Bob Nicholls, writing in the inaugural issue of Film Collector magazine, reports on the 2011 Convention – the first in the post-Derann era.
NORTHERN FILM COLLECTORS CONVENTION – BLACKPOOL
It was in 1983 that I first went to the Northern Film Collectors Convention which seems a long long time ago now, I am sure that there are many of you that can go further back than that. In 1983 it was held at the Gables Hotel on the north shore at Blackpool, and was run by Bill Davison of Movie Maker magazine fame which later became Making Better Movies and has now disappeared some years back. In those days it was one day only on the Sunday and still bringing in through the door 600+ collectors, with a packed dealers room and 2 cinemas going all day and not forgetting the Auction that went on for almost two and a half hours, any serious collector was going to have a great day out. The film shows were always dependent upon what new releases were brought on the day – I remember that the Widescreen Centre has brought the trailer to Stars and Stripes Forever, and there were some new one reel Disneys available so these were shown on the day as Disney releases always caused some excitement. But in 1983 the storm clouds were gathering – VCR had arrived and was going to change the collecting scene for ever over the next few years. 1984 was the last year that Bill Davison was to run the NFCC, and the last one to be held at the Gables Hotel. Also Derann Film Services was to announce the release of a new full length feature as well as a 600ft cut down of Raise the Titanic. On the day of the convention staff member Dave Worrall came in a sailors outfit to promote the release, sales were good and many more super 8 feature releases were to follow.
In 1985 all was to change as Derann Film Services under Derek Simmonds was to take over the running of the convention and move it to the Cliffs Hotel on the North Shore, this was to take the form of a two day event with Saturday night being a formal dinner event with a guest speaker and the showing of the feature release of That’s Dancing, on this occasion it fell to the wonderful John Wright of Making Better Movies who kept me up to two in the morning with his stories and jokes. In his speech he informed the collectors that Derann were bringing out a new release Blackpool Tower in 3 parts one two and three. The Dinner went on for many years attracting up to 250 for dinner, although as time went on numbers started to decline but there was always up to 100 for the dinner and film show. After this over the years there have been many guests and Comedians that were to attend the convention including Bob Danvers Walker of Pathe news, Michael Pertwee, Valerie Leon, Caroline Munro, but without doubt the best of the lot was when Ray Harryhausen came and kept everybody enthralled until almost one in the morning with his stories of Hollywood. These were great memories that we will never forget, but again things were to change with the arrival of DVD, and unfortunately the death of Derek Simmonds in 2002.
Derek had already not been to Blackpool since the year 2000 and had asked me could I run the film shows as he knew that I had a large collection of films – this I have done and once gain this year, 2011, I put together and showed the film shows. 2011 was a really sad occasion as I thought about all the conventions in the past and this being the first one that Derann had not attended owing to Adrian Simmonds, the son of Derek, deciding that he was not able to continue the business and closed it down in September 2011. It reminded me when some years before that Walton Films were to close the door for the last time which was also a sad time. So we come right up to date with the 2011 Convention. This was run by Dave Guest who now calls it The North West Film Fair (although I would have still liked it to be called The Northern Film Collectors Convention).
Owing to the short time he had to organise this event there was to be no evening dinner get-together on the Saturday night although a few of us did get together and went out for an evening meal. With the help of a few dedicated collectors we set up the cinema and everything was ready to go at opening time at 10 o’clock. There were about 17 dealers ready to sell their wares, and all we wanted were the customers, around 160 collectors came through the doors and dealers did a good day’s business. There were two super 8 shows and for the first time a 16mm show – this was put together by Don Sykes. So, what sort of films did we show? The 11 o’clock super 8 show was called ‘the latest releases show’ and all came through Classic Home Cinema. They included the first reel of the feature ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ starring The Beatles, A Pixar short ‘Presto’, trailers to ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘True Grit’ as well as a new Disney short ‘Pluto and the Bumble Bee’. All these were available from the Classic stand on the day.
Robert Nicholls
Film Collector magazine is published by Classic Home Cinema. To subscribe, contact Classic.
Blackpool Film Collectors' Convention 