-13128	Alex Dick	Imperial Crewman
SL-77314	Alan Dalgleish	Darth Vader
TB-89909	Jenn Mair	Biker Scout
TK-18910	Brian McDavid	Stormtooper ANH Stunt
TS-7240	Julie Sword	Snowtrooper
TX-6275	Mark McCreadie	Special Ops Trooper
UKG-29578	Sheraz Khwaja	Spotter
UKG-91810	Lynn McDavid	Spotter

Mission Report
And so we get to the climax of the costuming greatest hits farewell tour that’s been 2019 and it was only fitting to dig out the Special Ops outfit that all this started with years ago. Strictly speaking, I suppose I ought to have been spotting this and Stealth Troopering the previous night to properly mirror my induction weekend but I’ve already touched on the recent rekindling of my affection for the original Ghostbusters film.

Unfortunately the exciting/boring Glasgow Science Centre Event Pendulum had rather swung back the other way as compared to the previous night’s @1,700 attendance this evenings adult-only event seemed very sparsely attended. Fortunately that meant the availability of alcohol didn’t lead to too many issues as there wasn’t sufficient inebriated members of the public to cause a problem. Unfortunately it meant the night massively dragged on and it was a relief when we called it quits long before the end…

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