Hi Tony,
First of all, best of luck with all the preparations
. On the mats front, you may want to consider contacting
Zebra mats . Not sure if they have a European office, but they are worth contacting. The deal we did for a seminar, and others as well (see:
Aiki Expo ) is that Zebra provides new mats which you "buy". Then you can sell the mats after the seminar as "used" via Zebra, to local dojos and attendees.
It worked out great for us, as we got great mats for the seminar and all the mats were sold to satellite dojos afterward. Zebra may also have a route where you can just rent them, but I'm not sure.
Best of luck,
Jack
