Another great article Myles.
I hope the after-parties didn't keep the wildlife awake!
I'm always happy to see more and more exhibitors at shows using reel to reel for a source. There's nothing worse than going to listen to a particular speaker or amp and see that they've got the "flavor of the month" cd player for their only source.
The picture of that Garrard 301 sure looked nice. I've seen a lot of them where the plinth design has absolutely no design similarities to the table itself and it always looks kinda wacky to me. It's one thing if you put it together yourself, but if you have to pay the "real" bucks to have someone else do it, there should be some aesthetic appeal. I'm pretty sure MikeL has one of those.
It sounds like you had a good time too,.. big bonus!