A little while back CraftCover arranged cover for Max McMurdo, a celebrity upcycler who you may have seen on Dragons’ Den, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, Shed of the Year and, currently, on Gok Wan’s Fill Your House For Free & Machine Impossible. We had arranged to meet up for a drink and a chat.
The Glamping Show & Meeting Max McMurdo
He and his lovely assistant, Nikkita, were attending The Glamping Show to take part in the lecture presentations and to sign copies of his first book, Upcycling: 20 Creative Projects Made from Reclaimed Materials, so we took the opportunity to pop down to Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire to have a look around, before meeting up with Max at his hotel later.
The Show is on for three days, from Thursday to Saturday and is free to visit. We drove down on Friday morning and arrived at lunchtime.
The show isn’t huge and has two areas – one inside, with an opportunity to listen to experts who can help with the setting up and development of Glamping businesses. The outside area had several suppliers showing off their tents, pods and shepherd’s huts, as well as cooking equipment and everything you need to keep Glamping customers happy on their stay.
After a quick coffee and a look around outside we headed in, to look in on a presentation or two – Max greeted us on the way in!
There were a few things we’d really like to have taken home. The converted Rice Horsebox from Horsebox Hideaways is something I’d buy tomorrow if I could afford it. It has a drop down mezzanine level bed operated by a winch and a great Annevay stove.
Maybe one day…
And if we ever move to a house with a paddock we’ll be having an Alpaca or two – they are just gorgeous.
We attended a great presentation about how to develop a Glamping site, with topics such as finance, planning, marketing, etc, which made us wish we were setting up a site ourselves (that’s a thought, isn’t it?)
One of Max’s co-presenters described him like this, “He sounds crazy, but he’s a genius”.
We sweet talked the car park attendant into letting us park close to the entrance for an hour, so we could sit and chill before it was time to meet up with Max and Nikkita – it was only five minutes to their hotel and they popped over to see Absinthe before heading back to the hotel bar.
We had a lovely time chatting in the hotel over a beer – it was great to hear about Max’s work in schools and also his time on Dragons’ Den. He got his big break on TV thanks to George Clarke and he’s genuinely grateful for what happened to his career. Hopefully we’ll catch up again before too long.
After a photo opportunity with Absinthe we set off home and the unusually benign M6 got us home for 9.30pm after a great day out.
Using our fully automated service you could get your free no obligation quote today.
Click the link below and take the first step towards bespoke coverage tailored
to the unique needs of your business.
