David Watson gives his thoughts on 2019’s Convention in a post that was originally published on the 8mm forum: link. David has been involved in the organisation of the Convention Dinner since 2012, and since 2022 has been one of the organisers of the Convention itself.
Blackpool 2019 – a Retrospective.
FRIDAY NIGHT FILM SHOW….. this was held in a reception room on the ground floor near the rear of the hotel, the film show was run by Jim Cecil and Nigel Lister using Nigel’s excellent Siemens 16mm projector.
Nigel had brought two feature films for the collectors to choose from namely ‘Two Mules for Sister Sarah’ and ‘El Dorado’ and they chose ‘El Dorado’. The print despite a few scratches was very good with great colour and sharp resolution, the audience of over 40 people – including David Guest’s wife Elaine, a John Wayne fan – really enjoyed it.
SATURDAY, ALL DAY SHOW, 10AM-4.30PM….. The all-day Saturday shows were first introduced last year and were so popular that it was decided to do it again this year. Again, Jim Cecil and Nigel Lister ran all the films, both super 8 and 16mm using Jim’s 16mm Bell & Howell specialist machine with a xenon lamp, and Nigel’s super 8 Fumeo 9119 projector, which boasted a 150w HID lamp conversion along with several other clever upgrades.
Collectors brought plenty of films – both super 8 and 16mm – to be shown, ranging from 7 – 30 minutes in length. There was a good number of collectors at the shows, coming and going as and when they pleased, some staying all day.
CONVENTION DINNER….. A small team of four of us spent a good part of Saturday afternoon getting the dining room ready for the famous Convention Dinner. Two projection screens were put up along with Mark Norton’s 16mm projector and Simon McConway’s slide projector. Mark Norton had kindly volunteered to compile and present this year’s after-Dinner film; a new and novel item this year was Simon’s slide projector which he used to present a slide show that ran during the dinner, showing slides of photographs Simon had taken at previous dinners and conventions. This proved successful and popular with the diners.
Preparations also included putting out answer sheets and pens for the quiz and diners’ name cards at each table place. We also set up two long tables onto which we placed the raffle prizes – about 30 prizes in total. Prizes included super 8 films,16mm films, DVD box sets, CDs, a collectors plate (John Wayne), a film wall clock, film books, a film splicer, film cleaner and numerous other film-related prizes. Raffle prizes were donated by Bob Nicholls, Phil Sheard, Dominique De Bast, Adrian Winchester and myself.
We also placed at the head of the dining room as a tribute to the late DAVID GUEST – a photo frame with numerous photos of David at previous Blackpool Dinners and Conventions. This photo frame was, at the Sunday Convention, gifted to David’s widow Elaine, who along with her family are bravely carrying on with the Conventions as per David’s wishes.
At about 7.15pm, diners began arriving – over 70 of them – for pre-dinner drinks from our private bar in the dining room, general chit chat, and buying raffle tickets. We sold on the night a little over 500 tickets; the raffle money raised helps pay for the Dinner and the dining room. At 8pm, Adrian Winchester chief organiser of the Convention Dinners welcomed the diners with a special mention to our overseas friends the six guys from Norway, Dominique from Belgium, Joe (Shorty) from the USA and Oliver our newest friend from Germany.
The meal got under way. The three-course meal itself was excellent, one of the best we’ve had over the years – diners were full of praise for it.
In between courses, Adrian held the film quiz: 15 questions, with diners writing the answers on their answer sheet. This year there was a four-way tie for first place, so all four diners, namely Peter Wilson, Phil Sheard, Joe Caruso and Brian Saberton were lined up at the head of the dining room (see photo on the forum) and asked a final question. First with the correct answer was Peter Wilson winning the prize (not for the first time).
Dinner and quiz over, we held the raffle and Oliver our new friend from Germany was asked to draw the first ticket from the tombola. The first winning ticket held by Melvin England chose as his raffle prize from the table the super 8 feature ‘Rocky’. Jan, one of the Norwegian guys chose as his raffle prize the 16mm feature ‘Annie’, and so the raffle went on with each prize winner drawing the next ticket from the tombola. Joe (Shorty) won three or four prizes and Oliver went on to win the film wall clock depicting Audrey Hepburn from the film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.
And so to the final item of this great night the film show, presented on 16mm by Mark Norton. The show lasted approx 1 hour the diners clapping at the end to show their appreciation of Mark’s excellent compilation.
And so too quickly ended the 2019 Convention Dinner, which gets more popular each year with more diner’s than before and overall it just gets better and better, mostly due to the hard and dedicated work of the chief Convention Dinner organiser ADRIAN WINCHESTER well done! and thanks Adrian from everyone there. NEVER BEEN BEFORE? DON’T MISS OUT NEXT YEAR – THE 35th – BOOK IT!
SUNDAY CONVENTION….. Sunday dawned, and well before the Convention doors opened a very long, three-deep queue formed right across the hotel foyer. 10am, and the doors opened and the rush by collectors to the dealers’ stalls was on, there were plenty of dealers in attendance selling 8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm,16mm 35mm, DVDs, projectors (all gauges), accessories, film books, posters etc. etc., including of course the bring-and-buy table which seemed busy most of the day.
In a separate room, the cinema, Bob Nicholls put on two Super 8 film shows, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, using his projector, an Elmo GS1200 xenon along with an SRS sound processor and amplifier for the sound.
Sunday afternoon saw the auction held in the cinema, selling Super 8, 16mm, film and accessories etc., the auctioneer being Nigel Parkinson who is a natural at the task (Nigel runs the FARNWORTH film fair in February, and it is well worth a visit, see elsewhere on this forum for details).
During the day, two ‘BLASTS FROM THE PAST’ turned up at the convention – firstly Ged Jones formerly of Derann Film Services. Ged was very involved in running the Blackpool Conventions and Dinners in the Derann days and is well-known to almost all the film collectors at the Convention; he spent a long time chatting to many many people. Secondly, a real surprise visitor – Bill Davison, older collectors will well remember Bill’s Super 8 film review column in the ‘Movie Maker’ magazine which he wrote for a good number of years. Bill was also involved in running the Blackpool Convention during its first few years before Derann took it over, so Bill is a real important part of the Blackpool Film Convention history. In the afternoon in the cinema before the film show Bill gave a little talk about years gone by and then did a question and answer session, it was good to meet him again after all these years. Hopefully he may return next year.
In the middle of the afternoon in the dealers room there was held a minute’s silence in remembrance and Tribute to the late DAVID GUEST, the organiser and rejuvenator of the Blackpool Convention since 2011. Overall the day was a success: there seemed to be plenty of collectors there and plenty of films etc. being bought and sold. Elaine Guest and her family were pleased with how the day went and did say that the convention would continue next year 2020, hurray! Dates to be announced later.
Blackpool Film Collectors' Convention 