Recon 2022 – The Wargaming Erratic

Before the high street, one might say the big shopping destination was the market place and in medieval cities there were the quarters – with the street of tailors or say the street of bakers. So maybe you get some quarters surrounding a market.

You would go to a quarter or street for specific things. The Market might have variety.

Small traders characterised such places. Scale is important.

You could say Wargames shows are simply a return to one of those medieval quarters – a place where you knew you could buy a certain thing. I suspect in previous times certainty of a purchase was very important as travel was very expensive, time consuming and energy draining (before the iron horse arrived).

For wargamers its probably a market or fair they want because there is a variety of things to see and buy at a wargames show.

Recon 2022 is that street for wargamers or that Wargames Fair – either way its a market of small traders.

This year I think I detected more traders in terms of space occupancy as the games area seemed a bit squeezed in the main hall.

Given the football coverage, energy crisis, cost living hikes and transport chaos I thought the show might be very quiet. It actually seemed as busy as last year with only the bring and buy quieter – that was more about what was for sale. Less gamers selling on I suspect?

Then again when I think back – 2021 was between lockdowns and people were only just peering out at a post covid world. And so last year I think there was a greater effort to get out there. So 2022 may have had no more in numbers but I suspect there was greater energy to do stuff.

This year seemed more relaxed, normal if you like, except of course things are anything but normal at the moment.

This is a great show and maintains the variety and number on offer in northern england. The BHGS show in Manchester went south this year to its new venue in Nottingham. In my case Recon22 more than made up for my missing Fiasco this year.