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Welcome to todays diary entry! Here it is—showtime! It honestly feels a bit surreal to say we’ve made it to this point, after months of prep and all the usual flapping, phone calls, emails, bits of paper, plans scribbled out and rewritten three times. The amount of back and forth, second guessing and double-checking has been off the scale, but here we are, and it’s all happening.
It was an early start for most of us this morning, everyone buzzing about putting those final touches in place. You know it’s a big event when you see it with your own eyes—driving into Blakemere today, the sheer scale of it really hits you. I had a moment where I just thought, “Blimey, look what we’ve pulled together.”
Fifty awnings and tents, four pop-up shops—there’s a proper festival vibe about it. It’s a lot to pull off for a weekend, and the logistics are wild, but there’s a real sense of pride when you see all the planning finally come to life.
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I have to give it to the reps—they’ve been fantastic, rolling up their sleeves and pitching in wherever needed. It’s always a team effort at these things and I’ve genuinely felt supported all the way through. The show technically wasn’t supposed to open until 2pm for our soft launch, but I’ll never get over how people just seem to show up early, eager as anything.
By 11am we already had folks walking round, peering into awnings and asking questions. It always makes me laugh—clearly there’s some pent-up excitement for the start of camping season!
The weather—honestly, I feel like we’re living in some sort of parallel universe. It’s been absolutely perfect, sun shining, not a cloud in sight, dry underfoot.
That just changes the whole mood—makes everything easier, keeps people smiling, and gives the whole show a lift. Even after a few drinks in my awning last night (bit of a tradition at this point), everyone was up early and raring to go, so spirits were high all round.
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Of course, no show day would be complete without some sort of technical issue. My electric kept tripping this morning—always when you need it most, isn’t it? I tried everything, but in the end had to order a new part and get one of the lads from the shop to come down and fit it.
Luckily he sorted it and, as soon as the power was back, I could finally fire up the Starlink and get us connected. Always a relief when you can actually get your emails and run the new system.
Speaking of which, the new system at the show is something that’s honestly been playing on my mind for weeks. I was dreading it a bit, not going to lie. It’s one thing adapting to it in the shop, but throwing it into the chaos of a show—where things move fast, queues build up, and the pressure’s on—was another story.
But, as ever, you build these things up in your head and it’s rarely as bad as you imagine. Sure, a few teething problems and a bit of flapping around trying to remember which buttons to press, but once we got going it started to make sense. Give it a few more days and I reckon we’ll be wondering how we ever did it the old way.
The really positive news is that, despite my worries, the soft launch this afternoon was a real success. I didn’t expect much to happen today sales-wise, but we shifted a few awnings, and even managed to sell an Isabella already, which gets us off the mark in the best way. There’s a good buzz around the place, and it’s always a weight off when you see those first orders coming in.
Tonight, I ended up on cooking duty while Dodge headed off to the pub with one of the reps for what they’re calling “business discussions” (I know exactly how many pints that’ll involve). I did up a big batch of fajitas for the lot of them, but with ten blokes already a couple of drinks deep, they barely lasted five minutes. Could’ve tripled the batch and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
All in all, I’m happy with how day one has gone. There’s a long way to go and I know tomorrow will be a full-on day, but if we can keep this momentum going, we’ll be onto a winner. Here’s to a proper busy weekend, good weather, and—hopefully—plenty of happy campers.
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