[Commercial] Fighting 15s - the last Salute

[Fighting15s]

Fighting 15s attends its last Salute this Saturday (25 April), and will be on stand TB17, next to our main supplier, Nic Robson of Eureka Miniatures and AB Figures, on TB16. In future we will be going the way of businesses like QRF, not attending Salute and potentially having special online offers on the weekend of Salute instead.

We will have only Coat d'arms paints, our 15mm flags and advance orders at the show. Oh, and these:



Playing cards by Bartek



3mm (1:600) Middle Eastern buildings

Nic will have new releases from Eureka, plus a selection of 20mm WWII AB Figures and 28mm Eureka moderns for anyone who wants to buy figures on the day.

Salute as always remains a fantastically organised show. The economics of attending it, however, get worse each year, and the ferry costs alone this year for me are frightening. If on-the-day sales follow their usual pattern, this year they simply will not be enough to cover costs.

This year I will also be doing Salute on my own as Mike of Black Hat Miniatures, who usually helps out, will not be trading thanks to his troubles with chronic fatigue syndrome (he will be there to spend money, however :-) ). As I find shows increasingly tiring myself, the prospect of coping with spending fests such as Salute in future is becoming more daunting, hence the decision to focus only on handing over paints and advance orders to customers this year, and to focus on the very busy mail order side from next year.

I am, of course, making one more trip to trade at a show this year - to Carronade in Falkirk. This is partly because I like Scotland and its offerings of distilleries and castles and can make a holiday of the 1,000-mile round trip.

Ian

[6milPhil]

I'll be sorry to see you go mate, I really will. But then again if you go to the next one as a visitor it will mean more than a snatched conversation, plus a beer.

[Sterling Moose]

Good to know - I need some paint.

[Doug ex-em4]

Good luck with your last Salute, Ian. Shows ain't the same without you and Mike....

Doug

[Fighting15s]

I'll be sorry to see you go mate, I really will. But then again if you go to the next one as a visitor it will mean more than a snatched conversation, plus a beer.

Beer and talk - the two good reasons to go in mufti.

Everyone wants to talk at Salute, but there really isn't time when the press at the stand is six deep (you can see the mental daggers being drawn from their sheaths and plunging towards the backs of the people in front...). And I drive every time, so can't drink (for my Scottish distillery visits from the Carronade trip, I carry a designated drinker in the car). I have never been to Salute in Excel as a customer (my last one as a customer was at Olympia), so I am looking forward next year to using public transport and being sociable around lunchtime.

I also plan this year on visiting Colours and being sociable, instead of being an stressed, scaly eczematic bear with a headache. 

[Captain Blood]

I do like those playing cards... 
May well stop by for a pack.
Good luck Ian.

[Doug ex-em4]

instead of being an stressed, scaly eczematic bear with a headache.

But that's what we love so much about you.....

Doug

[Fighting15s]

And that's it. I am so dead - aching legs and arms, tired, frazzled from waiting in a refuge on the M25 for the AA because someone had left screws in abundance in the Salute exhibition hall for a tyre to pick up, short the cost of a new tyre, late back to the Island because heading for a tyre shop on Sunday morning meant I missed my boat.

Enjoyed meeting everyone, the snatched conversations, and introducing so many people to Bartek's playing cards  Did better selling paint, flags and cards on the day than I have done with figures. If I ever do it again, it'll be with a boutique SF game, because that's the way the world is going.

As for this year, just Carronade to go...

[Doug ex-em4]

Glad I had the chance to snatch a few words with you as we arrived and what a bummer about the tyre...! Salute is wearying enough without that extra hassle (and cost...).

I've just finished stock-checking for a re-order before Saturday's show at Exeter but that's it until Attack which is on home turf. Will you be doing many shows as a "punter" (I hate that description - let's say "visitor")?

Must get some of those cards off you sometime...

Doug

[Fighting15s]

Will you be doing many shows as a "punter" (I hate that description - let's say "visitor")?
Doug

I hope to attend a few. I think after seeing how wiped Mike was after attending Salute as a customer, rather than a trader, it will just be small shows. Colours is likeliest.

I still ache from Saturday.   

[Fighting15s]

On reflection today, now that I've recovered, Salute involved a day of prep all day Thursday, driving Friday, restocking paint Friday afternoon, the show itself, plus two days where I was so tired I couldn't do anything. Spread over five days of work and recovery, Salute's takings are less impressive.

I am indeed a grumpy old man.