THE Christmas show, Manchester - NOTE: amended directions

[ranger]

Just got back,absolutely cracking show,easy to find from tram stop,catering spot on,layouts superb,my 9 year son would have stayed allday watching greenbrier junction,he was mesmerised by the length of the trains,so well done all involved in making it happen,see you again next year,thanks

[TheSignalEngineer]

It's just gone midnight and this is the first chance I've had to go on line (had to go to a concert this evening).  I have not yet had time - nor will I until Monday evening - to read the comments which have been posted, but, as exhibition coordinator for THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2015! I will respond to them all, either by personal email or by general blog posting, as soon as I can.

 

In the meantime, if you commented adversely about:

1  Queues to get in

2  Crowded aisles

3  Queues in the cafe

4  Lack of seats in the main exhibition halls

Here is what we have ALREADY done to improve things.

 

1 Entry queues.  We opened the doors today at 0956 to advance ticket holders and as soon as waiting advanced ticket holders had been processed we opened the doors to the general public (at about 2 minutes to 10.  We had planned to open earlier, but the late arrival of two traders meant that the venue was not safe for th public.  We will respond to the presence of a lengthy queue on sunday if necessary.

2  Yes. We've identified some pinch points, and will bear this in mind for next year.  The presence of pillars down teh main hall is a problem.

3  Tomoorow there will be TWO cafes open in the venue, not one as today.

4  Two stands "grew" between planning and arrival.  This caused some planned relaxation seating to be removed.  We have now added about 15 extra seats at different places around the exhibition.

 

 

To those who commented favourably above.  THANK YOU.  both for supporting us and for your positive feedback.

 

Phil

Thanks Phil, it's good to see that you took on board some of the criticisms where it was possible to improve things at short notice. Any new venue will be a learning curve. The worst turn-off for many people is organisers with a head-in-the-sand attitude to comments from the punters.

 

In the last 5 years I have visited about 40 shows and tend to be a bit picky about where I spend my time these days. Overall I thought this one was at the better end of the spectrum, back towards the atmosphere of the Co-op days. Hopefully you have had enough people through the door to make it worthwhile. Now people know you are still in operation and back on the circuit I'm sure that the next one will be even better and re-establish Manchester as one of the top Northern shows.

[BSW01]

Had a great day at the Manchester Show yesterday. i'm lucky enough to only 40 minutes away, door to door. As a few have already mentioned the main hall was a little small but other than that I had a fantastic time. Spent lots a cash and came away with a huge bag full of bargains. I'm so glad the show is back on at Christmas and is back in the city again too, as I found that the last venue was, not so much poor, as unsuitable. I though the catering was very good but for queues for hot drinks was huge! Well done I'll be back next year for sure.

[plarailfan]

I really enjoyed this exhibition. I loved the venue, as I had dumped the car at New Hey and completed my journey to the show, by tram.

The New Hey layout was absolutely brilliant for me, as I could compare "then" and "now"

I spent a bit too long watching the Japanese N gauge layout (all entirely my fault, I know) so, a quick dash round the rest of the show, as I wanted to try and "do" the bus museum event all in the same day, via their, every 20 mins, shuttle bus from Manchester Vic- the museum provided a Routemaster on this occasion !

All in all I had a superb day and looking forward to next years event 

[Allegheny1600]

Hi everyone!

I guess, on behalf of all at Manchester MRS, many thanks to all who came along today and to those who saw fit to comment here.

We are all pretty well shattered but with a warm, glowing feeling.

I think it was quite a damn good show (biased as I am!!!).

Cheers,

John E.

[Respite]

A really enjoyable show with the added bonus of the Ian Allan bookshop also being open on a Sunday.
Lots of bargains to be had K1s and B1s at a £100 on the Chester Model Centre stand.
D11s and E4s at £75 on the Cheltenham stand. Also GWR 2-8-0s and D16s at £80.

 

Calderwood and Herstmonceux are great layouts, the wagon loads on Calderwood are fascinating.

 

Well done and thank you to all involved in putting this on, well worth the drive over from York.

[ELTEL]

A big thank you to MMRC for inviting Stafford Railway Circles layout Whiteacres to 2015 The Christmas Model Railway Exhibtion.

 

A big thank you to all the visitors who voted for Whiteacres, we are really pleased to have won the best layout as voted by the public

 

Many thanks once again on behalf Stafford Railway Circle membership

[abbotsford]

Congratulations and well done to all who contributed and organised the Manchester show. It was a triumph! Best layout for me by far was the N gauge Stamford East but I'm wondering if some people missed it with it being in a side room. Also of note was Tollesbury Quay with its working tide flow, shame some low life decided to help himself to a couple of wagons off the layout!

[Philip1812]

Well, I've finally got time to post on RMweb again - I've been catching up on real life and also writing thank you letters to all of the exhibitors and traders who supported us.

 

Thank you to all of the contributors to this strand who have, on balance, given us a pretty clear thumbs up.

 

I've now got the provisional attendance figures, and very pleasing they are too.  The provisional total attendance of adults and children is 2725.  This makes it our best attendance since the last three day exhibition in 2008.  It is the highest attendance for a two day exhibition we have had in recent times and even exceeds the last two day exhibition in the city centre in 2009; it is almost twice as high as our attendance at our last exhibition in October 2013.

 

The winner of the MMRS Judges Cup for Best Layout was Herstmonceux and the winner of the Visitor's Shield for Best Layout by Public Vote was Whiteacres.  Both of these have featured as headline layouts in the model press this year, and they were indicative of the standard, or the potential, of all the layouts there - except the Coronation Street Woodhead layout (which I've always described as a theatre prop with marketing potential!)

 

In addition to the four problems I mentioned in my post in the early hours of Sunday morning, we have identified four other areas where we need to improve: 

 

1  signage on the route from Piccadilly station

2  space to park prams and buggies

3  viewing heights for wheelchair users

4  the mix of traders; perhaps too much emphasis on RTR box shifters.

 

We'll be working on these over the next few months, but you can already put our next exhibition in your diaries:  THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2016! will be on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th December 2016, though the opening hours have yet to be confirmed.  Headline layouts will include World's End (OO), Melton Mowbray North (N), Elcot Road and Portchullin (both P4).  There are several more on the short list, but I wanted to evaluate the problems encountered in the first year at the venue before making any more firm bookings - and I hope to book a good tram layout next year as well.

 

Now to the other points that have been raised by RMwebbers:

 

The low ceilings gave a cramped atmosphere.  Personally I'd prefer a comfortable, carpetted venue with normal room height ceilings to the echoing and impersonal vastness of a sports hall, but that's just a personal view.  The reality is that we investigated 48 venues in the Manchester area and the Barnes Wallis was the one that came closest to "ticking all our boxes."  Its obvious advantages - centre of city, near to Piccadilly, easy road access, low cost parking, decent catering, cost of hire etc, outweighed its disadvantages, of which size is one.

 

In my research, the average size of a municipal sports hall is about 1200 sq m  (our last venue, the Armitage centre, was about 1450 sq m).  The two main rooms at the Barnes Wallis total only 1060 sq m.  We knew it would be smaller, but we still managed to get in two more layouts than we did in 2013. There aren't any more big rooms at the venue, but we will be using both the upstairs cafe and the downstairs restaurant, which should release a bit more floor area for exhibits, and we will probably use another small room as well, it will depend on cost. 

 

Catering was poor/ cafe queues were long.  We were taken by surprise by the numbers - 718 people through the doors in the first hour and the cafe queues were unacceptable.  By mid afternoon on Saturday, the venue management had approached us and told us that they would be opening a second food area the next day, bringing in extra catering staff specially.  The next day was much better, but still not good enough.  It seemed to me that the problem is the same that you get in any high street coffee shop: getting stuck behind people who want fancy bespoke frothy coffees which take ages to make when all you want is a cup of tea!  We'll talk to the venue management with a view to having the drinks and food queues separated - watch this space. I think that the quality and price of the hot meals was acceptable myself, but that's got to be a personal view.

 

Not enough big layouts.  Where, pray, do we put them?  Have a little doodle.  Draw a rectangle to a scale 50m by 16m, then put two rows of pillars, 9.3m apart with spacing between the pillars in a row of 4.77m. Now come up with a way of fitting in more than two large roundy-roundy layouts without wasting an inordinate amount of floor space and laying yourself open to the complaint of "not enough layouts"!  When you've found an answer let me know!

 

Seriously, the venue is more suited to long end to end layout, eg Herstmonceux and Calderwood, and, next year the 8m long N gauge Melton Mowbray North.  Anyway, big isn't necessarily the same thing as beautiful.  Tollesbury Quay, for me, was the best layout in the show yet is less than 4.5m long.

 

Aisles were not wide enough.  Yes, there were pinch points - the aisles by the way were deliberately not all the same width.  The worst pinch point was by the C&L sales stand.  We've learnt.  We'll try to have wider aisles next year where we can - but remember those pillars and also remember the need not to waste what space we have.  To my surprise and relief, the paramedic that we had on duty all through the exhibition did not have to deal with any medical problems caused by overcrowding.

 

Bring back the metal barriers.  Only if hell freezes over before the next exhibition.  Quite apart from the huge amount of volunteer labour needed to transport three quarters of a tonne of steelwork and erect it, the metal barriers only really work for rectangular enclosures and this limits my options for the floorplan of the halls.  Nobody has mentioned it, but there were deliberate dog-legs in both main aisles in the large hall, which not only allowed me to pack in layouts and traders more efficiently but also made it more visually interesting.

 

 

There you have it.  Overall, I think there was more right than wrong, and we'll do even better next year.  Thanks to all RMwebbers who came to the exhibition, and if you didn't, make sure you do next year.

 

If anyone has any further comments about any aspect of the show, or if they have a suggestion for a layout that's worth investigating for a possible invite, please email me at exhibition@mmrs.co.uk

 

Phil

Exhibition Coordinator, Manchester Model Railway Society.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Thanks for taking the trouble to give an in-depth reply. It's good to see the attendance was higher, hopefully sufficient to give you a decent return for your efforts.

Personally as far as traders are concerned I would agree that one less box-shifter type should be included given the available space, with a couple more small parts, etc, suppliers filling the gap if they can be persuaded to attend.

[ben racey]

Hi Phil

 

I thought it was a great show, brought my daughter after a trip on the elr Santa train, worked really well. If you are talking to the venue, then some sort of baby change facility would be useful.... Invaluable for parents and an often overlooked detail.

[Philip1812]

Hi Phil

 

I thought it was a great show, brought my daughter after a trip on the elr Santa train, worked really well. If you are talking to the venue, then some sort of baby change facility would be useful.... Invaluable for parents and an often overlooked detail.

 

Glad you enjoyed it.  I think that there were baby changing facilities in the disabled toilets in the lobby and at the far end of the cafe, but I'm not sure and will check this when I visit the venue for our evaluation meeting.

 

Phil

[ben racey]

Hi Phil

 

Definitely wasn't in the disabled in the lobby, as that's what we used(with difficulty, not ideal clearly!).. Don't know about the far end of the cafe.

 

Richard

[David Bigcheeseplant]

I am glad the show was a success, unless I am missed it will the show be at the same venue or move back to the Coop building, which I think was mentioned last year?

 

David  

[Philip1812]

It'll be at the Barnes Wallis again next year, Dave, but with a bit more floor area, especially for catering.  The dates are Sat 3rd and Sun 4th Dec 2016.  Layouts so far booked include Elcot Road and Portchullin (both P4), World's End (OO) and Melton Mowbray North (N).

 

The Coop buidling is being redeveloped as a hotel so isn't available for hire.  We should be at the Barnes Wallis until Network Rail decide when they're going to widen the tracks between Piccadilly and Oxford Road - that will cause us a few problems.

 

Phil

[David Bigcheeseplant]

I had thought I had seen somewhere last year that the show was moving back to the Coop building, then it seemed to change to the Barnes Wallis.

 

I am glad it was a success this year, and hope the show will gain its reputation again for one of the top flight shows. I have not been for a few years but may make it up in the future.

 

David

[DavidLong]

Excellent show, really enjoyed it.

Can't believe that Tollesbury Quay didn't win everything in sight. Perfectly evocative of its time and place and some beautifully observed modelling. Not enough trains whizzing around I guess . . .

 

David