Want to drive a tank, pose beside a Ferrari, fly a plane, drink free beer and ogle girls in lingerie? Then you're 'probably' off to Toys 4 Big Boys at the RDS, writes Shane Hegarty
'Happy Free Beer Day!" Free beer day? It comes around quicker every year.
It's the RDS, and beer vouchers are being handed out to the crowds arriving at Toys 4 Big Boys, a kind of Ideal Lads' exhibition now in its fourth year. What's on offer? Well, the large billboard ad outside features a couple of models draped over a sports car and a motorbike.
Need another hint? On its website one of those models poses with a phone, while a slogan asks: "Want her? Then you're 'probably' a guy". It's sometimes hard to be certain in these days of confused gender identities, but last time I checked I was "probably" a guy. So in I go.
Inside, it is a lads' mag in giant pop-up form. Sports cars, speedboats, bikes, skateboards, gadgets, extreme sports, computer games, sound systems. It's telling that one of the first stands you meet is that of a credit card company, although this will be about as good as it gets when it comes to financial advice. There is no stand offering personal pension options, or plans on saving for the kids' education.
Toys 4 Big Boys is about dream spending; about not only retreating into the male fantasy but about the possibility of making it real. At the exhibits for home bars, home entertainment systems and vibrating leather chairs, a man can sit for a moment in the 3-D representation of his aspirations; he can relax in front of a ginormous TV screen pumping out movies in Blast-O-Vision, and he can turn the volume up as loud as he wants without the kids climbing all over him or anyone telling him to wash the dishes.
Around him, there are so many attractive young ladies handing out leaflets and freebies that you briefly wonder if you haven't stumbled upon a conference of promo girls.
"That's amazing," observes one guy as a gaggle of mini-skirted models shimmy through the concourse. They have an advertising slogan subtly slapped across their backsides and are handing out books of matches, into which are secreted a condom.
Many of the men don't realise this until they're scrabbling to pick the dropped object off the floor.
The more static exhibits include many of the standards, such as boats and sports cars and companies offering "the best stag day ever".
Punters have their pictures taken beside a Ferrari or James Bond's Aston Martin. The Lotus representative is hoping for a repeat of last year when a customer whipped out his Visa card and bought a €50,000 sports car there and then. For half the price, though, he could have bought the 63-tonne Chieftain tank parked outside in its own churned-up mud. It only gets out a couple of times a year, says Gavin Powney of its restorers Irish Military Vehicles Group, because its tendency to crush everything in its path means it has to be transported by low loader. Still, it's cheaper than a sports car, has room for the family and would ease through, or over, the traffic.
"Yes, but it takes 1,100 litres of diesel, and will only do 300 miles. Do the maths," adds Powney.
BACK INSIDE, MACRA Na Feirme has a small stall, although the people manning it might have considered arriving on a couple of souped-up tractors; toys for bog boys so to speak.
Elsewhere, poker seems to be particularly popular this year. Several stands sell chips, tables and books on how to make millions playing the game; although you would have thought that if the advice was that sound then the stallholder would have become rich playing poker rather than helping others to do it.
There is plenty for the golfer too, including a virtual golf course on which men are lining up to shank virtual balls into virtual trees, and, more practically, a device that finds your actual ball when you shank it into actual trees.
It's notable that some of the more practical toys for big boys are absent. You won't find anyone running through the specs of the latest baby sling or three-wheeled buggy. Meanwhile, despite all the talk of the New Man, the only skincare stand seems to be one for Gillette, a brand that sells itself as if it were a roaring jet fighter rather than humble razor.
For the bored girlfriend, though, there is a Ladies' Pamper Zone offering blow dries and eyebrow waxing. Want waxing? Then you're "probably" a woman.
There are a couple of less obvious stands, such as the one selling ladies' jewellery, just in case he wants to bring home a present for the Mrs/Ms/Miss/Mistress. And close to that is a promotion for Funtasia, a child's adventure centre in Bettystown, Co Meath. It seems a rather cruel way to burst a young man's fantasy of remaining the eternal lad, to show them this vision of a future in which the most extreme activity will be fishing a child out of the ball pond.
That should be for another day, because for today there are bikes to be ogled, flight simulators to be flown and 50 "pimped-up rides" competing for which has the best sound system and engine noise.
Meanwhile, on a catwalk off the main hall a fashion show is taking place. To a pumping soundtrack, half a dozen young women are marching up and down in lingerie, bouncing along the ramp in bras and thongs while a large crowd of young men gawps intently. Skimpy lingerie at a men's show? It all seems a bit embarrassing. I mean, there's just no way that these men would ever fit into that underwear.
• Toys 4 Big Boys continues at the RDS today 10am-7pm and 11am-6pm tomorrow