Armageddoning

I can't believe how fast these shows come up on us, I'm sure we just finished the Wellington one, but that was 6 months ago now, tempus Fugit ("time flies"), its like an old friend these shows, you like to catch up once in a while! I like to stress coming up to them, but once I'm in my zone, I'm away! This year was a first for us, I like to try new things each show, run it up the flagpost so to speak to see if it works, being an Auckland show, and our homebase, I decided to split us into three booths, not necessarily to divide and conquer, but to test how the product ranges work. That said you are also reliant on the guest mix too, this year off course we were lucky enough to have three Dr Who media guests, Paul McGann (Dr #8) Slyvester McCoy (Dr #7) and his companion Sophie Aldred (Dr #7s Companion), so being located right next door to them, we had purely Dr Who. It worked a treat, by far the mostly populated stand! Lots of Dr Who fans out there and it was great meeting people who had come from all over the country, and even to put some faces to names who are regular Retrospacers! The usual gamble with these shows is that the guest you have counted on coming for the show actually turns up, Armageddon had a total of 11 guests drop out this year, due to various comitments etc. The Twilight/ X Men guest dropped out at last minute, so I now have a surplus of Colouss bobble heads, but thats the nature of these things! I had the most fantastic team of helpers this year, David, Louise, Chris, Teagan, Rose, Mark, Andrew, Paul, Nicky, Taj, Rowan and off course my Paul. They worked their little socks off, these shows can be very demanding (I'm only getting the feeling back in my sore feet and my ears are slowly stopping ringing!), so many many thanks to you all!
The show is a full day set up for us on the Friday, so we trucked in three van loads of stock, and one car load of fixtures easily a 9-6 set up, and then straight into it on the Sat, the crowd hit us like a wall, they always have the 5 minute warning announcement that the doors will open, and you feel the adreline rush!! The first day was come and gone before I knew it. I missed all Dr Who talks and events, thats how flat out we were! Although, I could see the Dr Who stars from where we were, so I wasn't too disapointed! One of the highlights that day was the remote controlled life sized (or should I say Robot sized) R2D2, hanging out with the full sized and incredibly detailed home built Dalek made by Mark Hardgrave (who was actually inside it manouring it around), ones imagination could have swowen those two were real, I loved watching some kids go up to R2 chatting away to him!
Day two, before the doors opened to the public I needed to restock from Weta was is one of our suppliers, so commented how I'd ony seen the inside of our booth, so David Tremont who is a legend in himself (one of Wetas model makers) said have a look at this, and he produced out the Sonic Screwdriver that has been created by Weta for the 8th Drs Character, and was allowed to hold it, so I am going to have to admit, that was my most favourite fangirl moment of the show. Its a really nice job, created with descriptions out of the 8th Dr Novels, based on steam punk and Victoriana, and it so suits the character! It has a crystal in the end, held in place by a brass cradle and what one would describe as old fashioned wooden boat decking as strips down its barrel, truley inkeeping.
Day two was quiter than the Sat, but we still did pretty good! By this time, I was running between stands with eftpos terminals and re merchandising left right and centre, so much Star Wars stuff went it was spectular! I also managed to get out and see Annabel Grahams Whovian stand, a very talented lady who has taken her passion of Dr Who and created some lovely pieces of Who inspired jewellery.
Day three was when all the will to live had gone, they want to extend it to four days next year, holy smokes that will have to take some thinking about. Day three is always the slash and burn bargin day, so sales were higher than the Sun, but less than the Sat, its more fun as you are haggling more and you can feel the end of the show looming! Since it was the last day, I made a point of my autograph hunting, and managed to get John DiMaggios, Bender from Futurama autograph (he wrote ass on it... so awesome he he!) And yes finally I managed to get all three Dr Who actors, what a treat, I managed to get a few minutes with each chatting. I even got Sophie to call Paul the Fanboy of the weekend relating the story where Paul had trecked for ages to find the wall in Perivale for one of the filming scenes! Paul McGann is soooo nice, although the least screen time, he is definately up there as one of my favourite Doctors with his audio plays and lets just face it, hes not bad to look at!
So that was Armageddon for another year, as the show came to a close, we did some running around, setting up some new accounts with some new suppliers, so we will be loading some new goodies shortly. At this stage you always hope you can get the show packed up in less than what it took to come over, we managed to have it all packed down by 9pm that night, and went home happy and exhausted! But no rest.... next show is Freemans bay this Sat Oct 30th then Mt Eden Hall the following Sat.... who says we don't have a physical retail store!!!