Nearly a month ago Osprey shipped me out to my first overseas event - A Weekend of Heroes 2008, which was held in Glendale California on the 21st and 22nd June. Now, I tend to go to most of the Osprey events in the UK - and have done over the last couple of years. I have already clocked up appearances at Salute and Who do you think you are? Live! and I am booked in to visit Military Odyssey and possibly Euro Mil this summer, so I am not new to doing events, but this was a bit of a departure for Osprey, and I was a bit nervous about the reception we were going to get.

I didn't need to worry. Primarily the event is for collectors of military action figures and other military collectibles (although this year they had a large Airsoft attendance too), and everyone seemed over the moon to see Osprey there in force. In fact, I nipped out of the convention centre to try and grab some lunch at one point, and was stopped by someone just walking down the road who had spotted my Osprey shirt and confessed to being a huge fan!

It was great to meet up with a different group of Osprey readers...chat to them, pick up on their likes / dislikes and hear their suggestions. In fact, we also bumped into Gene - a prospective Osprey author and regular visitor to the blog, who had prepared a MASSIVE list of title suggestions, which our commissioning editors are poring over as I write this....thanks Gene!

As ever, we always look forward to meeting with any of our readers, and just so you know, this year Osprey will have a stand at Military Odyssey (23rd, 24th and 25th August) and at Euro Militaire (21st and 22nd September). Our stands at both events are in exactly the same place as last year - and we may have a very special guest appearance at our stand in Folkestone...so keep an eye out for more details here at the Osprey blog!

Here are a few photos of A weekend of Heroes...enjoy!

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