Sounds like you had a great event planned. I was away at the Royal County of Berkshire Show (won Champion of Champions again - over the moon!) last weekend, otherwise would have loved to have come.
Really glad you lot are making a go of it. I hope we can do something similar in the south-east some time in the future. Just a thought - have you considered a day-long event on someone's farm? Maybe with some vet input (for a fee, of course) on practical tasks etc? Might be an opportunity for those further afield to join in if it was a whole day.