I was there on Saturday and thought that the entry price of £16.75 was a little steep for what was on show. The retail area was very sparse on climbing gear, large size climbing shoes aside, and as you say what was available was not the most desirable gear available. I did enjoy the bouldering world cup though. The French girl that won the womens event was in a class of her own.

Went to all 3 days, and got in early enough on Friday to shop before it got too busy and all the good stuff went. Shopped, bouldered, went to lectures, watched some amazing climbing. Only issues were with the catering (yuk) and the distinctly unfriendly matting under the public access boulder - though they did add some extra mats later in the festival. Otherwise excellent fun, met some other RTers, managed to learn quite a bit as well. Any event this size is going to have some niggles, but they were minor ones. Definately worth the dosh.

Womens Bouldering - Sandrine Levat Mens Bouldering - Mauro Calibani (Malc Smith 4th) Masters - Alex Chabot (topped out twice) OK!

I was stewarding on Saturday, so didn't get chance to look around much (did see a fair bit of the women's bouldering tho' ;-)). Appreciate your points in response to "Kipper at work", but don't see why people *should* "make the best of what they get" if what they got could have been much better with a bit more organised direction to the effort. Personally, I was quite surprised by how poorly organised some elements of things were "backstage". Not having a go at Vanessa, Alex, Anne or anyone, all of whom were working flat out to solve problems, and doing excellent jobs. However, I was a bit surprised that nothing had been done in advance re, eg, sorting out the registration forms for the Junior Bouldering Comp. Ended up with Emma Twyford's mum taking it on herself and running off registration/ parental consent forms on Saturday, prompted by the large number of kids asking where to register for it. If I'd known that the forms hadn't been done, I'd have happily knocked them up myself beforehand! There were quite a few similar incidents where people knew that *someone*, *somewhere* must know what was going on, but there was nothing written anywhere easily accessible, and the people to ask weren't always around. I know these things happen at large events, but I've been involved myself in organising stuff, and there was a much bigger feeling of "winging it" on this event than on anything else I've been involved with. Maybe that's climbers for you? The spreadsheets sent out in advance, carefully listing volunteer's locations/jobs seemed to have no relevance to where people ended up! As far as the paying public were concerned, yes, there were some good gear bargains to be had, but the overall retail space available/taken up was much smaller than it could have been. Judging by the massive queues outside S & R on Saturday, additional retail space would have been well used, and there was plenty room for it. The scoreboard was pathetic. The catering was crap...OK, the French people I saw gobbing off about it were maybe understandable, but plenty Brits were saying the same. Having so many excellent speakers on site was great...good value even if you only got to see a couple, given that £6 is a fairly normal entry fee for a talk by a "name" these days. However, I completely endorse other comments about the quality of the "theatre". The "have a go" and public bouldering area (where I spent most of my time) seemed to run fairly smoothly, but I noticed a wide variation in the belaying competence of the volunteers. Not being SPA (minimum) I "didn't qualify" to belay, but would have done, I believe, a safer job than one or two volunteers were doing, despite my lack of paper. I'll stress that *most* were doing a great job, but there were one or two dodgy ones. Verdict...yes, good, but definitely could have been better.