Sheffield Ponds Forge Comic Con

The Plan
After me mentioning casually mentioning ok, complaining to Jim McCann at the Manchester SMRRF Event about there being no Droid Builders presence in the many events in my region i.e. Sheffield, Nottingham, York, Doncaster etc. Jim pulled out is phone and had us booked into the Sheffield event and added to the portal within a few minutes, That easy!?!

Attendees:
Jim Last minute couldn’t make it, but Katherine and Alex, Julian and Cathy and myself were able to bring enough droids to have a nice display and demonstrations.

Droids:
R2-D2, R0-D5, B1, Flo, IG12, Big Baby, R5 (40%), Midi Mouse, a selection of 39%ers, Pit Droid and BBR0.

The Day
It was a really good day, the droids were very popular! very busy all day. Brought a lot of smiles to a LOT of people young and not so young alike.

All children were extremely well behaved wanting to just look, touch and occasionally hug the droids and what seems to becoming more popular, lots of dancing with them! I need to work on my chorography!

It was great having droids of all sizes present as it gave children of all sizes (and ages) something to interact and have fun with.

We were given quite a large space, which we didn’t know about until we got there. It allowed us to have 2 tables along the main ‘path’ where could display our table droids and talk to guests and have our driving droids in the space behind us. We were in a sports hall, so there were painted lines on the floor that gave many guests subliminal boundaries, the busier it got the less likely it was for people to step into ‘our’ area!! It was really good 🙂
It was a hard wood varnished floor, R2 had no problems, it made for fun for drifting with the smaller droids.
There was a lot of positive crossover and chats with other exhibitors including the Mos Eisley Misfits.

The Venue:
Ponds Forge is at the Centre of the city, unloading in the morning was via a ramp to the main door. This became gridlocked very quick and parking did cause some issues as the organisers did not want us using the venue car park* and wanted us to park some distance away. There is a lift from the event to the venue carpark which I will remember for next time, I will just go straight to the car park and unload via the lift)
*I had already parked and paid there and was not about to move.

The Organisers:
Creed. The staff on the day were great, Friendly, helpful, came round to check if everything was ok. Prior to the day, communication was minimal and.. a bit vague. Jim and I both emailed multiple times to get confirmation of booking, space, unloading etc with us having to suggest answers. Maybe it is matter of getting the right person to contact.