ValleyCon 15
IPMS Wings & Wheels
The IPMS Wings & Wheels club’s 15th Annual Model Show was held on April 3, 2005. This was my third visit to the event, I also attended ValleyCons 13 and 14.
The Preliminaries:
The club has a website, with a copy of the show flyer available. The flyer included clear directions. The registration forms were available on the website. Cost to enter was $1 per model. The first three models for Juniors (12 and under) and Intermediates (13-16) were free. Spectators paid $2 to get in.
The Venue:
The show was held at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Chicopee, MA. The venue was easy to find, using the directions on the flyer. Chicopee is just outside Springfield, Mass. The show draws modelers from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.
The show was held in two large rooms. The vendors, raffle, awards, and refreshments were upstairs, while the model tables were downstairs. Both rooms are adequately sized for their functions- neither seemed overcrowded.
Lighting was good- even at the edges of the room. The tables were on risers— and covered with white paper. There was plenty of space, even though 135 modelers entered almost 400 models.
Refreshments and hot lunch foods were available from the kitchen, at reasonable prices. There were tables and chairs available next to the food service area.
Registration:
Registration was a breeze, because the forms were available from the club website. There were tables set up in the lobby for folks to fill out the forms on site. The forms included a “fold under” section where the builder’s name went. (I know a number of people don’t like to see the modeler’s name on the form with the model.) Registration was open from 9-12 noon.
Competition:
There were 34 regular categories, and another 4 for juniors. There were 10 aircraft, 6 armor, 1 ship, 8 auto, and 4 figure categories. Participation was very good in nearly every category—I only remember seeing one with less than three entries, while most had around a dozen. (The ship category had so many entries, they ended up splitting it into 1/350 and larger, and smaller than 1/350.)
There was a “No Sweeps” rule- the most a person could win was a single place, and an Out of Box award if applicable. There was no Master’s category. Models that had taken a first, second, or third in previous ValleyCons, or regional or national events could not be entered.
The club instituted a new set of rules for the figure categories this year—they went to an open system with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. The club president later told me that they were very pleased with the results of the new system- that it worked very well. They will be keeping the system in place for figure categories going forward, and are thinking about expanding it to dioramas and vignettes for next year. I personally think the show organizers deserve a lot of credit for trying this, and I’m glad it worked out so well.
Vendors:
As mentioned above, the vendors are not in the same room as the models. There were quite a few there, but they had plenty of room. This show seems to always have a good number of vendors—general dealers, specialty operations, and used kit dealers. I’ve always found the large number of vendors to be one of the draws of ValleyCon.
Raffle:
The raffle’s first draw was at 11:00—we would have made it if not for rain and traffic. (Based on past experiences, I expected the first draw at 11- we were just late for it.) Because we got there late, after the first round of drawings, there really wasn’t much on the table that appealed to me. So, for the first time ever at a show, I didn’t bother to buy any tickets.
Nearly every show report I write has the suggestion that the organizers should consider running the raffle in flights, rather than having one pool of prizes that people pick from all day long. The problem is that the good stuff goes early, and latecomers have little motivation to buy tickets.
The other problem I’ve seen with the “one big pool” approach also surfaced at this show. (As it does at many others.) This problem is that at the end of the day, there were still a good number of items to raffle. The awards ceremony was delayed about 45 minutes, while they tried to dispense the remaining items. The problem is that, after drawings during the day, there’s not much particularly desirable left. As a result, a lot of ticket holders had “checked out”, and weren’t paying attention anymore. This caused the last drawings to go on interminably—as numbers were called and no one claimed the prize.
I e-mailed the club president after the show— he told me the club members felt they had a problem this time, and will be looking at ways to improve the process for next year. That kind of attitude is what makes this a good show— taken with the changes in figure judging, it shows that they don’t just do the same thing year after year—they are always looking for ways to improve things.
Judging and Awards:
Judging started on time, and seemed to go OK. It started with a judges’ meeting shortly after noon, and was finished by about 3:00. As the judging for each category was completed, small post-it tags were placed on the entry forms for winners. So, you knew which models had placed, but not which model took which place. The awards ceremony was delayed by almost an hour, as the end of the raffle took longer than planned.
The awards ceremony for the Juniors was held first, at about 2:00, while the judging for the main categories continued. This is a great idea- it gets the juniors down early, and lets them leave a little earlier if they need to. (Sitting around for another hour for an awards ceremony can tax the patience of a younger modeler.) Spending all day at a show is a bit taxing for youngsters—here, they could register just before noon, and leave a little after 2 pm.
The awards ceremony itself seemed a little mixed up, and got off to a bad start. The first ten aircraft categories were announced by number and winner’s name only—“Category 3, Third place, Bob Jones”. The folks in the audience were left wondering what category 3 was, and which models won. Someone must have spoken up, because when they moved into the auto categories, they changed the style and made complete announcements the rest of the way.
Awards were a little different—there was a certificate with the category and place, and a small gold, silver, or bronze medal. A number of special awards were also given out, and most of them were not just repeats of category winners. For example, awards were given for Best Racecar; best Chevy; Best WW1 subject; etc. I was sorry to see that my favorite awards had been discontinued—the Biathlon (same name, different subject) and the Iron Man (3 models form three different divisions- i.e. car plane, tank) awards. Apparently, interest and entries in these had tailed off over the last few years.
After the Show:
The club has a nice website, and posts pictures of all the winning models.
Summary:
Bottom line is I will definitely go again next year. I have 6-7 contests within a two-hour drive of home. Of them all, this one always seems to have more and better entries—the competition always seems tougher here. I also like the fact that the show is in the spring, instead of the fall as the majority are. The quality of the competition, plus the number of vendors, combine to make this one a “must go” in my book!