To the Glamping Show

24th September 201628th November 20172016 Martin Bellamy

To the Glamping Show

This was trip with a difference because we had our Craftcover.com hats on, so technically it was work, although to be honest it was fun too.

Craftcover is very much Alison’s baby and provides insurance cover for Crafters via an online site and has been trading for just under two years. A little while back we arranged cover for Max McMurdo, a celebrity upcycler who you may have seen on Dragons’ Den, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and, currently, on Gok Wan’s Fill Your House For Free and we’d arranged to meet up for a chat.

He and his lovely assistant, Nikkita, were attending the show to take part in the lecture presentations and to sign copies of his first book, Upcycling: 20 Creative Projects Made from Reclaimed Materials, so we took the opportunity to pop down to Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire to have a look around, before meeting up with Max at his hotel later.

The Show is on for three days, from Thursday to Saturday and is free to visit. We drove down on Friday morning and arrived at 12 noon, too late to catch up with another pair who we’d hoped to chat to, but who’d left before we could find them. (Sorry, Martin and Keith).

The show isn’t huge and has two areas – one inside, with an opportunity to listen to experts who can help with the setting up and development of Glamping businesses. The outside area had several suppliers showing off their tents, pods and shepherd’s huts, as well as cooking equipment and everything you need to keep Glamping customers happy on their stay.

After a quick coffee and a look around outside we headed in, to look in on a presentation or two, although we’d missed Max doing his slot – he still greeted us on the way in though:

There were a few things we’d really like to have taken home. The converted Rice Horsebox from Horsebox Hideaways is something I’d buy tomorrow if I could afford it.

It has a drop down mezzanine level bed operated by a winch and a great Annevay stove. Maybe one day…

If ever we move to a house with a paddock we’ll be having an Alpaca or two so it was great to see some represented at the Show.

We attended a great presentation about how to develop a Glamping site, with topics such as finance, planning, marketing, etc, which made us wish we were setting up a site ourselves (that’s a thought, isn’t it?).

One of Max’s co-presenters described him like this, “He sounds crazy, but he’s a genius”.

The other thing I really fancied was a barbecue type item called a Big Green Egg.

They’re not cheap (the small one on the table was £610 I think) but they looked like real quality items.

I sweet talked the car park attendant into letting us park close to the entrance for an hour, so we could sit and chill before it was time to meet up with Max and Nikkita – it was only five minutes to their hotel and they popped over to see Absinthe before heading back to the Ramada.

We had a lovely time chatting in the hotel over a beer – it was great to hear about Max’s work in schools and also his time on Dragons’ Den. He got his big break on TV thanks to George Clarke and he’s genuinely grateful for what happened to his career. Hopefully we’ll catch up again before too long.

After a photo opportunity with Absinthe we set off home and the unusually benign M6 got us home for 9.30pm after a great day out.