Fighting 15s and wargames shows in 2021

Just to reiterate that there is absolutely no chance that Fighting 15s will attend any wargames show in 2021, either in a professional capacity with a stand or in a personal capacity as a visitor. Don’t hold out much hope of it happening in 2022 either.

I fully realize that some wargames traders’ lives are built around shows and that the past 18 months will have been particularly tough on them, but Fighting 15s evolved to be fully internet capable some time ago and sees absolutely no need to take what is at present a huge medical gamble to lose both money and days of work trading at a show. Even if I felt like trading, the glut of shows in the south this autumn would make it difficult to get stock ready for and to keep it available at show levels, particularly with Salute making an unseasonal appearance. Finding the lady – the show that manages to get the best footfall in a crowded market – would be a lucky guess. Are people going to avoid Salute because it’s too big and there are too many people? Or are they going to avoid the smaller venues because they risk cramming fewer people in a limited space?

Lovely as many of you are as customers, I can’t really embrace the idea of shuffling around the spaces between stands to meet you in what are traditionally poorly ventilated venues, striving to avoid The Mirror Crack’d scenario of encountering the one person who is ill but has decided against all sense to attend. Vaccinations are all well and good, and I am doubly jabbed, but the impact of illness on the running of a one-man business is too great – it’s bad enough with something mundane but debilitating, as I discovered only recently, let alone something that requires anyone to isolate.

I’d prefer to do as I’ve been doing for 18 months – getting internet orders out the door and letting the postman pick them up without me going to a post office. I have vulnerable friends who still are not meeting up to play games. I have relatives with an immune condition that means they can’t be vaccinated. I don’t fancy risking that I’m an asymptomatic carrier when they do decide to let me rejoin their world.

It is just toy soldiers, folks.