Monday 7 April 2014

99th Garrison attends Scarborough's Si Fi convention - 6th April, 2014

The 99th Garrison was asked by the organisers of Scarborough’s first ever si fi convention to attend their event on Saturday and Sunday, 5th & 6th April, 2014.  I agreed to do this one on the Sunday as I quite fancied a day by the seaside – even if it did mean a two and half hour drive each way and getting up just after 5:00am!
 
The view from outside the venue when I arrived
I was first to arrive at the venue which was right by the sea front and waited for the others to arrive.  I was soon joined by Paul, Mike and Jo from Scarborough and then by Nigel and Jim from the North East.  We were also joined by another Paul in the afternoon.



The event took place at The Spa in Scarborough and was quite a large venue with lots of space.  The cast of Red Dwarf was there and some actors from Star Wars [Chris Bunn, Ken Coombs, Marolyn Turk, Stephanie English, Nick Joseph, Salo Gardner and John Simpkin] and also Colin Baker and Kai Owen. 


We were given a changing room as our base for the day and were ready to go out at about 10:15am.  There was a steady influx of people into the event but I think that it is fair to say that of the two days, Saturday had been the busier day.

We posed for photos with the general public and also for local press and photographers, had a break for lunch and then trooped again until about 3:45 pm.  We also had our photographs taken with all of the Star Wars actors who were then.  Nigel was quite miffed with himself for not bringing his Star Wars poster with him to add their signatures to his already quite impressive collection of signatures from the Star Wars cast.

I decided that having driven all that way, I could not leave the seaside without having a 99 ice cream, so me and Nigel found the nearest Ice Cream shop and bought a couple of 99s and took a selfie of two members of the 99th Garrison having a 99!

I tried Cookies and Cream flavoured ice cream... it was lovely! :-) 

I left not long after that and made the long journey back home where I got to at about 6:45pm - suitably tired.

All in all, not the busiest of events and certainly not a very profitable one in terms of the amount that we collected for Dreamflight as we only raised £22.97.  The issue that we are starting to see with our attendance and charity collections at conventions is that having paid their entrance fee into the event, people don’t seem to want to pay for their photo with us - something that we may have to change our tactics on for future events and maybe ask the event organisers/promoters to make a donation instead.
 
Playing a game of..... Star Wars!  in the Gaming Area.
Was great to see Nigel and Jim from the North East and to meet Paul, Mike, Paul and Jo from Scarborough.  Thanks All.  Also thanks to Andy for inviting us and organising the changing room and parking.