No More Crusades

[Guy Farrish]

I had been looking forward to January 2023 and renewing acquaintance with one of my favourite shows; Crusade at Penarth. I decided to check the date and discovered I had missed the announcement in April that Penarth Wargames have decided that Crusade 2020 would be the last they would run.

I enjoyed Crusade. It was held at a ridiculous time of year in the depths of a Welsh winter, three weeks after the seasonal bankruptcy of Christmas. Yet it was a triumph. Held in the Cogan Leisure Centre it had sufficient parking for about a quarter of the numbers visiting, a situation not helped by the catering (a burger van in the car park). Yet the burger van was a feature (the only time I ever ate burgers from a van), and hunting a parking spot on Andrew Road a hobby in itself. Staggering up the hill laden with books and lead after the show united people in a joint endeavour. It also had the unique selling point of lectures and talks by experts such as Adrian Goldsworthy and Rob Jones running through the day and it felt wonderful in those gloomy winter days to meet people I only seemed to see there.

But times change and Crusade moved to a shiny new venue in a local school which unfortunately Balkanised the event to an extent. There was plenty of on sight parking though and the talks continued.  But there was already a move away from traders travelling to shows, especially the smaller shows on the edge of the UK road and rail network.

Penarth club itself had suffered a split a few years ago which can’t have helped.

Are other small shows disappearing or is this just part of the normal churn of ‘the market’?

Whatever the answer; I shall miss Crusade.

[Steve Johnson]

I fear for the smaller shows Guy, as most cannot be that financially viable for traders to attend, even more so with the current ‘cost of living’ crisis.

[OotKust]

You had me worried for a moment… sorry for your loss.

Yes I’ve run clubs and affairs going back to 1977, and you have to have lots of willing unpaid support and try at least to make a profit to sustain the impetus- like any business really.

But I fear its a lost cause these days as micros have been overtaken by video etc. Even when given a free pass to attend a major show here, the current whiners on the committee refused the offer! I’d have gone and put a demo on, but there was no support! Sad affairs…

d

[Darkest Star Games]

The small shows (here in the US) used to have a variety of small traders hawking their unique wares.  But as you said it’s become very difficult for the small guys to have a reason to haul their wares about.  I haven’t vended at a show for 4 years now as the gamestore-like business that sell the latest-greatest items from the big names or most recent kickstarters have taken over.  Legion are the number of folks that say “I was going to buy X amount of your models but thems over there had the new CMON/Mantic/etc big-box-o-stuffins…”.  Of course the cost of postage isn’t helping the little guys either.

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