Sad news for UK convention goers as Farthest From event organiser Dave Tree announces that Farthest From 27 on Saturday 6th December will be the final running of the event. Following on from two years of the Fordingbridge Film and TV Festival in 2010 and 2011 which saw guests including Jeremy Bulloch and Robert Watts head to the New Forest (Robert to introduce a rare UK screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark), Farthest From debuted on Sunday 23rd September 2012 and over the following 13 years has seen guests including Gus Lopez, Pablo Hidalgo, Gerald Home, Paul Bateman, Shane Turgeon, Neal Scanlan, Duncan Jenkins, Guy Henry, Steve Evans, Brian Herring and many more attend the event.
Fantha Tracks has had the great pleasure of being involved with the show, bringing live episodes and talks from various runnings of the show as well as being involved with onstage talks and panels, and I had the opportunity to let the rest of the galaxy know about the event when I wrote about Farthest From 5 back in 2014 on the official Star Wars site. Dave had this to say about his decision to end the show after 13 years and what will be 27 shows.
“When Farthest From first began, it arrived at a moment of major change in the collector community. Traditional platforms—like long-standing forums—were giving way to emerging social media channels, and many collectors felt the ground shift beneath them. Farthest From offered a sense of belonging during this transition: a “love letter” to the toy fairs and gatherings of the pre-eBay 1990s, when collectors might travel for hours just to pack out a village hall full of vintage toys and memorabilia.
In the decade since, the collector community has continued to evolve—its interests, habits, and ways of connecting changing along with it. Today there are more collectors than ever, but there have been losses too, particularly the decline of genuine discovery in favour of the echo-chamber–like recycling of the same information. To stay relevant and meaningful, Farthest From must evolve as well. Our recent AndMore event, along with the upcoming Thank The Maker, shows how this next chapter is already taking shape.
I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has supported and enjoyed Farthest From over the years. Together we’ve raised thousands for charities, local projects, and community causes. Farthest From will continue—just in a new and exciting form.”
It’s hard to quantify just how important the show has been to the UK vintage scene, so to Dave, thanks for inviting us to the place that is farthest from for so many years and we look forward to whatever comes next.
