I didn't know where the Corn Exchange was, so it took a bit of finding. It also didn't have any kind of sign-posting, so until you actually arrived there you didn't know if you were near or far or what.
Minor gripes aside, let's talk about the good stuff
The inside of the Corn Exchange is huge, and it was packed to the brim with stalls. Consider the amount and variation of product on offer, the whole place was easy to navigate. A handy 'map' was also provided on entry.
There was a large mix of DVDs, magazines, toys, clothing, lubricants, and a few more unique stalls such as a guy doing airbrush tattoos, a hairdresser, a guy who offers a service to create a mold of your body, an erotic fortune teller (my girlfriend made a beeline for her), a waterbed sales company... the list goes on.
I only took ?100 in cash, and that disappeared very quickly - the price of DVDs was very good, especially if you took advantage of the multibuy deals that some stands were offering. We're only glad that a lot of stalls took credit cards too.
The Rude Britannia stall was being visited by Alicia Rhodes and Poppy Morgan (superb!) and we saw Alicia happily posing for pictures with fans and signing DVDs and posters, and the sign behind her said that Poppy would be there from 4-8pm and Alicia was there from 12-9pm - at least that's what I thought it said. We decided to go and watch a show at 4pm (more on this in a minute) and then go back and meet Alicia and Poppy at the same time. However, when we returned after the show, Alicia had gone and Poppy was on her own posing for pictures and signing autographs. I asked one of the staff on the stall where Alicia was but she had left at 4pm - the '9pm' on the poster was actually a '4pm' - damn those hand-written signs! So, at this point I was thoroughly pissed-off I'd missed my opportunity to meet Alicia and get one of my DVDs signed. However, we went and spoke to Poppy (who was extremely nice) who signed our DVD, and gave us a goody-bag which included a magazine, a couple of free preview DVDs, some special offer leaflets, and a signed poster. Superb
We also met Tyra Misoux who was also nice (although didn't speak a great deal of English).The show (repeated every couple of hours through the day) was a mixture different groups polce dancing, belly dancing, etc. It was really good - and our favourites were Famme Fatale (pardon my spelling - I may be completely wrong) - who did some amazingly theatrical routines.
The video room upstairs was about the only place in the entire exhibition where you could get seated, unfortunately the DVD that was being showed while we were up there kept stopping and starting. I think there should have definitely been at least a few more seats in the bar. I didn't see Bev or Faye either, despite several trips to the bar
Never mind, there's always next year!All in all it was a great day out, we spent about 5 hours in there in total, spent a shit-load of money, and got a load of really great stuff - getting back home was good fun
Can't wait for next year!
PS: On the subject of missing Alicia Rhodes, is there an address for Rude Britannia or an Alicia Fan Club or something I could write to?