SWAS, Newton Abbot Racecourse and the usual Monster Truck rigs Big Pete, Red Dragon and Grave Digger were already set up along with the caterers. What was different is this was Friday night and there was also a giant inflatable stage! This year Southwest Autosport had upped their game and provided a superb day and night of music on the Saturday as well as the usual modified and club cars on the Sunday. Having been onboard face painting and creating smiles with Lee, Steph and the SW Autosport crew since the beginning it was only right that we come and support this extra day even though we had been kindly offered to only attend on the Sunday. I took the opportunity to catch up on making new stock and painting a few new designs specifically for the event on the display board. I also met a lovely lady called Jess who makes some fantastic beaded jewellery some of which I now own :)
Throughout the Saturday morning and early afternoon people started to arriving. Initially, some people who had never been to SWAS before seemed a bit confused and mentioned that it wasn't that busy yet until I explained that it was the first year for music Saturday, these things take time to build and not to worry by the evening there would be a great atmosphere for the headlining acts Mad Dog Mcrea and Land of the Giants, Sunday would be rammed. I was right! Just before dark I had a mini rush of customers wanting to get into the festival spirit with their glitter faces and there was a really good crowd having a good dance to the live music. It was also really cool to meet up with the person, Nick Cox, who won our LIKE / SHARE / WIN competition. We are now friends on Facebook and hopefully they will return again next year. I didn't manage to get and face paint or glitter on them though. However, I did get some wicked requests on the Saturday night for a set of eyes on the back of the head, a third eye and something to accentuate a rather large nose so I chose a parrot. Ha ha ha! Brilliant and thank you, whoever you were for being such great sports!
By 7am Sunday morning the race course had already been transformed into a massive gleaming forecourt of all variety of cars, shapes, models, polished, wrapped, paint jobs, dipped and many other things I know nothing about, but hey, they look good! Looking across to the entrance a long queue of shiny cars were patiently arriving to set up and show of their stuff!
Our pitch position was great. Far enough away from the stage that we could still hear our customers and the music. Straight on from the main walk-in entrance and in between the Monster Trucks and the Mini Monster Trucks! OMG how cute are they! Sophia and I painted a couple of early birds but the queue didn't start till around midday when we were constantly busy until the last Monster Truck show and slowly the race course started to turn back into the green field it had been a few days previous.
On a personal note I really hope SWAS continue to build this as a two-day event. It definitely has the potential. Everyone did a fab job and kept a smile on their faces. Great customer service coming to see if we were happy. THIS is unusual and a much-welcomed touch! If you have never been and want a fun weekend with or without the kids keep an eye on the SW Autosport website to see which weekend in May to pop in your diary for next year. Until next year SWAS you were great. Here's a few pics we managed to get :)
Thank you for your continued support of Cher's Funky Faces.
Much love from the Funky Punky team,
Cher & Sophia xx
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