Smile Expo for making the first day virtually music free so that you
could easily hear people you were trying to talk to. Other expo
organisers could do with following this example.
While the format of the expo was conventional, it was certainly
not just another generic expo by any stretch of the imagination.
There were at least half a dozen vape models wearing virtually
nothing but body paint and they certainly turned heads during the
three days.
I swear I heard at least one English accent utter the word “Phwarr!”
as they saw these girls waking past - like a character from the old
Viz! comic come to life.
Another odd thing was the vape company which employed two
guys to walk around the show made up as zombies while pulling
a wheeled bath tub with a zombie girl inside it. As often as I saw
this - and I saw it quite a lot over three days - the zombies never
failed to make me smile.
The language barrier was the hardest thing to overcome but this
just made for a more interesting experience and it did not detract
from my enjoyment of the show at all.
The highlight of the show for me was being asked to be one of the
judges for the show’s vaper awards which took place live on the
main stage towards the end of the second day. I had been due to
judge the awards with my Vapouround colleague Dave but due to
an unfortunate bout of food poisoning he could only watch from
the sidelines.
Huge thanks must go to Mo from Doozy who stepped in at the last
minute and judged with me. We had a great time on stage and
were really impressed with the quality of the juices, hardware and
branding we were asked to judge.
I think Moscow has become one of my favourite international
shows - it really ticked all the boxes for me and I would not hesitate
at coming back for a return visit.
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