National Indoor Arena: The fresh air of the early morning was tempered by the rising sun as we walked across brindley place towards the NIA. Battle cries and general sounds of chaos drifted in the air as we approached the grand building. In the distance we could see the hordes of cannon fodder.... er.... teenagers and young 'uns standing in a queue that snaked its way in to the NIA car park and folded upon itself thrice before winding across nearly the entire circumference of the NIA building.

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The Long Wait: As we came upon the human chain winding its way towards the entrance, we considered momentarily the merits of a barge and push approach in to the middle of the que. Many different approaches were considered, including a feigned emotoional recognition of an old friend in the que, to mimicking the kick off at the world cup rugby union finals. Our momentary indulgance gave way to sanity and the feeling of fair play and we resolved to join the end of the line. It took nearly an hour to reach the entrance, by which time some of us we quite irritable, being bombarded by screaming young voices, the constant ringing of mobile phones and the hot sun beating upon us. To add an element of desperation, I came to know that Argos' housekeeper had thrown out or misplaced the four tickets intended for himself and his companions. However in a rapid display of unusual organizaton UK mail order managed to provide us with his invoice number and advice as to how to enter despite loosing their tickets. Hats off the mail order and customer service. Then we were inside!!!

These images taken from the upper levels of the stadium  show the massive crowds within the great hall of the NIA. The seciod criticism I could throw is that access to the sales stands were a matter of pushing your way through.  I personally think a bettre organised system with better access to the actual sales stand would be the way to go. Forgeworld and Black Library in particular ran out of stock quite quickly. Again a sad refelction on the judgement on the salemanagers' ability to predict demand. However I am not always a critique. Credit must go where it is deserved. Mail order and customer support did a wonderful job in sorting out those who had lost their tickets by rapidly accessing their invoice numbers. In addition FW and BL stands had ample personnel which overcame the overcrowded access, as sales were performed very rapidly. Well done FW and BL!!

The first major criticism of the event. Despite the announcement that 8000 tickets had been sold, there was only a single entry point. We spent almost an hour waiting to get inside, entering the place only at 1100, and loosing a good hour of the event. Considering that the entire event lasted six hours, this was nothing short of a disaster in organization. The NIA is built to accommodate around 8000 spectators I think and has multiple entry doors. I cannot fathom the reasoning behind not opening more entry points to rapidly get the hobbyists in to the building. really I hope GW would learn from this experience and be more creative the next time around, either by getting more personnel to man the entry points, or an even bigger venue.

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The hall was brimming with a wide variety of people from gamers to hobbyists. Unlike the last year I did not see an obvious number of people in masquerade. These were far and few in between. The number of chapter banners hanging from the walls were also limited. We made our way to the centre and then aimed for our first mission,  The Black Library counter. Unholstering our precious wallets the B+C mod squad waded in to the BL stand, buying books, magazines, limited edition publications and dioramas without quarter. No surrender! No retreat indeed! I was surprised to se the latest space wolf novel "Wolfblade" available for purchase. Along with that I grabbed the three volumes of the bound story of Leonatos. I also found that the standard edition of the Liber Chaotica - Nurgle had somehow become adherent to my hand, forcing me to buy it. Know thine eemy, so a good read of father nurgles background would do me no harm. Sadly two days later, as I write this father nurgle has indeed struck me down with a severe head cold. Emperor protect me! My attempt to gain more information about the prince of pleasure, Liber Chaotica - Slaanesh once again failed, with the editions rapidly becoming sold out. Argos of course had been totally taken over by the choas gods, lavishing himself on the limited edition version of the Nurgles rot... while Kurgan was seen beating in to submission a number of limited edition dioramas.

GAMESDAY UK 2003