National Airsoft Festival 2025 – Our Weekend at Ground Zero Airsoft
Recently, over the August bank holiday weekend, we had the chance to go to the National Airsoft Festival and see another part of the shooting sport and see their largest event of the year. It started for us on the Thursday with the journey from Torquay to the Field at Ground Zero Airsoft in Dorset. We unpacked and were promptly swamped with people asking for the newest vortex hats (the orange ones sold out almost immediately).
Getting the stall set up with Ade "Sweet cakes" Cross.
We got the stall laid out and set up. I then went for a wander around the site and had a look at some of the facilities. They had bars, food vendors, airsoft and optics stalls and best of all...us.
The saloon where the chronograph testing was.
The stall this year was in conjunction with Country Sports Wholesale, who had Chris helping us in the stall with product support for Vortex, offering a helping hand as well as warranty support and being a subject matter expert on Vortex and other goods.
Helping the first customers while still laying out all of our show goods.
The second day of events on the Friday held more excitement with all of the players taking their airsoft equipment to be chronographed and tested to be compliant with the site rules. This also meant that all the players who needed gear could come to our stall to get all the equipment they needed. It was pretty cool to see all the players' outfits and their airsoft weapons with the matching themes. I saw Vietnam War loadouts, WW1 and WW2 loadouts, Black Hawk Down (Delta Force), British Army, knights in shining armour (with M4's) and even a guy dressed up as Vector from Despicable Me who was very committed to the part.
Second day in the morning, already a few customers are coming to have a look.
Once everyone started getting up on the Friday and presumably once the hangovers started subsiding, the pace picked up a bit with everyone either queued up for the Chronograph or the bar or the stalls.
The path towards the camping of the festival.
Towards the main playing area and the bar. (A bit before the mad rush for the chronograph)
The second day was a really great day with all the players either just arriving and getting set up or the campers moving to the chrono and milling around the stalls and buying things, looking at the new products and just generally having a good time. We had a good time ourselves talking to all the players and seeing how excited everyone was, and talking about their set-ups and what they're hoping to do this weekend, although the guy that wanted to do a rendezook I think was missing a fighter jet or two. All said and done, after the second day, we stayed up till like 10:30 pm for everyone to get the bits they needed before the first day of events, and a lot of people took us up on this and made some good purchases for the day to come.
The Third day on the Saturday came with a buzz in the air as all the players were up ready for the game early, (although Ade setting off the car alarm did help them wake up) and all the players came down in all their gear ready to start the day and the weekends fun with the almost 3 thousand players that turned up to participate in this years festival. The only issue was, with all the extra foot traffic came the DUST. Although this year being dusty was a godsend compared to last year's flood but it certainly made the days interesting. It was a good day all around, with everyone having a great time with perfect weather.
A very literate bug must have been crawling around on the iPad.
The most important thing after a long day.
The last day came and everyone shuffled off to the main gathering area for the last start and their last opportunities to get some show specials before the mass exodus of everyone leaving to go and sleep in their own beds. People still came out bounding with energy for the final games in their teams and nobody let the hangovers stop them as just as many people came for the games on the last day of games compared the the first day of games (even though I had my doubts about a few), and a great time was had by all. And I do not doubt that next year will be an even bigger year for the National Airsoft Festival. Slowly, we drew down our stall and all of our goods and made our grand exit. We had a great time and hope to see you all again next year.