Vapnartak 2020

Well yesterday was the start of this years wargaming campaign season marked by a visit to Vapnartak staged at York Race course.
 Because I wanted to offload some of my wargaming ephemera we arrived early expecting to queue prior to a mad rush to book a bring and buy table. I was very pleasantly surprised that the organisers from York Wargames club had recognised the issue of the last few years and completely changed the set up for their table top sale.
 We were allowed in straightaway, that is 09.30 and sent via one of the lifts to the new location for the sale. The club have designated a whole floor to the tabletop sale, and after paying a £1.00 for half an hour I was allowed to set up ready for the 10.00 opening.
 The tables had plenty of room and there was ample space for punters, result.
 I found I sold a lot of stuff prior to the show actually being open, so even though I paid a princely £2.00 for an hour I stopped selling ten minutes before my allotted time.
 So well done York Wargames club for making their bring and buy a very pleasurable experience. Only one gripe and that was a box of lovely painted buildings I had sold prior to the opening were up for sale again with another wargamer at very, very inflated prices. Clearly I was too naive/ generous in selling them to someone I thought wanted to wargame with the buildings. My own daft fault I suppose.
 So how was the rest of the show?
 Busy, very busy, but strangely pleasant to walk around.
This is the first time I have never examined the demonstration games at a show, hence the paucity of photographs. Between doing some buying and a lot of time gabbing and setting the World to rights I didnt get to check out what the games were like.
I was impressed by the small participation games on the top floor which were very well set out and looked interesting. I didnt really circulate on the ground floor where I could see four large games which looked okay as I was too busy doing a deal with Tree Fellas for some hills and fields.
 I examined a few new traders selling their 3d wares which is going to become very common and hopefully cheap, they are very good in the main.
 Overall impressions were that the games were an afterthought which is a bit sad but to be honest I can see them disappearing in the next couple of years to make way for even more trade, because between the excellent tabletop sale set up, the popularity of competition and participation games and the large number of trade stands something will have to give.
 I can state I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Its probably because of the fact I found offloading my spare stuff very stress free, or it may have simply been the buzz around the show as wargamers emerged from their Winter hibernation.It was great to get the gossip from various wargamers I talked to although I wish the organisers would stop letting the Westerhope hoi-poloi into the show. Talk about lowering standards.
 On the retail front I picked up two lovely ACW painted regiments at a decent and fair price in the tabletop sale and somehow managed to buy even more brushes and paint.
 So thanks to York Wargames Society for making the start of the wargaming season a very pleasant experience.
 Only complaint, just the usual lack of soap use by some members of the fraternity.