Knights Of The Empire (KOTE) Waddington Air Show

Along with my new friends at the "other" costuming group, I attended the Waddington Air show on Saturday. I had originally signed up as crew only, with the intention of taking loads and loads of photos (unique opportunity and all that), but I was asked almost at the last minute if I could do a stint in armour, and take pictures later. I agreed, and was very glad that I did due to the biblical downpours in the morning - the weather improved in the afternoon, so I got my photo taking done then - including some amazing shots of the newly restored Vulcan, and Battle of Britain Memorial flight.

Anyway, back to the action. According to news reports later, there were 125000 people there on Saturday, despite the weather. The biggest crowd I have ever trooped at. What an amazing atmosphere, and such a responsive crowd as well. To watch wide-eyed wonder move from The Red Arrows, to a fighter jet on the ground, to "oh wow, STORMTROOPERS!". How we managed to navigate from place to place was a minor miracle due to the amount of photo requests - even in the rain. At one point it was coming down so bad we took shelter in a "Duke of Edinburgh Award" display trailer along with several members of the public... and they still came along wanting photos!

A huge highlight for me was walking into one of the hangars (this was in the afternoon when I was out of armour) to be met by the opening bars of the theme from you guessed it, Star Wars! You can see this in the last parts of the YouTube video. An amazing co-incidence, but such an impact for the people listening.

Videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=waddington+kote&search_type=&aq=f

Jeremy Snape Testimonial

After promising to myself never to return to the NSC, I altered the deal slightly (this was not the big annual event) and went help at the "Moon Ball" event for Cricket star Jeremy Snape. No I never heard of him either, and didn't recognise anyone at all at the event. Several stormtroopers, a couple of scouts, tie pilots and bounty hunters entertained/harassed the crowd for the evening, eventually giving up due to a lack of interest at the charity auction. It was a bit different interacting with them in black tie and posh frocks, but as it was the Space Centre, they were more out of place than we were. In general it was a good night, including an off-the-cuff photo shoot on the red carpet outside, and a choreographed Jedi fight with Darth Maul. But no thanks to a broken sat nav system I arrived late, and got lost coming home :(

Meadowhall Starbucks - Sheffield Children's Hospital

(to come)