On the morning of Friday the 24th August 2012 the day had arrived for me to make the journey to Tamworth for the day I had been waiting for 5 months, Vapefest 2012!
I left my hometown at 10am in the morning hoping to miss the traffic, the journey should take me around 2 ½ hours all in according to Google maps and the sat nav. Overall the journey was not to bad until I decided not to take the M6 Toll Road, big mistake! 3 ½ hours later I arrived at the Premier Inn.
Now as I have said its Friday and the Vapefest is not until Saturday but I thought why not make a weekend of it, also if I was to travel down on the day I would have to be set off at 5am and there is no way I was wanting to do that.
So its now 13:30 and I have just arrived at the Inn, the plan is to get to the room and chill out for a few hours before going to get something to eat. That idea lasted the whole of an hour and at 14:30 I was in the bar enjoying a nice cold beer!
When I got in the bar I never spotted anyone who was vaping, however shortly after a UKV regular Wongers joined me. We both had something to eat and decided to nip outside as we had spotted a group sat around a table with E-Cigs. I was a little hesitant just to walk up and say hello but soon after I realised i had nothing to worry about as the group welcomed us and within a few minutes we had all introduced ourselves and was happily chatting away. The group turned out to be from the forum ‘All About E Cigs (AAE-C)’ that I go on daily and they are a great bunch!
The next couple of hours were spent sat around the table trying out peoples setups, having a few beers and trying out liquids. I was actually seeing a lot of the setups for the first time up close and the main one to surprise me was the GGTS, it was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. Also there were lots of rebuildable tanks and atomizers to have a look at and try out. It was now about 16:30 and I needed to go and have a shower so I decided to head back to the room and get freshened up after the drive.
At around 18:00 I was all washed up and ready to head back down to the bar to see if anyone was still around, lets just say there was more than before! The AAE-C group was still sat at the same table where I left them over an hour before and they had been joined by even more new faces, so off I went to the bar grabbed a beer and rejoined them. At around 20:30 people were now ready to make a move to the Tamworth Arms pub which has become the main meeting place for vapers who was attending the fest, however I was waiting on someone arriving and said I would meet them all a little later on.
So just after 21:00 i arrive at the Tamworth arms, first impressions gob smacked, everywhere i looked i could see people happily vaping in the pub and to boot the pub was filled with laughter and happy punters, just like the good old days before the smoking ban! Same as at the Premier Inn people was trying out other peoples devices from new tanks to mods i have never seen before. Also mixed in was some of the vendors such as, Daz from Safercigs who came over and said hello, Jason from Vape Escape, Toby from IVapour, Liam from Vapers Juice, Steve from Vapers Stall & Mick from Janty.
Myself and Tankie headed straight for the Bar grabbed a pint and sat down and started to have a chat as this was the first time we had meet in person. We was sat next to a group of people who we also ended up talking with, off the top of my head and i apologise but i only remember two names and only by forum name, Mr & Mrs Sicknote i believe it was.
After and hour or so i decided it was time i went and had a walk around and mix with people as this is the main reason i came to Vapefest, meeting people with the same interest ‘Vaping’. I meet many new faces during the night such as Wayne who is the main organiser of the fest, Goaty, Maddy Paulus who i have talked to many times but again this was my first time meeting him in person, Daz, Jason, Elfish, Pink Vapor, Liam, Steve, Toby, Lianitus (hope i spelt that correctly), Mick, BadSeed (Derek you cant half sing a good song my friend), Perp, DiscoDes, Lordy, Lunardog, River, Bell & Partner, Tim ‘Boniface’ Gordy and many more ….
So lets just say the Friday night in the Tamworth Arms consisted of great chat with great people, laughter, beer and most importantly to me, great atmosphere, to be honest the whole night was a blast and i just hope in the years to come this is how the pubs will end up being. We left the Arms at 1am with full bellies of beer after we was told it was closing up time.
After a short drunken walk back to the Hotel it was time for a few hours kip before the main event, Vapefest 2012 !
6 ½ Hours later all i hear is a god awful noise, that would be the alarm ! Vapefest 2012 was just a few hours away !
After a quick shower and shave it was time to head down to meet Tankie and and make our way to the Moat House to join the queue that i am sure is already starting to form. We arrived at 9 o’clock and as i thought there must have already been around 50 people ready and waiting for the doors to open.
The doors opened at around 9:30am to start letting people in but the vendor marquee was still closed until 10:00am to allow the vendors time to get ready for the inevitable onslaught on customers they are about to get.
Bang on time 10:00am the marquee was open and people started to filter in and head to the vendors tables. When i say that within 5 minutes the vendors all had queues 3 deep trying to grab what they came for is no joke, the marquee was jammed !
As you can see from the photos there was tables placed inside for people to sit at and have drink, chat and relax, i believe they were going to be outside originally but due to the bad weather forcast a decision was made that they should be placed inside the marquee. Some people thought this was a bad idea, other people never saw a problem, nor did i. Don’t get me wrong it was a little busy inside but i can honestly say that never bothered me one bit, the atmosphere was amazing!
So a few of us grabbed a table and sat down and the day was a go. Over the next few hours i met many people including Dave Kitson who i join on his Sunday night show Dave’s Tackle Box on
www.vapourtrails.tv, we have talked many times via skype and on the show but this was the first time i had actually met him in person. As i say i met many people, some from the night before and many other new faces. What i did find weird was the fact that people would walk up to me and say hello Dugie nice to meet you, not that someone walking up and saying hello is weird, i was meaning that they knew my name, for some reason i just could not get use to that!
So what else happened during the day ? Well, i was grabbed by Marco who was doing the Perfect Day Video he said the night before in the Arms i had agreed to join in and do a little bit for it (i am sure i didn't, or maybe i did) either way i was not going to argue with this man he is HUGE! So i was scuttled over to a quiet spot and asked to mime a few lines of the song as best i could. I am glad i did get involved as the end product was is amazing, so i have to say a big thumbs up to Marco for putting this together and to everyone who got involved as well. You can see the video below.
Soon after that the raffle was to be drawn, the marquee was busting at the seams with hundreds of people as well as anticipation of maybe bagging one the sought after Provari’s. Well done to everyone who won a prize. The wood Provari was won by Liam who was sat at our table and i just had to get my photo taken with this awesome device!
After the raffle the event numbers seemed to drop rather quickly as people needed to head away and catch trains or jump in their cars and make the journeys home. However many others who had decided to stay over headed for the bar or back to the tables to carry on with the banter they had been enjoying throughout the day.
Next up i was grabbed by Daz from Safercigs who again said i had agreed to do something on camera for him the night before ! i really need to stay off the beer i think. It turned out it was trying a liquid which i was not told what it was. I was handed a darwin set at 8 volts and away i went, fist drag not to bad, second, omg! third, cough splutter and cough some more! It turned out it was Mercury Ice from Vapourworld.co.uk in 36mg strength. MASSIVE throat hit ! and lets just say not one for me hehehe.
At around 19:30pm Russell from Cam Vip asked if myself and Dave Kitson would like to go and have a chat with Tim ‘Boniface’ who was doing a live show on RY4 Radio, without any hesitation we headed on over the corner of the bar where Tim was set up and broadcasting. We was on air for about 10-15 minutes just having a general chat about the day we had been having, oh and also i got the blame live on air for Dave not winning anything at the raffle hehehe.
At around 20:00pm the marquee was being cleared and the vendors where almost fully packed up, we was asked to move inside to the bar areas to continue our fun and we did. There was a DJ on upstairs but a few of us found it a little loud and it was hard to hear people over the music, so after an hour or so we headed of downstairs to join some of the others from earlier on.
After that it was a case of drink, have fun, vape, chat & enjoy the rest of the evening which we all did. At around 12:00pm i grabbed Ian from Touchwood and asked if he had any Mini Touchwoods left as i had been looking at them earlier on in the day but never managed to make a decision to get one or not. Luckily he did have some left and i ended up the proud owner of one, they really are a beautiful piece of kit and until you have held one you just cannot understand how much work must go into one of these.
Just after 01:00am on the Sunday the 26th August 2012 we was told by the Moat House staff that it was time to drink up, i instantly thought wow where has the day gone! Vapefest 2012 has been and gone, but what a blast i have had. Great Day, great company, great people all round.
I would like to say a huge thankyou to everyone who was involved in organising the event, you all did a sterling job and you all deserve a huge pat on the back.
And to everyone i met on the day, thanks for talking to me it was great to meet you all.
Until next time ..... Happy Vaping!
Roll on Vapefest 2013 !
For more images that i took at Vapefest 2012 please click
here.
All the best,
Dugie
