Through the grapevine I saw that Ed had asked for a few volunteers for the AMI stand at the Outdoor show in London and I was keen to find out more. I had never been to the Outdoor Show before and had always fancied checking it out. After all, it’s a chance to get to our nation’s capital, to escape the Shire and to get blindingly lost on the complex maze that is the underground!
I packed a few essentials, a harness, a helmet, a megaphone (very good for encouraging the ‘stuck climber’) and set my alarm for a very alpine 3:30 am to get me into London and then to the Excel building for 8am. After a quick chat with Ed to discuss tactics and job roles, we were ready for the masses to come piling in.
The AMI stand was mixed in with DMM, climbing towers, ice routes, with the Sky Masters competition wall just in front of us. The place had a good atmosphere. Our role was to run a few simple workshops to the general public on gear, anchors, belaying, climbing etc. but really just to get people involved, promote climbing, the AMI and of course, to buy some shiny new kit from DMM.
As the day went by people dropped in for their session on knot wizardry and anchor setups and lots of others just wanted to chat about what we did and how to get into climbing, which was a perfect opportunity to hand out a few business cards and grab some clients. The day shot past in a whirl of music, ropes, lights and banter.
As the day drew to a close there was chance to have a go on the Sky Masters leading competition wall and try and blast a mainly up-side-down route as fast as humanly possible. Thankfully, with the encouraging heckling from the DMM and AMI stand, I didn’t fall off! After a brief glance around at the other stands in the local area and a chance to fill your pockets with some ‘oat so good’ cereal bars and whatever else was considered edible hill food, it was time for the final push back to Bristol. To top it all off, DMM gave me a couple of free Cams to go towards the collection and I bagged a few clients along the way. What a day !
