Reflecting on UK Vapefest 2010

The planning for UK Vapefest 2010 was already in full swing when I was still smoking cigarettes a couple of months ago and totally oblivious to vaping in any way, shape or form. When I first heard about it, having seen Smoke2Vape’s video of a previous meet-up at York earlier in the year, and then realising that it was being held just down the road from me, I had to go!

It took a bit of rearranging of commitments, but yesterday saw me rising at some ungodly hour for a Saturday and making the short journey, (via the barber’s) to Vapefest 2010 in Tamworth.

I arrived shortly before the scheduled 10am start and wondered around the Plough and Harrow’s exterior a bit looking for familiar faces, before taking the plunge and heading inside. I saw a guy with a very impressive moustache, and a Red Tornado head through a door and followed him into the function room, where various members of the organising committee and resident attendees were finishing breakfast and getting ready for the main event.

Amusingly, I had to walk through a gathering of Plough and Harrow staff gathered around the back door for a smoke, and thought to myself – if only they knew….

I always find the first few minutes after entering a room like this a bit nerve wracking, but it wasn’t long before introductions started happening and name badges were being written and that broke the ice a bit and I started to feel at home.

After that it was plain sailing and I felt like I’d known these guys all of my life.

So, here’s my summary of UK Vapefest 2010, Tamworth, England!

Before I start, I’d like to say a huge thanks to Jaded from the UK Vapers forum for allowing me to use the wonderful photographs you can see. They’re far better than anything I got and a much more accurate reflection of the day than the few rubbishy pics I came away with!

In a nutshell – the event was a spectacular success and a credit to the organising committee, Cat, Sav, Cliffy, Hifistud  and Rusty, all of whom can be found on the UK Vapers forum. A quite staggering number of prizes had been donated by all of the leading UK e-cig vendors for raffles and the Tombola, of which I did rather well myself – more on that later….

Andy Sutton aka Smoke2Vape and Jaded did a very professional job of covering the event in images and miles of film footage, so keep your eye out on UK Vapers for more pictures and videos in the near future.

One of the highlights of the day for me was the “Ask The Panel” session, which particularly got my interest as I was in it, representing newbies across the Isle. Sharing the podium with industry celebrities like Katherine Devlin of ECITA, Peter “Nick O’ Teen” Cole from Decadent Vapours, experienced e-smoker and retired vendor Dave (Hifistud) was a little bit daunting, but I think I blagged my way through it, and nobody kicked, punched or even insulted me at the end, so that was cool!

In between the raffles, tombola, ask the panel and performing of juice reviews with a live “studio” audience, my day was filled totally. There were so many people to meet that I couldn’t try and list them all now for fear of missing anyone out, but it was nice to meet the Vendors, Tim from Intellicig, Toby from iVapour (who relieved me of some cash I was carelessly wafting around – watch out for some reviews in the near future), Cameron from e-cigz.co.uk who brought along (and sold) a few GGTS, GG Slims and the new GGTB to look at and try, Abe from Liberty Flights and of course Pete from Decadent Vapours.

Pete had brought a huge quantity of nic liquid, glycerines, alcohol and one of every flavour concentrate that Decadent Vapours produce and was happy to demonstrate and guide us mere mortals in how to mix our own liquid. I came away with 5ml of Doppio Espresso, which I will be ordering some more of very soon!

I was so tempted to pick up a GGTS, but managed to resist, for which I feel quite proud of myself  actually, but several others took the plunge, and I’m sure I will at some point in the future.

Another real highlight, or highlights in fact were the raffles and tombola prizes, all of which were donated to be raffled in aid of organising the event.

I won first prize in the first raffle, for the first time in my life, and it just so happened to be a Puresmoker Icon with batteries and cartos all included, donated by Cloud 9 Vaping. As if that wasn’t enough, I then went on to win a Tornado Compact kit, a load of CE-2 cartos and some 72mg juice.

But the best thing about the day was to witness, and be part of the Vaping community, to meet loads of people and not one of them bad, and to see, try and even on occasion leave with some of the best kit on the market.

I’m already looking forwards to the next Vapefest, and will be doing all I can to arrange a local Vapers’ meet in the near future. Brilliant stuff.