RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival Rotterdam 2018

It has been five years since the last RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival in 2013 was held here in Rotterdam. The road to the 5th edition has been a bit bumpy.

This year our promotion was solely based on social media rather than physical promotion at fly shops. As much as many think it is, social media's reach isn't as large as we hoped for. We were unable to reach the more casual fly fisher(wo)men. Next time we'll still support the promotion the old fashion way.

The preparation time (about 8 weeks) turned out to be a bit too short. Also planning later in the year, mid May, as apposed to February was didn't help either. We are not sure what hurt the sales the most but we didn't sell out by about 20%.

It was great to see people coming to the cinema to enjoy some amazing movies. Viewing on a large cinema screen is definitely a different league than a laptop screen or even a TV screen. It was nice to see the excited faces after the show. The diversity of the movies was just right to cater for interest of just about every type of fishery.

What did go extremely well this time was the number of sponsors. The give aways made available by the sponsors during the raffle were quite nice, including a free weekend at a fly fishing lodge along the river Kyll in Germany and a half day guiding in Slovenia.

We are looking to see if we can host the next venue in 2019 in another cinema in Rotterdam. We are also planning the date back to the usual period in February/March.

Finally I would like to thank our sponsors.

Next stop: a short fishing trip in June?

Nordic Fly fair 2018

Last weekend I was invited to tie some flies at the Nordic Fly Fair in Elverum, Norway. Elverum is about an 1.5 hour drive north from Oslo. My friend Roger Enger Lie, a superb fly tier himself, is the fly tying coordinator at the show. The venue was held at the wonderful Norwegian Forestry museum in Elverum.

In the late 1980's / early 1990's this show had quite an international attendance. But due to the rise of the internet and the costs of inviting international tiers the show has been closed down for more than a decade. Mid 2010 the show slowly made its comeback. Now it's basically focused on Scandinavian fly fishermen. This year's fly tiers line up, except two, were all from Sweden and Norway.

The show itself is of a much smaller scale than the other shows I've attended, giving it a very cosy atmosphere. I met many new friends and saw a few old friends at the show. The BBQ after the first day was very enjoyable with great food and friends.

Over the whole weekend an estimated 800 people visited the show. Many families enjoyed a day out, probably combining the show and a visit to the museum. I tied Humpies, Alien Bugs and some mice. Always love the look on the faces once they see the mouse (check out his finger! 😀).

The weather during the weekend was amazing. The locals said it felt like summer so I eagerly took many opportunities to go outside to try some rods (love the new Orvis Helios 3 9ft #4, the softer 'F' version) at the casting pond as well as simply having a chat with fellow tiers.

I also managed to haul in Zpey, that had a booth outside, as a sponsor for the coming RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival. Their new single hand rods, called the Dreamcatcher, are quite nice. I liked their 9ft #4 (how surprising?). Zpey's new fly line called Precision also surprised me as a smooth casting fly line. Several walks in the museum itself were quite interesting too. I wonder if anyone else thought there were nice fly tying material scattered all over the museum? 😀

The hospitality of Roger's family really made the whole trip one to remember. I would also like to thank the people of the Forestry museum for their hospitality as well. And thank you my fellow tiers for a great weekend! And thank you David Stenström for the photo of me making a mess!


Next stop: the 5th edition of the RISE Fly Fishing Film Festival in Rotterdam!