Scale ModelWorld 2023

[Tbolt]

On 17/10/2023 at 10:24, RAF4EVER said:

Anyone take any pictures at this show?

 

I will do, but till then here's some photo's from the last 21 shows at Telford - https://www.flickr.com/photos/124194494@N02/collections/72157712445098288/

 

[Tiger331]

On 10/6/2023 at 6:03 PM, Mr T said:

Nope, couldn't get a room in either, when I was booking end July. It's a pub a couple of miles away. Just somewhere to sleep really. 

 

Not surprised......The Holiday Inn and International tend to be fully booked immediately after the show since most people have already planned their attendance the following year. Almost all of my former colleagues in the IPMS Stavanger Branch that attended would check out and book at the same time and I know that goes for the majority of punters at those two hotels. 

[Ratch]

7 hours ago, Tiger331 said:

would check out and book at the same time

They wouldn't let you do that last year and consequently I missed rebooking as I was working the next morning.

[treker_ed]

Never book anything in or around Telford, I'm booked in at a premier Inn over by Shrewsbury. It's not too far a drive, and is quite a quick drive over on the Sunday morning. I've said this before, but due to a very high dislike of overly crowded places (autistic thing, with personal space issues....) I only ever go on the Sunday when it's a little quieter, relatively speaking of course... I know it's still busy, and I can prepare my self accordingly. Plus, with it being Remembrance Sunday as well, makes more of an occasion for me.

 

[spruecutter96]

On 9/19/2023 at 10:12 AM, Rob G said:

it's approximately 25 times what we charge locally

I would take an educated guess that your local, Ozzy model show doesn't have to pay the venue £85,000 for hiring the building. That money has to come from somewhere and it's definitely not just from the approx. 3,500 IPMS UK members' annual subscriptions. 

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris. 

[JamesP]

On 17/10/2023 at 13:45, Ratch said:

Here is Iain with Tony Little (TeeELL)

For those who don't know Iain (left) passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. He had been a staunch member of the Classic British Kits SIG display for 16 years both at Telford and many Huddersfield shows. This year's display with be dedicated to him.

[spruecutter96]

1 hour ago, JamesP said:

For those who don't know Iain (left) passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago.

Very sad news. Our hobby loses yet another good member. My condolences to his family. 

 

Chris. 

[Tiger331]

2 hours ago, JamesP said:

For those who don't know Iain (left) passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. He had been a staunch member of the Classic British Kits SIG display for 16 years both at Telford and many Huddersfield shows. This year's display with be dedicated to him.

 

I did not know Iain but his face is familiar to me from SMW's past. Nice to hear that you will dedicate your display to his memory at SMW'23. We too will be dedicating our SIG display to one of our stalwart overseas members that also passed away unexpectedly in recent weeks.

 

RIP Iain and Perttu   

[Tiger331]

19 hours ago, treker_ed said:

Never book anything in or around Telford, I'm booked in at a premier Inn over by Shrewsbury. It's not too far a drive, and is quite a quick drive over on the Sunday morning. I've said this before, but due to a very high dislike of overly crowded places (autistic thing, with personal space issues....) I only ever go on the Sunday when it's a little quieter, relatively speaking of course... I know it's still busy, and I can prepare my self accordingly. Plus, with it being Remembrance Sunday as well, makes more of an occasion for me.

 

 

Wholeheartedly agree. I am also booked in a Premier Inn some 30-40 minutes from Telford. Although it involves quite a bit of driving to and fro (since I am there for the whole weekend and normally go out with other SIG members on the Saturday Night), I find it is somehow therapeutic to get away from the show for a few hours each evening.   

[Whofan]

I'm clearly lucky, as it takes me about 45 minutes to drive from home  to and from the show.

 

Nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

[John Tapsell]

Less than three weeks to go until Scale ModelWorld starts.

 

Don't forget, if you are intending to come to Scale ModelWorld this year and are not an IPMS member, you need to purchase your ticket(s) in advance. There will be no tickets available on the door. They are e-tickets so they will arrive via email so you can either store them on your phone or print them off at home and bring a paper copy with you. Tickets can be purchased at any point prior to the show. Follow the link below for more details and a link to the ticketing website.

 

https://ipmsuk.org/ipms-scale-modelworld/

[John Tapsell]

18 hours ago, spruecutter96 said:

not just from the approx. 3,500 IPMS UK members' annual subscriptions.

That number is a few years out of date. We had reached 4,500 in 2019, dropped back to around 3,500 during the pandemic and have been building up again post-Covid. As of a few days ago, we were hovering around the 4,900 mark - I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see us hit 5,000 before Scale ModelWorld.

To put that in perspective, 20 years ago, we had around 1,500 members.

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, John Tapsell said:

As of a few days ago, we were hovering around the 4,900 mark - I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see us hit 5,000 before Scale ModelWorld.

 

That's really good news if that happens John. 🤞

 

Terry

[treker_ed]

17 hours ago, Whofan said:

I'm clearly lucky, as it takes me about 45 minutes to drive from home  to and from the show.

 

Nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

The wife wants to move, but I don't (another autistic thing, aversion to change....) And so I keep joking that if she is serious about moving, we'll move to somewhere in the Telford area. Make it cheaper for us to go to the show each year.... No hotel costs, no travel costs, etc 😅  She's having none of it though!

 

[spruecutter96]

4 hours ago, John Tapsell said:

There will be no tickets available on the door. They are e-tickets so they will arrive via email so you can either store them on your phone or print them off at home and bring a paper copy

I'm sorry, John, but there must be some folks out there who do not have any Internet access (and have no friends who can print a ticket for them). What do these people do when they turn up? It's simply not fair to just assume that everyone is Web Savvy.

 

Chris.   

[Bertie McBoatface]

22 minutes ago, spruecutter96 said:

I'm sorry, John, but there must be some folks out there who do not have any Internet access (and have no friends who can print a ticket for them). What do these people do when they turn up? It's simply not fair to just assume that everyone is Web Savvy.

 

Chris.   

 

True, but not really a problem - they don't even know it's happening and even if they do, no-one can hear them complaining.  

[treker_ed]

On 10/22/2023 at 1:25 AM, treker_ed said:

Never book anything in or around Telford, I'm booked in at a premier Inn over by Shrewsbury. It's not too far a drive, and is quite a quick drive over on the Sunday morning. I've said this before, but due to a very high dislike of overly crowded places (autistic thing, with personal space issues....) I only ever go on the Sunday when it's a little quieter, relatively speaking of course... I know it's still busy, and I can prepare my self accordingly. Plus, with it being Remembrance Sunday as well, makes more of an occasion for me.

 

My bad, we're over in Stafford not Shrewsbury.... Oops think I need to get SWMBO to knock a few more brain cells together and get me to start making sense.

 

 

 

Or not!

[John Tapsell]

Advanced ticket-only has been in place at Scale ModelWorld for three years now. Neither is it unusual in the events industry to operate in this way. Sports events, gigs, airshows and many other types of event have gone in the same direction. We introduced it for a number of practical and operational reasons.

 

What we do know is that ticket sales this year are doing well and are ahead of where they were this time last year. We will continue to review how it operates but at the present time, building back up from the pandemic, we haven't got a clear level of data, other than footfall is increasing year on year back towards where it was pre-pandemic. This should be the first year where we are back to full operational capacity, so the data post-show will be really useful.

 

 

[Toe]

2 hours ago, spruecutter96 said:

I'm sorry, John, but there must be some folks out there who do not have any Internet access (and have no friends who can print a ticket for them). What do these people do when they turn up? It's simply not fair to just assume that everyone is Web Savvy.

 

Chris.   

 

I agree completely in regards to assuming everyone is web savvy, I don't have a smart phone and get incredibly annoyed when others look at me like I just landed from outer space because I don't have one, I don't need one and I don't have a printer either as don't need one but there are always out of this problem, not sure if a library can be visited to order and print out, neighbours, even other members if in a club, I've had to ask several different work colleagues to print off tickets for me, another work colleague ordered some concert tickets for me and my partner uses her smart phone if I need e-tickets.

Unfortunately it's the way of the world nowadays and it's also cheaper to set up ticket sales like this so I can't see it changing

[Toe]

On 10/22/2023 at 1:25 AM, treker_ed said:

Never book anything in or around Telford, I'm booked in at a premier Inn over by Shrewsbury. It's not too far a drive, and is quite a quick drive over on the Sunday morning. I've said this before, but due to a very high dislike of overly crowded places (autistic thing, with personal space issues....) I only ever go on the Sunday when it's a little quieter, relatively speaking of course... I know it's still busy, and I can prepare my self accordingly. Plus, with it being Remembrance Sunday as well, makes more of an occasion for me.

 

 

Neither do I, used to book in a B&B in Condover which is south of Shrewsbury for the Fri-Sat night, go somewhere the Saturday (been Cosford, Shrewsbury Town, Ironbridge -twice and Ludlow) and then to Telford the Sunday, mainly 'cos I like to see what has won what and it's as you say quieter so with this mindset I don't really care where I end up so not disappointed, this year thinking fo staying in Shrewsbury itself, even if it's a guest house, I like Shrewsbury, from previous visits it comes across better than my own town 

[John Tapsell]

6 hours ago, treker_ed said:

My bad, we're over in Stafford not Shrewsbury.... Oops think I need to get SWMBO to knock a few more brain cells together and get me to start making sense.

I'm still unsure why the two Premier Inns in Stafford (almost next door to each other) are called 'Spitfire' and 'Hurricane'. There was a P51 Mustang that crashed very close to where they are located (on 4th July 1944) but not aware of any obvious Spitfire or Hurricane connections.

 

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=1941&MemID=2543

[Whofan]

10 hours ago, John Tapsell said:

I'm still unsure why the two Premier Inns in Stafford (almost next door to each other) are called 'Spitfire' and 'Hurricane'. There was a P51 Mustang that crashed very close to where they are located (on 4th July 1944) but not aware of any obvious Spitfire or Hurricane connections.

 

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=1941&MemID=2543

 

@John Tapsell

 

I've just looked at the Premier Inn website and the two hotels are respectively located in Hurricane Close and Spitfire Close, off Shackleton Way. There's also a Mustang Drive. It looks like an aircraft “themed” business park.

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Whofan

[treker_ed]

1 hour ago, John Tapsell said:

I'm still unsure why the two Premier Inns in Stafford (almost next door to each other) are called 'Spitfire' and 'Hurricane'. There was a P51 Mustang that crashed very close to where they are located (on 4th July 1944) but not aware of any obvious Spitfire or Hurricane connections.

 

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=1941&MemID=2543

 

53 minutes ago, Whofan said:

 

John,

 

I've just looked at the Premier Inn website and the two hotels are respectively located in Hurricane Close and Spitfire Close, off Shackleton Way. There's also a Mustang Drive. It looks like an aircraft “themed” business park.

 

We've tried working out why Premier Inn went with the names, and never really came to any real solid conclusion.I guess they went aircraft names, that any members of the British public would know! 

Now knowing about the crash, it makes sense about Mustang drive, but cannot make head not tail of any other connections for any of the other roads. Guess the developers went with an aviation theme once they had Mustang Drive!

 

 

[Mr T]

We have always stayed around Shrewsbury Friday-Saturday as Mrs T has a good look around while I go to SMW. This year only staying on Saturday in Shifnal as this weekend we are meeting friends at Much Wenlock. I was going on my own, but Mrs T is going to come as any excuse for a trip out. Has the advantage of shared driving. Can't see me doing much kit buying as there is nothing really I want (although if Dora Wings bring the FD2.....). 

[Whofan]

@John Tapsell,

 

looking at the revised floor plans, 

 

https://ipmsuk.org/ipms-scale-modelworld/smw-floor-plans/

 

I notice - unless I am looking in the wrong place - that the individual hall plans have been amalgamated into a single floor plan.

 

This is not going to print out on A4 paper (I feel) and be completely legible; is it at all possible to do the hall floor plans individually? or, if they are still there, could you point me to them?