BuffCon 28
By John Doerr
Sunday, April 10,
was the 28th annual BuffCon show.
The show has been held in the same location for years, for good reason.
The site is close to the freeways, allowing quick access and has two
large, separate rooms, one for display and one for vendors.
Also, ample parking is available.
There is also a kitchen which the club set up to have food and drinks
available and a rest/eating area was set up in the vendors area.
While there was a seating area the limited number of seats, around 20
meant it was difficult at times to find an open one.
The staff, vendors and participants did not need to leave to eat or get
refreshment. The weather cooperated
with a cloudy but warm day.
All club members
were asked to report at 0745. The
members were asked to help the vendors unload and set up and to set up the
display hall, so the doors could open at 0900.
There were plenty of vendors though some of the old, familiar faces from
farther away were not there this year and there were plenty of bargains to be
had. The range in vendors ranged
from those that had current stock to those who had a wide range of older OOP
kits. Many of the vendors featuring
the older kits had bargain prices. The experience and organization paid off
because everything was ready when the doors opened at 0900 with a line outside.
The registration
and admittance fees were average.
It was $6 for general and the for participants the cost of entering up to three
models was $10. Beyond that the
prices went incrementally higher at between $1 and $2 per model depending on the
exact number. The pricing system
encourages participants to bring more entries than fewer.
The registration process was slow and there were backlogs of molders
waiting to register. The problem
centered around that there was no on line forms and preregistration.
All participants had to fill out the registration forms on site.
There were some complaints about how tedious and archaic the registration
seemed.
The display area
was set up the same way as always.
There was plenty of table space and the aisles were adequate.
However, things did get a bit congested when people stopped to chat in
the aisles or the more professional style photographers were setting up their
shots. Generally, except for the
busiest hours the aisle spacing worked as well as any of the shows I have
attended
To say this years
show was a success would be putting it mildly.
The attendance was the highest in years with 507 entries.
We had concerns about attendance with the AMPs show
coinciding this week end and thought entries would be low from both the
Rochester and Syracuse clubs as they had many members going to the AMPS show.
Several members of the Rochester show did attend, however.
One of the draws of BuffCon is the central location with regards to the
clubs in Ontario, Pennsylvania, northeast Ohio and central NY.
The clubs attending were from London and Toronto, Ontario, Rochester and
Cleveland. The Toronto club had a
very large showing with lesser participation from the other clubs.
The feedback from the attendees and participants was very good.
Also many of the attendees were noted leaving with large bags of
purchases and the reports were that the vendors and the buyers all did well.
The quality of
the entries was very high. In most
local shows there are usually several entries in each class that the judges can
quickly eliminate or escalate. That
was not the case in this year. The
quality of the entries was such that it was a dog fight for the top three place
a virtually every category. The
judging did seem to be taking a while but was completed within the planned time
frame There were no complaints about the awards, at least that I heard, and
speaking to the judges they said they were hard pressed to make their choices
among so many wonderful models .
Careful attention and encouragement was paid to the bantam and junior
categories and none of them left with out an award and a hearty round of
applause for each as they received their trophies
All in all it was
another successful show by a club that has the experience and history of putting
on good shows. But being a member,
I am also prejudiced