Bazaar Bolton

The inaugural Warrior Bazaar show, held on Sunday at the Holiday Inn, Bolton. Martin and I cadged a lift off Graeme, listening to a CD of an adaption of 'Shadows over Innsmouth' on the way down.

Located near the centre of Bolton we did a few laps of the road system before finding a car park. Apparently the place had an underground one available but we couldn't find it but found a free car park next to the spot anyway.

Venue is a nice place, the convention\wedding reception area being a converted church. The event itself was split between a number of rooms on the ground floor and in two separate sections with traders scattered across rooms with an unfortunate few being stuck in secluded locations.

Not exactly over-crowded with customers but the usual ignorant backpack swingers tried to make up for it. The ailes were actually quite narrow so not sure what it would of been like if it had been busy.

The Helms Deep demo was impressive (even if it was advertised in the program as Doctor Who; I didn't see the Tardis there so I'm guessing the game was a replacement!). Also the Colonial game in the side room looked good, but other than that the other demos were pretty scarce and low key.

The Sci-Fi and ACW re-enactors seem to enjoy themselves, with a couple of stormtroopers guarding the entrance and a couple of musket wavers as backup.

So in total we spent a couple of hours there, and ended up agreeing that it was an enjoyable little show and a useful addition to the calendar this side of the Peninnes. Whether the show gains enough traction to be repeated next year is another matter. A couple of bigger names amongst the traders could help; No Kallistra, Essex, or even Lancashire Games! And very few boardgame sellers other than second-hand stalls.

Also in the program was an advert for 'Warboot by-the-sea' being held in Morecambe in July, Warboots being old fashioned bring-and-buys dedicated to gamers, especially useful now that eBay has jumped the shark in term of fees; and that convention based bring and buys are getting an increasingly bad reputation.
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