IPMS West Central Missouri, 28 April 2007
For those of us who like to attend shows in the Midwest, there are usually a goodly number of events every year. We are all generally blessed by having people put on events who really care about how they turn out. If not for the hard work of these few (and face it, in a large club, it is generally a handful or less who do these things), then they'd never happen.
As with all events, first stop is to their website to get information and download entry forms. This was all provided as a .pdf file. A map to the new location was also part of the information on the web site. The group has the entrant fill out a registration form that has name, addy, amount paid and so on. Cost for this event was $10 for five models and $2 a model after that. Juniors were half that. In addition to the main registration form, there was one for the model. That was a two part form that had some personal information repeated in one portion and the other listing only kit info. Not sure why they bothered with the initial registration form if one had to repeat info in the second form. One interesting thing was that each entry number was suffixed by the main category into which model was placed.
This year's event moved from a technical college they had been using for all their past events, to the gymnasium of a church. Not having been to the new locale, I allocated the same amount of travel time to the old one, only to find it was about 20-25 minutes farther away, meaning we arrived close to 11 AM. Registration desk had three people working it, yet despite having the forms already filled out, it was a bit of a long process while information was transferred to a master sheet. Perhaps it would be a good idea for the registration folks to cut the entrant's form, give him the lower section and use the upper to fill in blanks when there was time. It would be a simple matter to do so and I'm recommending this be done in future events as would speed things up even more.
I immediately headed for the raffle. WCM always has a great raffle and it took little convincing to separate me from my money. It was 6 tickets for $5 and they had things broken down into several categories. One chose where to put one's tickets. Then the ticket was drawn by the raffle folks and affixed to an award. The ticket number was put on a grease board and whenever one wanted to claim one's award, it was there. The awards were generally gleaned from the vendors with the club adding in a goodly number. Everyone got something they wanted either directly or via trade. There were, as one might expect, some real winners in there (no Starfix, but some were close!), and there were some great awards as well. A separate category was for some huge kits (1/72 Gato and 1/35 PT boats). These same folks were selling cans of soda for $1 so refreshments were available.
I have heard from other clubs that raffles are not money makers. I have to say these people are not well informed as every event where there are a goodly number of raffle items, the club members tell me they made money on the deal.
OK, now into the main vendor room/display area. The display area was somewhat cordoned off by chairs, and this meant lots of places to sit down if needed. The majority of display tables were round and I heard a bit of grumbling about these. Some were on stilts and others were not. The room was large with plenty of room to move around tables, despite the usual cliques that get together while someone pontificates on his/her entry. As it was a gymnasium, the lighting wasn't the best, though there were windows on one side so this helped. Still, it was rather dim as shown by the difficulty of my auto-focus camera was having getting the proper contrast to work effectively as one moved farther from the windows. It seems like all the vendor tables were taken, though only by six vendors. Three of these were hobby shops with only three folks selling collections and excess kits. One vendor had great prices and I bought a few items from him. My traveling companion was quite disappointed by the lack of choices and spent very little money. Talking with the vendors, they felt they did OK and that is always good to hear.
Judging was underway around noon and they were done rather quickly. I did not hear any call for judging assistance so apparently the club had enough of their own members to handle the job. During the judging, the raffle area became a spot for a scheduled lecture on how to build and weather models. It apparently went on well as we'd skipped out to consume food. There were lots of nice restaurants within a mile so finding eats wasn't difficult.
This club likes to announce each and every award. I can understand their feelings on it, though I'd rather just have them announce the 1st place and special awards. The club did call out names and asked all applause to be held until everyone in that category had received their awards. This did speed things up over previous years and seemed to work well for everyone. This years awards were very nice and the group was justifiably proud of them. There were a few glitches, and the total awards time took about 50 minutes. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of firsts and a best space/sci-fi so I left quite pleased and surprised as there were around 300 plus entries and I'd have to say at least 100 entrants. Not bad at all.
Back on the road about 5 and home without stopping by 9.30 or so.
Overall, an excellent event. The folks running it were anxious for it to go well and I think they succeeded. There is a rumor that they will be doing a second show this year, and if it doesn't interfere with any other, I'll definitely be back. If you live within 250 miles or so of Kansas City, I highly recommend you attend one of their events. You will be glad you did.