Diary Entry – 29th July 2023

Any fear i had that the show was going to be a bit of a struggle has been blown to smitherines today. I have never ever known anything like it. It was absolute carnage. The weather was nice and warm so it was a denim shorts and fake Moroccan Prada sunglasses kind of day. It was one of those show days that just ran like clockwork despite being manic. Lisa was the unsung hero as the Dodge girls should have only been here for a couple of nights then were due to go to their Nans. However because the Gestapo was on hand and they absolutely loved Lisa and the Beef they were so good so Lisa had them in the day allowing the Dodge and Gina/ Jen (still don’t ask) the freedom to be able to do what they do best.

The day started off slow and up until about 10:30 i was becoming increasingly concerned. Then Ben from Outdoor Revolution shouted me over and said “we need to start shifting these wind break and some awnings”. So that was the official birth of “Wind Break Man”. I pulled up my shorts and wiped my sun glasses lenses and made my way out into the stand. There was a few people on the stand but i saw someone looking at wind breaks and did my first demo of about 50 that day. We had a Vango Balletto of about 50 that we needed to shift so i made that my job. What starts off with 1 person watching ends up becoming a crowd of about 15 people but over the nexct hour things just went berserk. Gina was doing 5 order forms at once. I was doing demos to 25+ people on wind breaks. There was a queue about 7 people deep where Ben was processing payment after payment after payment. THis was like this for the 8 hours, it was literally non stop. I was doing demos on wind breaks and then selling 4 or 5 per demo then having to go to the Balletto to get more wind breaks out. I literally couldn’t get them out of the awning fast enough.

The great thing was that every single person there on that day knew exactly what there job was and what we were doing. I remember the Dodge telling us a story later on that day, he said it was as though time was in slow motion. He said he just stopped for 2 seconds to survey what was going on and as he looked around he saw Ben at the till 5 customers deep, Gina/ Jen doing 5 order forms at once (don’t ask), me doing demos to crowds of people and handing the wind breaks out. In the chaos everything was in perfect cohesion a well oiled show machine. This ended up today being a record day that we have ever had at a show. Which when you think about the days we had had at Camper Jam is insane. I just hope tomorrow is the same. Some day it has been.