I was there on Friday. I agree with what`s been said - I`ve never seen it so busy. You could hardly move at one stage and I too found it hard to get near some of the demonstrators. Towards the end of the afternoon I managed to catch Mark Baker`s two piece hollow form demo. He`s a very accomplished demonstrator and besides explaining techniques, he passed round quite a selection of hollowing tools for us to look at. Mind you, he did have the advantage of more elbow room to work in than the others.
I was hoping to compare a few drill presses, as I want to upgrade mine, but didn`t see much of interest in that respect.
There seemed to be more stalls having little to do with woodworking this year too.
Agreed that there were few bargains, but that didn`t stop me splashing the cash (or plastic, to be more precise). No more spending for a while for me
I think there`s more for turners than other woodies (which can`t be bad

) and the amount of piercing, colouring, carving etc being done was really noticeable, as already said.
Ian