Airsoft Arms Fair Report

Alarm blaring at 5.45 and only half awake I drag myself to the car and suddenly perk up as I realize that today I am returning to The Shop At The Grange for the 2012 Airsoft Arms Fair. Last year this event was attended by around 4,000 people and my hopes were high that this year it would be even bigger.

I arrived in Birmingham at 10am to discover a rather large queue waiting outside the entrance to the grange – always a good sign! I did get some evil looks as I waltzed in waving a press pass - sorry boys!

Familiar Names

Walking through the entrance I spotted Skirmish Airsoft and Frontier Airsoft in a prominent position both with good displays of their game sites and some lovely looking custom kit.

Moving swiftly on, as I didn’t want to miss anything, I came across a veritable feast of pyro and explosives care of Paintball and Airsoft legends Enola Gaye (more on their products coming to test soon). This was their first Airsoft Arms Fair but judging by the amount of people hanging around their stand and parting with their hard earned cash it will certainly not be their last! I also ran into Ratty from Badgertac who this year made an executive decision to double his stand size and share with newly opened Badgertac 2 from Canvey Island, Essex. They had an impressive display of pistols and AEGs, so this stand was also pretty crowded for the afternoon – I was heartbroken when a little 2 shot Derringer that I had set my sights on was brought out from under my nose by a collector, oh well, maybe next time.

You Don’t Have To Be Mad…

I was pleased to see game managers First & Only Midlands exhibiting, as I have been meaning to head over to the Asylum for a Sunday skirmish – no I am not about to be committed… the Asylum is a former mental health hospital now used by First & Only as a woodland slash CQB experience. I think I might need a bit of luck to get out once they have me in there!

Good Stuff

There was a pretty good variety of kit around including the new ATACS FG camo which was being sold by the Shop at the Grange. According to happy customers it’s the new must have camo, well we shall see – I’m still rocking the multicam myself, but if you want to send some my way, well its not going to get turned down.

Also very nice to see were torches being exhibited this by Klarus. This is one of the points I made last year, that whilst there were vast amounts of guns and camo there were no accessories to go with them. This was also the first Arms Fair for Klarus and with some fabulous show offers they soon
managed to draw in some interested customers. With top flashlights like the XT10, 11 and 20 on your stand the quality of the kit spoke for itself (also helped by various airsofters talking about reviews and online videos of the torches performance) - so well done guys, a great debut.

It’s the Wolf…

No review of this Arms Fair would be complete without a mention of the new UK retail side of Redwolf Airsoft, showing off some fantastic new guns and a rather drool worthy bazooka, unfortunately my budget didn’t quite stretch that far, but I’m sure I could survive without food for a month or two to get that into my life. Also exhibiting for the first time were Swindon Airsoft whose fantastic attitude and variety of stock made their stand a great place to be. There was a rather fabulous Tommy gun that I took a bit of a fancy to, but the full metal Draganov really captured my heart - just a shame that it’s so blooming heavy!

Zen and the Art of Airsoft
maintenance

This year the Shop at the Grange decided to run Airsoft Workshops were people could go to learn about basic gun maintenance and cleaning, plus the AIPSC Championship returned for another year with a competition running throughout the day.

One final thing I have to mention is the reason why I was wandering around covered in mud (thank you Edgar Brothers). Last year the Edgar Brothers and Stirling Airsoft CQB team ran CBQ workshops throughout the weekend, this year they also did a highly impressive demo of their techniques and tactics, aided by pyrotechnics and cars – seriously cool stuff. I was completely chuffed to be invited to take part as a VIP and somehow managed to completely miss the part where I would have to leg it from a truck and get chucked to the ground… clearly Converse were not an ideal choice of footwear for the muddy conditions and I ended up sliding flat on my face on more than one occasion. I have to admit not my smoothest moment ever but still an immense giggle and a big thank you to Edgar Brothers for allowing me to join in.

The Airsoft Arms Fair is still clearly going strong and with companies already signing up for the next one in October, if I were you I would book your tickets pretty sharpish.

I will see you there!