Game Fair Gossip and Photos

What an amazing couple of days: Muddy Matches has officially survived its first CLA Game Fair and we have had a lot of fun in the process!

It was the Game Fair’s 50th anniversary and a record 151,000 visitors attended the show over the 3 days. The 500 acre site at Blenheim Palace was teaming with people, particularly on the Saturday, and the weather was absolutely scorching.

We had arrived on Wednesday afternoon to start setting up our stand and to do a run-through of our dating show for Saturday.   The Muddy Matches country cottage motorhome got an airing and we definitely got a few sniggers as we drove on site, where a city of white canvas had sprung up in expectation of the thousands of exhibitors and visitors that were about to attend.

It was very exciting to actually be doing it at last.  As you may remember, last year’s Game Fair had to be cancelled as the site was waterlogged after the terribly wet July.  After a whole year’s planning and all the promotion and organisation in the few months running up to the big day we were finally there!

We found the little plot that was to be our stand for the next couple of days and were really chuffed with it.  We had a little covered area for us to hold our Straw Bale Speed Dating and shelter if it rained and then a lovely open space shaded by a tree for us to entice people in for a drink and a chat, as well as to look at our house on wheels!

It took us most of Thursday to organise ourselves and get the stand how we wanted it but were very pleased with the end result.  As usual, we then got really busy and forgot to take a decent picture.  A lot of people came on to the stand to take pictures of it though so if anyone has a nice picture we’d love it if you would send it to lucy@muddymatches.co.uk.

On Thursday night we were joined by our two lovely assistants, Catriona and Ros, who kindly agreed to help us out for the show…they were amazing!

The first visitors started arriving from 6.30 am on Friday morning when the gates opened and then just kept streaming in.  Unfortunately, there was an accident on one of the key roads approaching Blenheim and the traffic was quite bad.  It took our Mum 2 hours to make the 6 mile journey from her hotel to the site that morning but she made it in the end and was a great help to us that day and the rest.

Stands had to be opened by 9.30 am ready for business but we were so keen we were already persuading people to come Straw Bale Speed Dating by 8.00 am!  Lucy was also broadcast live on the Game Fair Radio Breakfast Show which went out when most people were sat in traffic in their cars so lots of visitors came up throughout the day to say they had heard it and to take a look at the stand and have a chat.

As the day got hotter and hotter, it soon became apparent that the location of our stand was amazing as, whilst most other people were swetering under canvas, we had the open space, a shady tree and lots of iced drinks available to keep us cool.

The speed dating sessions began in the afternoon and we ran them on all three days.  It was all a bit of fun with a maximum of 12 people chatting to each other on our straw bales with a Sloe Motion cocktail or a glass of Belvoir cordial to quench their thirst.  Everyone had to fill in a card to say who they’d like to see again, whether for dating and friendship, and we then put them in touch with each other when we got back into the office yesterday.  We are very pleased to announce that there were a good number of dating and friendship matches!

The big day, in terms of how many visitors there were and what we had going on, was the Saturday when we had agreed to put on a Countryside Dating Show and Singles-Themed Drinks Party for the Game Fair in their theatre.  Lots of you applied to take part and, with some difficulty, we managed to whittle the numbers down until we had 10 people taking part (2 pickers and 8 contestants).

After a lot of running around and last-minute problem solving, the dating show started at 5pm with shepherdess Katy Cropper (the only woman to win One Man And His Dog) hosting the show. Our female picker, the lovely Katherine, came on first and asked the four boys three questions to see if she could make her mind up.  In one of her questions, the boys had to explain what kind of horse they would be and why she would want to ride them and their answers were hilarious!  After the three questions, we then sneakily added an ‘elimination round’ to narrow down her choice and the last man to get 24 cartridges into a cartridge belt was taken off stage and given a well-earned drink.  Of the three guys left, Katherine ended up choosing Contestant Number 4, Henry from Oxfordshire.

In the second half, David asked his four stunning contestants what kind of game bird they would be and why he shouldn’t shoot them and got some great replies.  After a couple more questions, the girls then had to dress themselves as quickly as possible in the pair of wellies, the jacket and the hat that had been placed on stage.

In the end, David went for fun and feisty Contestant Number 4, the gorgeous Rebecca from Leicestershire.  Here’s the nail-biting moment when they met:

But luckily they immediately got on like a house on fire and spent the whole of the drinks party chatting to each other, before being whisked off to a local hotel with Henry and Katherine for dinner.

Meanwhile, our singles-themed drinks party was in full swing with guests sipping on sloe gin and sparkling wine cocktails (courtesy of Sloe Motion and John Gerard Wines) and Belvoir Fruit Farms cordial, and munching on Tyrrell’s crisps.  Some of the other contestants started chatting after the show and one couple got on particularly well!   A unique twist to the party was that all the single guests had been given a farmyard finger puppet and, as a way to get people chatting to new people they might not have otherwise met, they had to find someone of the opposite sex with a matching finger puppet in order to win a cool prize.  Loads of companies gave amazing prizes and they were all snapped up pretty quickly.

By 8.30pm the drinks party was over and we had cleared most things up so it was time for a bit of a Muddy Matches after party.  Lots of people ended up staying on and we all sat around on the straw bales outside our stand having a few drinks before going to have dinner together.  Towards the end of the night, it looked like a few more people had got together…although we have yet to poke our noses in and find out what really happened!!

The next day, it was business as usual and we opened the stand up and ran Straw Bale Speed Dating in the afternoon.  It was another scorcher and we had a lot of people visiting us to sit in the shade and swap stories from the night before.  We were really excited to find out that both couples from the dating show had got on really well.

David and Rebecca came back to the site in the morning looking really happy together and even went on the Game Fair Radio Breakfast Show to tell everyone how it went.

They seemed quite smitten with each other and we think they make a great couple…we shall be waiting with bated breath to see what happens next!

Later on that morning, Katherine came back to see us and reported that she and Henry had got on famously as well and that she had even gone out riding with him that morning at his house…and met his parents!!  More bated breath on our part!

All in all, it was the most amazing experience and so lovely to meet so many of you and have some fun.  One of the nicest things was that lots of you came to see us with a new boyfriend or girlfriend that you had met on the site.  When we set the site up we just thought that it was a great idea and that we would enjoy doing it…we never thought about how amazing it would be when people’s lives are changed because of it.  Consequently, we still jump up and down with near hysterical excitement when you tell us your success stories.

Here are two of the happy couples that came onto the stand to say hello:

All that is left to say now is roll on the 2009 Game Fair at Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire!