Feel the Force – Peterborough
2025-05-22By: JD Parr
Feel the Force – Peterborough
17/05/2025
Feel the Force Day events are truly unconventional conventions. Aimed at the ultimate all accessible day.
Attendees
Tom Powell, JD Parr, Emma Tysoe and Anton Wayne Cook
Droids Present
Droideka, BattleDroid, SuperBattle-Droid, Chopper, R4, R0, Gonk, 2 Big Babies, Huyang, IG12, mouse droid and of course pitdroids!
Other
2 backdrops for photo opportunities, although the Cathedral wall made for a great Naboo-esque environment.
The Setup
The event was held at the Peterborough Cathedral, Tom had arrived on the Friday for the initial setup and I arrived at 7:30am on Saturday morning. The Staff were just arriving and were very helpful. Being a Cathedral the floor was not exactly droid friendly, made up of stones, slabs and.. ledger stones?
I am going to invest in a barrow with suspension and pneumatic tyres for the next time, it was quite a long way to load and unload.
Due to it only being a one day event, we didn’t organise any social activities around the day.
We were given a huge space at the back of the Cathedral allowing us to really spread out and put on a very well received display with a really nice range of droids.
We received compliments from other stall holders (con regulars) saying we had droids they had never seen before!!! 😊
The Day
The day went from steady to very busy for the entire duration of the event, with over 2000 visitors. Guests were delighted to see the full range of droids on display. The small boundary posts and chains perfectly directed the flow of traffic and made it easy for us to remove to allow people closer for ‘controlled’ photo opportunities. There were many wheel chairs and mobility scooters, so the boundaries really helped keep everyone and every thing secure.
A highlight of the day was Aaron and Ben, a couple of guys who are visually impaired and have only listened to Star Wars with audio description. They got to handle the droids, run their hands over them and ‘see’ and understand their shapes, contours and just how big they are! They were delighted at the opportunity and Ben has expressed his interest in wanting to build his own droids and is keen to get involved to make droid building more accessible.
The day had many cosplayers/costumers from all fanbases and the droids brought delight, as always, to all of them. Wookies to Jedi, Mandaloreans to Imperials. There were many familiar faces so it was great to have catchup chats and the usual questions of ‘how/where can i start?’
Due to the tight setup and takedown time, we didn’t have the opportunity for a group photo. 🙁
The event organisers made us feel welcome and valued and were keen on feedback on how they could improve for future events. For me, it would be great for more DBUK members to attend, a highly recommended event.
