When and Where.

When I got back home after the weekend I started to look into the feasibility of running an Event, also into location and Dates, as I did not want to clash with the Convention on the following year. It was decided to hold it at the end of September as this was far enough away from the Convention, but still early enough to stand a chance of some warm weather, the location it was decided would be the Midlands, two reasons for this, it is central for everybody, it is close to where I live. With this information decided on I then posted on Elton's forum for anybody interested in coming to a camping get together the following September to email me. (It still did not have a name yet). About twenty people emailed to say they would be interested, so it was a quick look around for a place to hold it, and as a friend had just been to a Motor Bike rally at The Hurt Arms in Ambergate, I approached the landlord of the pub to see if it was possible to hold it on his field, amenities were a bit lacking, (toilets in the pub when open, across the road, (A6 public loo's) when the pub was closed).

Cost and Complications.

Based on what I had been told the cost per tent would be per night the costing of the tickets were worked out, I decided that all school children should be free as it was unfair for a parent to be charged full cost on a child that was still at school and therefore was not contributing to the family income, nor had money to pay their own way, this was quickly change to all school children that were accompanied by a paying adult when it was pointed out that every school child in Derbyshire would come for a free camping weekend. These prices were posted on the forum and I wrote a quick web page linked to my normal web site with a booking form on it that people could print off and send to me.

The Wadfest is Born.

As stated earlier, at this time the weekend did not have a name, and was being referred to on the forum as my little get together for want of something to call it, one of the regular posters then refer to it as the Wadfest (I have recently found out it was Lupine that first coined the name), and the name stuck at that time it was also given a tag line. "A Discworld Experience", this was so that people would know that it was to do with Discworld.

The Weekend Takes Shape.

In early November Dave Hodges, (Hodgesaargh), decided to elect himself on to the non existent Wadfest committee. This was the first turning point in the Wadfest history, as the weekend now had a well know name associated with it and a person who I was to find out would do anything he could to help get it going, (although not al of his ideas could be used due to time restraights on the programme), with Dave asking people to come as well, the number of people interested in coming started to slowly climb, and it was decided that instead of the get together weekend that was originally intended some form of programme had to be worked out. This is where Dave came into his own with throwing hundreds of ideas at me, some of which had to held back due to time restrainst, and cost of putting them on.

That's Magic.

In early 2002 Lupine asked if I would like him to do a Magic Show, as I knew he was a professional Magician I jumped at the chance and said yes please.

Live Thud.

In May Bernard Pearson (The Cunning Artificer) held the first Thud Tournament, wow live Thud at the Wadfest was the cry that went up from Sue, Oh No was the cry that went up from Bernard, and the live Thud game was born, although the first time it was held was at the 2002 Convention where I organised it whilst the Vampire Ball was on, for people who could not get to the ball.

Luggage Wars.

This started out as an idea of Dave's where luggage’s smashed into each other until one was destroyed, I took this idea and dismissed it, but used the luggage idea and based the wars on the American Robot Wars idea where they compete against each other over several heats.

Masquerade.

It was decided early on to have a masquerade, as this is a tradition at every Discworld weekend.

Decorated Tents.

I decided to revive this idea so as too make the camp site more jolly looking.

Animosity as the Weekend gets Near.

As the weekend grew nearer so did the number of fans who decided to come grow, we even had a contingent from Germany coming, and talk on the forum started to turn towards the Wadfest weekend. A chance remark by one forum member to another led to his reply of "The Wadfest! I would not be seen dead at that event, there is nobody going of importance or who I wish to speak to, I only want to talk to real people". At this point I would like to thank him for that comment as it did more to raise the profile of the weekend than anything I could have done on my own, it was also to lead to the basis of the Wadfest Shield. (But more of that later).

Waddy's Panics.

I will put a quick note here of what was happening on the week before the Event, as a few people may like to know some of the problems us organisers have. On the Tuesday before the Event, I rang the Hurt Arms to check it was still Ok for an advance party to come to the field on the Thursday, only to be told Wadfest? No don't know anything about any Wadfest Event, we have a Balloon Rally and a Camping Club of GB rally on this week end. Panic now ensued until the next day when they told me yes we have you down for coming, but there was that little niggle about those other Rallies as I had been told I had the whole field, and by now was up to 50 tents and 100 people coming.

Come the Thursday and my worries were confirmed, instead of having the whole field, we was tucked away in a little off shoot of the field which meant it got a little cosy when all the tents were in, but never mind it all worked out Ok in the end, well apart from my Reconditioned WW2 petrol stove almost blowing up.