"Salute 2006 - Good Gig or Zeppelin Hanger?" Topic

"The bring and buy was a disappointment, almost impossible to reach. There was no 'flow' along the table, so you had to hop from one free space to another, and try to see the things from a distance. I would suggest that you make specific areas next year : a table for 'fantasy', one for 'scifi', one for 'Napoleontic',…. It would make it easier to find stuff. The few times I was able to reach a table, things were stacked on top of each other, what made it rather hard to find stuff."

I squeezed to the front of the table when the organisers were taking photo's of items to show how and how not to prepare items for a bring and buy. I dare say the resulting article/ advice will be a great boon for bring and buys through out the land. I like the idea of themed tables. A great idea if there is the space.

It was a great show, and seeing as I only had a few hours to look round between demonstration games I found it easy to find what I "needed" and get a flavour of some of the demonstrations.

Souless? have you seen the average MOD site? The venue was barracks like and therefore in keeing with the theme off the hobby at least.

Will the Website list all the Game/Painter winners as sometimes it wasnt easy to hear who won what.

Overall, I think that it is a better venue. There was a lot more manoeuvring room and it was easier to view things (once found). Much better to have everything on one level rather than scattered all over in Olympia's maze.
The facilities were good with a choice of various foods and drink, not to mention TV for those following the football.
Another vote for the Painting winners to be added to the Salute website (please).
I'll be back next year.

@ swordlord

A list of Painting comp and Game Prize winners will be up on the Warlords site soon along with some pictures. :)

Lawrence Widdicombe
salute.co.uk
minipainter.co.uk

Brethren,

Firstly, rich1231, challenging the use of autism as a pejorative term is right and proper.

I'm no PC freak but there are some out there who would have you forget this is 2006 and stick with language and attitudes that labelled people with Downs Syndrome (and yes I'm aware of the difference) Morons, Imbeciles and Cretins according to status, or think that every lesbian who owns a cat is a candidate for a bonfire!

You may think those who object have a humour by pass – but try living with it and see how funny it is!

Secondly, 10th Foot, as one of those ‘green baize abominations', just a few points.

For those in need of an ID, we were the 25mm AWI game in front of the area where all fake weapons and role play people were.

From 10:00 till 17:00 we had a non stop stream of compliments and so many camera flashes we had to report to Casualty for retinal check ups.

Yes, the table took the dated format of green baize over blocks for terrain but the on table effect of good quality scenic materials and 1200 very well painted figures had us wiping drool off the cloth all day.

Some of us don't have the time, storage resources, or money to plough in to one off terrain construction and more power to those who do.

What we bring to every show we attend is an achievable quality that we game with every week be it AWI, ACW, Napoleonic or Crossfire. We turn up and we are real.

For what its worth, I thought there were a good number of visually sub standard games on display and believe me, given the effort we put in could be reached by most people, we are far more hacked off about that than you are!

Guys – as Lawrence said, the list of Panting Comp winners is now on the site – games winners and pictures to come real soon!

link

"Some of us don't have the time, storage resources, or money to plough in to one off terrain construction and more power to those who do.

What we bring to every show we attend is an achievable quality that we game with every week be it AWI, ACW, Napoleonic or Crossfire. We turn up and we are real."

I don't want club "real", I want to see inspiring demo games. Paying £8.00 GBP gives me that right. Partizan do it superbly for £3.00 GBP or less.

If you don't have the terrain, don't volunteer for premier shows.

We joined the queue to load up at 1705,in the marshalling area lane 2, and eventually reached the venue to load at 1810, ed off or what, we were only demonstrating a wargame, not making money as a trader. What galls me more is the amount of vehicles, nearly all cars, blocking the loading bays, with no one in them or even loading them, and the Salute staff unable to do anything about them. So if you are using this great venue next time, if the goods are not on the loading area, SEND THEM AROUND AGAIN.
We had a great day, thanks to the Salute team, for a great day, and we ended up with the Best Demonstration Game for our ORCS DRIFT.

There are various rumors and rumblings over on Starship Combat News about some people thinking about producing what you are looking for. But so far none have advanced to a stage where its clear they are going to come about. You can go over there
star-ranger.com/forum
and register your support. Evidence of support might help move one of these projects along. I want some of them, too.

It's good to hear about your organic ship molds, Big Bro, I'll be intersted in seeing them.

I don't know about ExCel. Sure, Salute is one of the biggest table top gaming events in Europe but what is an appropriate venue?

I understand all the advantages put forward about using the ExCel hall but I don't think that there is enough money in the hobby/industry (outside of GW?) to make the event feel like anything more than a bric-a-brac sale in a gigantic scout hut. By way of contrast, a similar event in the computer gaming industry would see kitting out a massive, empty hall hardly register on the console and software companies' development and pr budgets.

While it is nice to be spoilt for choice of traders (too many to get around in the one session and not enough personal cash to do them justice, but that's just me being a kid in a sweet warehouse) I'd prefer a more intimate atmosphere in which to experience the gaming side. The best events I can recall attending (purely as a punter) were the Salutes at Kensington Town Hall. Yes it had its negative points (some of which were pretty big negatives – my heart goes out to those traders stuck in not-so-splendid isolation in basement rooms to whom the idea of passing trade was fanciful dream) and I realise that the event has grown way too big to ever return there. But, there was a real joy to exploring the smaller gaming rooms with the buzz they generated and occasionally stumbling across a gem of a game that wasn't fully booked for the day. At ExCel by contrast all the games seemed to be silently hiding in plain sight with only a few, big games (such as Cloudships and Star Trek) looking like possible destinations. Maybe it's a case of being so much for the eye to focus on that very little actually crystallises into clear sight.

I understand that there have been organisational problems with Olympia, which is a great shame, as I felt that Salute had developed an appropriate middle ground between scale and intimacy there.

I appreciate everything that Paul and the rest of the Dulwich crew do to bring this event to life each year and I can see that they are valiantly juggling a wide variety of interests in putting it together. Unfortunately, for me, going to next year's Salute is unlikely to be the default decision it has been in the past.

10thFoot said: "I don't want club "real", I want to see inspiring demo games. Paying £8.00 GBP GBP gives me that right. Partizan do it superbly for £3.00 GBP GBP or less.

If you don't have the terrain, don't volunteer for premier shows."
I think you are being very harsh against the guys in question, and my advice to yourself if you think that £8.00 GBP gives you the right to moan about one table is either don't spend time at that table or organise one yourself. Its attitudes like yours that seem to be part of a current ammount of snobbery when it comes to terrain, not everyone can knock out realistic terrain and others cant afford to. What you're saying is tantemount to saying "can't paint to competition standards then don't enter any minis".

i didnt type that above.. is wrong with these forums?

Terrain and value for money versus the 'right tom criticise'.

All I would ask people to do is consider this. I know this isn't what web forums like this do well (pause for ironic/dramatic effect) but cant we just agree that Partizan is a good show with good scenery and good games and (when I've gone to the Fantasy versions of it) I've enjoyed them immensely (at £3.00 GBP to get in make hay whilst the sun shines.) But ditto SELWG at a fiver? And – I say not with modesty because it ain't my terrain: it's the terrain of the gamers that struggled to London to show it off and hopeful inspire us all with it – Salute had good scenery at it as well. And if, like everything else in life, you pay for both quality AND quantity – surely Salute also represented good value at £8.00 GBP with a huge number of nice games?

Please don't tell me that it's all about the ‘right' to complain, about what rights three pounds buys versus what rights eight pounds buys, is it?

I for one think it's about taking a step back and enjoying something that no where else in the world is fortunate enough to have: the British wargaming convention scene. From what I can gather from speaking to those from far off lands, what we have in the UK is unique and – if it's not supported by gamers – you will lose it. That means we will all lose it.

I go to half a dozen shows a year. I put games on at most of the ones I go to. I buy bits of stuff at them (more when I'm not running a game, obviously. Even more when I'm not helping run a show). I buy stuff on the internet. I don't make all of my purchasing decisions based on getting things at the very best price and driving down the cost of what I do. So I don't base my ability to criticise on how much I paid to get in to a show.

I think that if, as opposed to just turning up and fighting for bargains and special deals, more people wanted to put games on at more shows, and jostled harder to show good scenery, good games, good everything, then the standards will rise even higher than I believe they already have. I don't know if – people being what they are – that would lead to less criticism, mind you!

With the general anonymity of this forum, I also don't know if any of the people writing are regular providers of games for shows or not so I might be talking out of my backside here, but I think it's always easy to make sweeping statements when we haven't ‘walked a mile in their shoes', as it were.

You know who I am and what I do so I want to state for the record that I thought that – like at Hammerhead, Sheffield, Colours, SELWG and Warfare at Reading (that I went to in the last 12 months) – the games at Salute Zero Six (provided by dozens of other clubs around the country – I'm not talking about some of the commercial ones here) were honest, quality games with 80% to 90% being good enough to draw my attention and admiration in some respect or another. And without bragging whatsoever, I'm speaking here as someone who (as part of a team) has won awards at 3 shows in the last 14 months with three different games.

Sorry: I'm being a bit long winded about this but I just think that some of the comments made about game standards and value for money are a bit harsh, is all! And gee I can be critical too but…!

10th Foot

If you don't have the terrain, don't volunteer for premier shows.

So I assume on that basis you don't even try?

Look as far as I'm concerned, if Salute 2006 was anything to go by. If we are talking terrain built for the event and "inspiring", you would have had a lot of traders and less than ten games!

Now there's a show to pull people from all over Europe – NOT!

Trajanus – you and I probably spoke as I spent some time at your 25mm AWI game and asked a lot of questions; I was one of the pair of guys in blue jackets at around 2pm…. We agreed that your game was what a demonstration game should be – a showcase for one distinctive manufacturer (in this case, Old Glory), with good terrain (I was so impressed with the buildings that I didn't notice any "green baize") and gamers who were happy to stop what they were doing to have a discussion. As an AWI gamer myself, I was particularly interested to see how well many of the Old Glory figures painted up. Well done!

Giles

We at SSWG, try to inspire with our scenery, which, sometimes, we may not even play on the day, shopping is quite important to us, especially at Salute and SELWG. Sitting meditating around a game all day, at Salute, no way. Although, we always have plenty of members of the club readily available to chat about it. We try to put on a display, be it, with scenery, painted figures and plenty of information. we can, and do use it as an attempt to gain club members, I am mystified by some of the poor quality, on show, anyone can build, or even buy terrain, we have a budget…. The Rorke's Drift terrain boards were made, costing about £40.00. Although the figures have to be bought, and painted, but you are "always" going to find the cash for them. So no more cloths with books under them, I also go to see spectacular scenery. £8.00 GBP thats cheap!

We by demonstrating a game had four free passes, but no bag of goodies, though if you pay the entrance fee you do, the figure is worth a fiver, they are selling them on ebay already.

Giles,

Thanks for the kind words. That's nice summary of what we aim to do. Glad to see we are geting there!

I was the twit in the up market Guinness tee shirt!

Prince of Darkness,

Just in case anyone thinks we were too cheap to spend £40:00 (and I know you didn't say that) our resource short fall is anywhere to build or store 12 x 6 worth of terrain boards, the cash is not an issue!

A factor I feel must hold back a lot of display gamers.

Where the hell you store a 1/35th scale D-Day God knows!

1/35th D-Day gets stored (along with the 1/35th Stalingrad) in the a big wargames shed we built in Johns garden! 90% of the terrain was "normal", only the beach board was purpose built. The rest gets used for 20mm, and 25mm games. The shed is big enough to accomodate a slightly bigger table than we used on Saturday.Johns fascination (shakes head) for 1/35th is stretching his storage capability a bit, the 10,000 25mm Napoleonics take up a fair bit of room too!
We did this demo game as an afterthought, it grew out of doing a big Normandy game then some-one said "why not do a demo"? It seemed a shame not to.
Someone said earlier that they felt demo gamers were "just getting in for free" Well, if we could have put that game on for £32.00 GBP between the 4 of us then that would have suited us fine- probably you can x that by 10 at least- and then factor in the time spent- plus the normal costs of figures etc.When I go to a show I love seeing demo games because they can inspire me, and I get the chance to ask "how to" questions. Which strangely enough is exactly what I spent a lot of saturday answering with lots of different folk.

cheers chris

The Zulu, Mogadisu and D Day games where excellent and showed some real work had gone into them. Also a samurai skirmish looked nice. But what do you do about the ones that where poor? do the Warlords send the terrain police around to a club that wants to put a demo on? if clubs feel comfortable with putting out poor displays then that reflects on the club not the organisers.
The only issue i had with this years Salute was the prize draw. I bet the poor sod who got the baseball cap and t shirt was really chuffed to find he'd won that instead of the £500.00 GBP Please Jon, no on the spot "lets build the tension-results after the break" nonsense. If there is going to be a runners up prize do it after the main draw or put the guys name back in the box.

Pete G

The runner up prize is an interesting point – it's the way we've done it for the last couple of years. That don't make it right, of course! But it's a point we'll certainly consider – there's a fine line between fun in a fare way and teasing. So other opinions are welcome.

All

As to terrain, the show is very much 'Hobson's choice': at Salute we do weed out clubs which, in the past, have not put on good demos (and ‘not good' involves all sorts of categories including poor presentation skills, scruffy looking games and reports of them being rude to gamers and their children).

But how rigorously should one do that? Clubs are voluntary organisations who change personnel on display games as they change their members. From year to year you wont find the same people running games at other peoples shows from the Warlords and the games themselves change as well. And every Club's the same. For example. even a game that we ran, say, in the 90's like UFO, when we took it to Sheffield this year it not only had different people, it had different models and different scenery and rule systems. We've taken Hammers Slammers to different shows over the last 7 years, again with different scenery and different people and vehicles (and now different rules). So basing decisions on past performance is always tricky.

That leaves us with, as was suggested, the "terrain police". While I would certainly be very willing to walk up to anyone running a demo or party game who tried to put, say, unpainted figures on the table and say "remove those now" I would not be willing to say the same thing to someone who had badly painted figures (bad in whose opinion?). Similarly, whilst I will say things like "gosh, have you not brought a cloth with you to cover up that bare table under your nice terrain boards?" (we all sometimes forget: I've done it myself) I would not want to visit a table and say "your sceneries ugly" any more than I'd criticise them for their sartorial elegance.

Jon,
Cheers for that. It caused my mate to have a heart attack when you started to announce the shirt winner as his first name was the same as the winner and to watch him change colour in a split second was amusing for us but not for him.
As per terrain etc you get what you pay for. As the clubs are volunteering to put games on for free (from the organisers point of view, not the clubs) you have to take what you get or filter out those who are taking the mick. Not everyone has the cash (or storage) to put some really great "display use" only terrain together for something that would be on the circuit for a year before having to be redressed or tweaked.

Hi all,

I just wanted to add a bit to the demo games debate. First up I think that Demo games do add to the show. Even before I took part in putting on such games, I always used to love going round looking at everyone else's games, chatting with the game providers and being inspired. I rarely joined in, even when encouraged to, but I always got more painting done in the immediate aftermath of a show.

Secondly, while we, at least, have never had a rule of forbidding public participants, you have to bear in mind that there are a number of issues with people participating in demo games.

To start with the demo game providers have generally spent a lot of time and money on their figs and scenery and so are understandably a bit wary of handing them over to complete strangers, who make break or even steal them. It's not usually a case of being overly mistrusting just the hard won experience of knowing that nobody is as careful with your figures as you are. Then there is the logistics of actually running the games at the show. Most wargames are not over in half and hour, so running the game means that one or more of the game providers have to be on hand to run things for most of the day. That means they don't get to see much of the show or do much shopping themselves, which as they aren't getting paid to be there is probably a bit harsh. So, you then end up taking it in shifts, thus requiring more people, who both don't mind doing it and know the rules of the game. Then you've got members of the public wandering by asking questions. If you intend to demo anything then you have to talk to them but that usually means a break in the game while you answer their questions. During which the game players have to sit about and twiddle their thumbs unless you add yet more people to field questions. Who obviously then have to know something of the game construction techniques and the scenario. Rarely will a club have enough willing people to easily field all these rolls, so it comes down to making choices. Some game providers sacrifice their own shopping and mooching time to run their games, while others concentrate more on the talking to people than the game playing. The latter approach is obviously not conducive with running a participation game the former should be applauded but not expected.

Okay, so we come to the concept of paying entry for demo providers. Personally, I think participation games and demo games offer different but both equally valuable attractions for the show's punters. One is mainly fun to play and the other is more a source of inspiration and ideas. As such, I for one would think that charging the demo game providers an entry fee would be taking the Mick. Okay, not everybody is as megalomaniac about show demo games as we are but in the vast majority of cases people have put in a lot of effort and got up early to set up in time, so the least the organisers can do is let them in the venue. For the record, I don't think we have ever got all the people who worked on one of our games in for free. As to the quality of game that is acceptable I sympathise with John's views here. Setting himself, or another Warlord, up as high arbiter of taste and decency will be a good way to lose friends fast, so I understand his reluctance to do so. Really the only way to ensure a better standard is through reward or peer-group pressure. No reasonable reward is likely to outweigh the cost of putting on the game, so they can only be tokens at best. Therefore peer pressure has probably got to be the main driving force.

As for not putting on games because you don't have the space/time/money, this is quite a weak argument. As POD has said, most of the materials we use are easily available from DIY shops or builders merchants for minimal cost and there are plenty of gamers willing to discuss tips and tricks with you. Also, nobody has stipulated you must build a 12'x 6' bespoke terrain piece covered in thousands of beautifully painted figures. A nicely presented 6' x 4' game can be just as inspiring and as valuable a show case for a rule set or period as a bigger display. Personally I would rather see a nice 6' x 4' game than a poor 12' x 6' one. This was an issue for us last year, where we overstretched ourselves and had to rush our pirate town to get it finished. It was much better when we took it to SELWG in October, something that was commented upon in Wargames Illustrated. So my advice would be start small and build up, concentrating on quality rather than quantity. This reduces costs, transport difficulties and building time, as well as making the task less daunting for a first time builder. This doesn't mean you have to request a small table on the show day though, just use the extra space for related books, documents, maps etc. Also as John T says bring a cloth to cover up your tables. This improves the presentation massively, as does keeping drinks, food and papers off the game surface. Putting on a game isn't all that difficult it just requires a bit of imagination and elbow grease.

All the best,

Trev

Trev – the day Salute charges regular wargames clubs to put on demo games is the day I stop being involved!

Trev,
Eloquently and beautifully put- bit like your games.

cheers chris

I'll second that!

Thanks for the kind words Guys, and John, don't worry we've always felt loved and appreciated at Salute. :)

Trev

Trev,
Your last para is good one. For the SELWG Napoleonic game, we planned it in November, due to various things we actually started the terrain in January with a proper plan of how many evenings we could put in. But then reality took a hold and we managed to get the basic terrain done only by reducing the size of table from 16x8 to 12x6 and some divorce inducing last minute panic sessions, helped by 2 days sunshine during the easter holidays.

We were happy with the overall look (we know where we could do better next time – next time, are we mad!!), but the planning stage is where we fell down. SELWG is a fairly big club (80+ members), but only 4 of us were actually involved in putting the thing together and we all have day jobs and commitments and are quite inexperienced in terrain building. We will have a much better layout by the time SELWG comes around in October, which means getting stuck in now. The full size table would have been impractical although pretty. For the next project, we will have to start work soon to be ready in time for Salute 07 or more likely 08!!

We also misused the extra table space, and forgot to bring enough cloth to cover all of the tables, and rushed the presentation and literature stuff which is all part of a good demo game. Also, only 2 of the 4 of us actually had any detailed knowledge of the battle we were putting on, and we did not have the time to bring the other 2 up to speed enough to feel confident in talking to the public about it.

WOW – A HUGE NUMBER OF COMMENTS AND INTERESTING POINTS ON DEMO / PARTY GAMES HERE, THE ISSUE REALLY NEEDS A DISCUSSION FOLDER OF ITS OWN!

I was a member of the Warlords from the later 80s to early 90s during which point I put on three games. The first of these was Thunderbirds, The Second 'Glory' (Which was due to be Arnhem but we had to change it at the last minute) and the third at Salute 1990 was 'Return Of The Jedi' all of these games were Participation games and all of them required a huge amount of work and expense, over which I have no complaints what so ever.

I accepted then, as I do now, that if I and others with me decide to do a Party or Demo game at a convention, wherever or whenever it maybe, that is NOT going to be the year that I get to look around that convention as much as I would like even with people running the game in shifts (which may or may not be possible anyway) I learnt this early on. No longer a member of the Warlords, as I moved away from London some time ago, a group of us whom have known each other for some time have come together to put games on at Salute, the first of these was Operation Market Garden – Nijmegan To Arnhem at Salute 2003, required six of us to run and was also a party game.

People may run games at cons for different reasons, sometimes it is to win awards, sometimes to show off what you have built, perhaps because you are proud to be involved in the hobby and proud of your collection or simply because you enjoy putting on a game at such events and get a kick out of watching others participate in them, I know in my case the latter is always our priority although it's always nice to win awards too.

Yes I would agree the days of games with table cloth and a few books underneath are long gone and the quality of games is always going to be varied but not everyone, regardless of the cost involved (be it forty quid or four hundred for your scenery) are master builders but that should never stop them from wanting to put on a game. Looking back, the scenery for our Thunderbirds game was good but not great and If I choose to run it again, which at some point I would love too, I would have to do a great deal of it differently, but we were young then, inexperienced and full of enthusiasm and as a remember given much encouragement by old hands such as Alan Marques, Kevin Dallimore, Paul Sharville and John Treadaway, whom I have much to thank for and have contributed as much to the hobby as anyone I have ever met or am likely to meet.

I remember being disappointed when we didn't get anything at Salute 2003 and at first a little surprised when for all our efforts, the groups of young kids next to us won an award for their very basic looking Buffy game! But on reflected quickly upon this fleeting selfish moment: These kids were barely in their teens, were putting on their first party game at a show, it was original and probably more fun to play than ours was! They deserved something for their efforts and hopefully it encouraged them to run something else in the future and I dare say they will scale greater heights.

As for the argument around Comp tickets for Demo games and Party games at conventions and at Salute in particular as the John says, absof—-kinglutely! Even the most basic game to put on is normally a pretty big headache. You only have to read the above posts with the stories of nightmare entrance and exit scenarios, unloading, loading and so on.

It takes a lot of work to put on a game, demo, party or otherwise and the Warlords are not likely to invite you back if the game isn't up to much. I totally agree that Demo games should be properly presented and where possible there should always be one person by the table to explain to people what the battle / asteroid / Orc buggy contest is all about and to put it in context for people walking past, I see this as a minimum mandatory requirement when putting on a game. I was a judge at last years Salute and we did an exhausting four hour walk round of all the games, probably at least one third of which were not being played, and a couple of which had great scenery, but were never played at all, that really defeats the object. I know how much energy and enthusiasm it takes to run a game properly, but setting one up and then ‘see you later' is simply not cricket.

I was lucky enough to play two party games this year – Black Hawk Down (Which fortunately unlike at SELWEG a couple of years back I was not asked a fiver to play) and was well run with very tired but great energy but the bloke with the big moustache and enjoyed by all, and by their own admission they only decided they were going to put the game on at the last moment and still didn't have all the things they wanted for the game – Hey it worked fine for me! plus the excellent Cloud Ships Of Mars. (Though having seen Mickey Penver in that Sailors suit I think I will need counselling)

I hope the main reason that people will put on games at conventions whatever the standards is because they enjoy doing it and enjoy involving those people who come either as participants or as on lookers. Salute not a premier event? Who are you kidding, it is the premier games event! We are lucky to have it in the UK.

As for games that were poor, if I were to list the good ones against the bad, the good would far away the bad!

At the end of the day the historical battles that were fought on a field or a hill with a stockade, well there is only so many ways you can make a hill and a green field look fantastic!

I have been going to Salute for many years now. Originally as a shopper from Jersey looking to see the biggest selection of figures/models available in one place. Then as part of a club project to put on demonstration games and, in recent years, as a helper/driver for one of the traders. Having justified myself then I will get on with comments. I have long felt that Salute was the showcase event for our hobby. Judging by the number of foreign gamers who make the effort to attend this is a view shared by others. For shopping it is great and the standard of games and the diversity of traders has always provided me with inspiration. Salute at Olympia made me feel that I was part of a hobby that had now achieved some sort of maturity and meant that I could revel in the fact that I no longer had to skulk off to village hall type locations stuffed with too many traders all vieing with each other for the same amount of money from the same clientele that had turned up in their dozens the year before. Excel hits the same button and congratulations to John and the rest for having managed the change of venue with very few teething problems. I, and several people I spoke to, felt that the location lacked atmosphere but I think John has answered this well by saying that it is up to us to respond to the new environment. I know when we used to bring games to shows we found out things that we could not have known about before, (Flurescent light is green and will make green scatter greener to the eye). I still feel that one of the motivators that made us want to bring games all the way from Jersey still exists. There are still games, at maybe our premier showcase event, that look like club games. I know I want to go to a show to be inspired and not to see games that 'could have done better'. I remember when we were thinking about our first game I took some photographs at a show and the people behind looked remarkably pleased with themselves. I did not have the heart to tell them that I was photographing the usual clutter of dice, bottles, crisp packets etc, that litter most, otherwise good, games. Yes there is a cost to put on a good game and yes there has to be a committment by a small team but it can be done. We used polystyrene quite a lot and often heard the comment that it was 'too brittle' or 'too much of a diorama and no use for future gaming'. In rebuttal I would just mention one set of terrain boards that we built to stage a 25mm demonstration of the Battle of Cheriton from the ECW which was still going strong 15 years later when we finally gave it away to a someone who was a keen WWII 1/300th gamer!
So the show itself. Good was the access for us loader/drivers and the vehicle marshalling system was not too bad. I wonder whether I got the instructions right about where to park the van because I don't usually walk that far unless I have been sponsored. I hated the floor, it certainly made my legs hurt, (what's that about the greying of the hobby? You'll have to speak louder). I couldn't make head nor tail what anyone was saying on the PA, (but see above). Worst thing though was that as a trader/exhibitor I didn't get a goody bag, (ok, so I got in for free if you don't count having been up since the early hours), or a plan of the place. When I first arrived I went straight to assess the quality of the tiles above the urinal and on the way there I thought 'Oh, there's the smiling face of Duncan Macfarlane, I must go there later and pick up a mag'. Some hours later, still not having my own plan I was forced to admit that I needed help. This may, of course, have something to do with the landmarks that I was using. I was using the clash of swords from an arena to orient myself and if they were resting then the verry pretty girl in the red dress on the star trek arena as another. Funnily enough, I seemed to always find myself standing at the star trek arena. Eventually I asked for help, (see, I can be a modern man),and found Duncan's stall. I do, however need to apologise to the Continental Wars Society of whom I am a member as I could not find their demonstration game all day which I would have liked to have showed my face at!

All in all though, Salute is the premier show and I hope it will continue to develop as a showcase for the 'best' of wargaming whether that be traders, games or painting exhibitions/competitions.

PS. If we're voting for scantily clad women………..

Trev,

dont you think that the reason why we at SSWG seem to always have reasonable scenery and show games is due to 2 main factors…

1: we have a perm club residence that we can work on projects in.

2. We actually make Scenery making a integral part of the club social scene. People bother to turn up for a chat etc rather than seeing the effort as a chore.

I'm sure these two items are key.

I came all the way from New York City and found the venue large and commodious, but with the personality of a bunker. This was my fifth Salute and I enjoyed it greatly. I hope to be back next year.

Hi Rich,

I agree that these things definitely help, although having one or more members with lots of drive and energey (in our case mainly POD) is probably as, if not more, significant.

Trev

hi everyone,(can you tell its my first posting)

i hope i dont offend anyone , i thought id just put another slant on things,
i liked the venue for salute this year, the larger venue might have felt a bit soulless, appearance wise, but when you interacted with the gamers/exhibitors/traders there was definately atmosphere and passion. the larger venue with wider "aisles" between tables /stands etc, meant that there was the space to get away from people with hygiene problems/rucksack brigade.
i like to see games of green baize at the shows, my hats off to said exhibitors, taking their own time to put on a game and to promote the hobby !!
The day a wargames show becomes elitist is the day i'll stop attending. i do enjoy looking at lots of inspirational games on nicely sculpted terrain, but i also remember how daunting it was as a very young newbie gamer to get into the hobby"where do you start", "i cant do stuff like that"," i cant afford stuff like that". The green baize boys just showed evrybody that its about the GAMING, not what you can or cannot do! Ive heard some people say there are too many traders at shows, and a whole load of other gripes, but the way i look at it is, wargames conventions are our hobby on show, and so should display all facets of wargaming at all levels/scales/budgets/ability, but , overall it has to display wargming as enjoyable, nobody wants to do some thing thats not enjoyable. for what is worth, its only my opinion

cheers, rees

Ladies and gents. Thanks for the comments about Salute.

A couple of things: Salute is a broad church. Like a forum or a magazine, no one will plough through all of the postings or read a magazine cover to cover and be entertained or inspired by everything. We've tried all manner of things at Salute over the years in an ‘ancillary' role to ‘wargaming proper'. We've had BB guns; fake sumo wrestling in suits and WW2 memorabilia. We've also had – and retain – some re-enactors; roleplaying and LRP (both rubber sword and lasertag based). We've had competitive card games. Computer games (from both ends of the time scale including the late 70's with a first foray). It's a terrible secret to reveal but – around 1980 – we even had national wargames competitions.

We're never going to please everyone with everything: that's not what the show's about. A good analogue is a wargames club. There are many smaller clubs in the UK that have less than a dozen members and they all meet locally in a pub room, a church hall or even someone's front room. You get admitted in by personal invitation and there is little formal structure. All the members tend to play in the same games. Then you get bigger clubs that have 50 or more members, say. These are usually just umbrella organisations for organising smaller ‘club-ettes' – all around a half dozen to a dozen people. They play specific things and tend to stick to certain periods. We have that in the Warlords: the WW2 and napoleonics group. The other WW2 and Ancients group. The Warhammer group. The Warhammer and Flames of War group. The weird SF group… etc etc.

I think Salute is like that. Smaller shows have tried a different model and a good one is Partizan. Up until recently Newark ran three shows a year which – too some extent – were themed (well the SF one and the others…) What it meant was that you could go to all three and see different things: different traders, different games and indeed meet different people.

Salute tries to be all of that rolled into one. Along with as much of Dragonmeet (and it's ilk) as we can get. With knobs on. So the idea is you have a big show some of which is pretty much guaranteed to appeal to everyone. Being the size that it is, with the location it is in and being run the way it is, it's always going to be a source of some degree of conversation, debate and indeed controversy. Pretty much all of that (until it gets personal) is ‘a good thing', I reckon.

What I do know is that the team that runs it does listen to peoples comments and we try to improve. Sometimes we wander from a line (like a drunken man) and wander back. Sometimes we even take a step backwards but try to take a double step forwards to make up for it. The net result, I believe, is that we are going, gradually, in roughly the right direction.

I'll give you an example of listening: Awards for games. Bearing in mind the number of games we have at the show, it was pointed out to me (by an attending club) a few years back that we had increased the size of the show and (therefore) doubled the number of games attending. But they were all still competing for the same number of awards that we'd had since the mid eighties. It hadn't even occurred to me! In an effort to encourage the best from games, we looked at what we could do to increase the areas of excellence we could recognise. Result – we now have ten separate categories link to judge from which takes an independent team a couple of hours to do. But that was as a direct result of feedback.

Guys: keep giving us positive feedback and – where possible (and within the geographic and financial constraints imposed) we will try and make the show more of what you want of it: it's as simple as that.

We're not the only group of people with mixed views on ExCeL – I've seen that the London Book Fair – which moved from Olympia to ExCeL this year – has announced it will take place at Earl's Court next year. If you think Salute was a bit hapahard, you should have seen the Book Fair :-)

Gosh: If I could have shown everyone who thought ExCel was a bit slack the rubbish room/balcony with nasty access that they offered us at Earls Court… Still: we have our post show debriefing booked with ExCel to 'iron out the wrinkles'!

As one who has no great painting or modelling skill, but loves PLAYING wargames, I am delighted to see demo or participation games with simple scenery – green baize cloths or whatever – that I, too, can hope to emulate at home. And I'll bet such games are far more representative of the majority of wargaming as actually practised.
If people have the skill, and enjoy producing high-quality figures and scenery, that's fine – good luck to them. But I do wish some people wouldn't automatically equate beauftiful figures and terrain with a good game: it is possible to have a challenging, entertaining, fun – call it what you will – wargame with cheap, simple kit that doesn't require amazing artistic skill, time or effort to produce.
Would chess be a better game if played with exquisitely painted miniatures?
I find I tend to wander around shows, admire the display-standard demo games for a few minutes, before reality kicks in and I remember I can never hope – nor need! – to produce anything like that, and then head for participation games that offer interesting or amusing experiences.
So, let's continue to have both dioramas AND green baize!