The past two weekends we’ve been pleased to get out to this year’s two UK summer Mega events. First up was Piratemania 16 Dinton Pastures – Eight Bells Nigh!. The Piratemania team always put on a good show, with great theming and the crowd getting really into the spirit of it. As you might tell from the name, it’s a Pirate-themed event! It was a little further south than usual, and I was joking that since you could walk it from Twyford Train Station which is on the Elizabeth Line, you might be able to call it a London event. Although probably not since the Oyster card doesn’t work that far out!!
Piratemania will always be one of my favourite events, not just because they’re literally going to have their 17th event next year (and 18th as they’ve got a bonus event in Germany for the first time), but I don’t know how they manage to arrange a complex mega involving tents and camping and so forth every year. Doing an inside big event like London Calling with only a couple of side events instead of a week of them is complex enough, and we can safely never have to worry about electricity supplies, food vendors and so forth!!
Then the following weekend we arrived at the South East Mega 2024, this year’s Official UK Mega. Held at the famous (at least to us in the South East) Ardingly Showground. This year’s Mega was quite poignant, as the Sussex Mega was cancelled due to national Covid restrictions back in 2020. Some of the team were the same for the South East, and so it felt like we finally got to have that missing Mega. It was really an excellent show – the theming for South East has been trailblazing, I don’t think I’ve remembered any mascot for a Mega yet I will probably never forget their seagulls. It’s certainly caused a lot of discussion in our committee about having a mascot for London Calling.
Plus their logbooks was one of the best I’ve seen at an event ever. It was a half size beach hut as you might see along the coastline in the UK. Just tremendous.
They even got the other Megas involved, competing against each other on the Friday night in games of Family Fortunes. Sadly we were beaten by Piratemania, but we won the wooden spoon! It’s still a trophy for our cabinet!!!
