Summer 2025 saw us exhibitor types congregate around a new venue for us. The very excellent Steam! at the old Swindon Railway works in, er, Swindon, threw open its doors and let us in to play for 2 days and 2 nights. And what a splendid venue it is. This is the first time we've strayed from the Cambridge Museum, so logistically there was more to think about for me because of the longer drive and hotel stay required. So it made me like pretty much everyone else who usually exhibits in Cambridge then :D

I took the week off work to take care of the usual panic before a weekend's exhibiting, and this meant the drive to Swindon was almost serene. Got there in plenty of time to set up and mingle with the others, then it was Down Tools and head to the hotel to check in before stomping off to that evening's venue where we had a room reserved. Nobody told me it was UP HILL to the pub though - I live on the Flatlands, I don't do hills!

Saturday morning, and little power glitches aside we were all up and running. My CPT8520 was on display and working for the first time since I got it back in 2001, my Apple Lisa that I'd got around the same time was also up and running from a ProFile drive I'd found a few years later. The Commodore P500 was having a good go at working but needs PSU work to properly come back to life. I didn't fancy drilling out the regulators to be able to get at the solder side of the board to let me replace the capacitors though. One machine I'd really wanted to show working was my Vtech Laser 200, but rather than leave it in the workshop in disgrace I put it on show with a status label of 'Cursed.' That drew a few chuckles from visitors.

Two days absolutely disappeared in a flash and suddenly it was time to tear down and go home. Many thanks to Tony and Pete for putting the whole show together, and to their families for marshalling the crowds and looking after people. We had 430 happy visitors over the two days, splendid effort all round! See you next year?