Jump to content
 

Warley NEC exhibition 23rd & 24th November 2019


Chris M
 Share

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, PhilJ W said:

I just run over their foot with the walker.:diablo_mini:

 

If I'd have had one, I would have done.

 

Instead I took refuge in the Gaugemaster stand to get my breath back.

 

Andy

 

  • Friendly/supportive 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

I did see a little unpleasantness behind me in the queues for the car park.

 

A car was trying to stop bikes filtering.

 

WTF!

 

I was very carefull, managed to park near a bus stop so kept walking to a minimum.

 

Got a damaged back and a weak ankle.

  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

There was a spare ticket where someone had dropped out. I informed another RMwebber who lives in South Benfleet but he declined and the ticket went unused. 

Oh no! aint that always the way ;)

 

Steve

  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, MJI said:

I did see a little unpleasantness behind me in the queues for the car park.

 

A car was trying to stop bikes filtering.

 

WTF!

 

 

 

Really? What a moron. visitors to Motorcycle Live get free parking in one of the halls anyway so what did they think they were going to achieve. I ride a motorcycle and you get it all the time from certain drivers when you're filtering. It achieves nothing other than endangering the riders's life. On the other hand, the majority of truck drivers are great, even moving over when filtering.

 

Anyway, on a more positive note, had a great weekend operating PaulRhB's Sud Harz, meeting and chatting with lots of interesting people. 

  • Agree 1
  • Friendly/supportive 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
2 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

Hit by a rucksack and run over by a walker ?

 

Fell off a step ladder about 8 years ago, damaged bottom vertibra.

Last year broke ankle and even though it is normally OK gives my gyp if I use it a lot.

  • Friendly/supportive 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 minutes ago, PatC said:

 

Really? What a moron. visitors to Motorcycle Live get free parking in one of the halls anyway so what did they think they were going to achieve. I ride a motorcycle and you get it all the time from certain drivers when you're filtering. It achieves nothing other than endangering the riders's life. On the other hand, the majority of truck drivers are great, even moving over when filtering.

 

Anyway, on a more positive note, had a great weekend operating PaulRhB's Sud Harz, meeting and chatting with lots of interesting people. 

 

I made sure plenty of room as I used to ride bikes in my teens and 20s

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
19 hours ago, melmerby said:

Considering those techy shows that the NEC have you would think they would have extra beefy WiFi


Again when you book into a trade fair you can pay very good money for a very good guaranteed connection, it isn’t necessarily in the NEC’s interest to offer a brilliant WiFi connection.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
11 minutes ago, Jonboy said:


Again when you book into a trade fair you can pay very good money for a very good guaranteed connection, it isn’t necessarily in the NEC’s interest to offer a brilliant WiFi connection.

From memory a 1mb line at Earls Court cost >£1k  for a two day show  that will soon eat into any traders profit

 

Nick

  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

It was right near the entrance but most just sailed past

 

Arguably you could add a ninth segment for heritage railways and main line steam "The present"

 

I almost missed it- I didn't see it until I was on my way out. As several people have commented, a really nice imaginative bit of modelling

I went on Saturday, and had a pretty good day- I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Warley, I've been to the last four, and I reckon every year since my first I find myself thinking I might not bother this year because of the general hassle factor that comes with the NEC- expensive parking and catering, crowds and queues - and so far, every year I end up going. Got a bit fed up with the crowds at one point, but overall enjoyed it and saw some good layouts (Norwich, and Blackfriars Bridge impressed in particular) 

Didn't spend a fortune, but was particularly pleased to find some some discontinued wagon kits I wanted- I'd been looking for a Colin Ashby Midland sleeper wagon for a very long time- and picked three of them up on Saturday!

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
3 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

From memory a 1mb line at Earls Court cost >£1k  for a two day show  that will soon eat into any traders profit

 

Nick

Several of the traders at Warley were complaining about the poor connection for their card machine.

  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Did anybody visit the WM Collectables stand?

They had a lot of "Second Hand" but untouched white metal & brass kits at good prices.

I bought a SE Finecast Metro Tank inc. chassis, for £65, about £30 below SE Finecast's price.

There was also a K's Bulldog complete with a set of Alan Gibson wheels. I almost bit but my previous experience with K's stuff put me off.

Edited by melmerby
  • Like 1
  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Several of the traders at Warley were complaining about the poor connection for their card machine.

if they buy a fixed link it will give the stated bandwidth but they  are very expensive

 

we worked the figures post a Earls Court show and reckoned we lost £8 per sale against a direct web sale

 

Nick

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

This an odd request ……………….. I would like to hear (by PM preferred as I don't want to take this thread off topic) from people who didn't like my layout, those who took one look and walked past, those who had no interest.

 

Why?  Because I want to make my layout more 'visitor friendly'. I want to know how I can improve the layout/display to engage with more visitors.

 

Let me explain ….. my layout is set in China in 2004 and whilst we did have visitors engage with us and say things like 'I was there at about that time and it looked just like your model' the number of Warley visitors who had a great interest in or knowledge of our prototype was probably less than  0.1%.

 

49115870996_1556b09a96_b.jpg.5568485f5dab86ac4b2c42b01347a411.jpg

 

My layout is too big to set up at home and so it only exists to go to exhibitions and in order to get exhibition invites I/we need to reach out to a wider audience and TBH I/we got zero enquiries from exhibition managers visiting Warley and that is a bit worrying. Especially as I have already done quite a lot to engage with the 'wider audience'  such as …...

 

1. Info boards with photos of the prototype locations which inspired the layout and information about what the visitor is looking at

 

2. Four tracks of movement.. Continuous movement (in theory at least) on three tracks with shunting action on the fourth

 

3. Fully detailed and illuminated shops and restaurants to look at when there is no train

 

4. USPs include double headed 2-10-2's, 16 coach passenger trains and double banked steam trains on the 1/30 grade out of the station on the industrial line

 

5. Various 'gimmicks' which are triggered by the steam trains - but these features are so subtle that unless we point them out people don't notice them, when we point them out the family audience in particular love them.

 

Now I'm not saying that we didn't get a reasonable crowd at Warley, but what I am saying is if we are going to get the exhibition invites we need we need to reach out to a bigger audience. So what more can I/we do to make it bigger next time we go out - Aly Paly in March. I think that we have two target markets - the extremely small niche market of enthusiasts who know/love Chinese railways and the family audience who like gimmicks and detail and lots of movement and perhaps the family audience was not big enough for us at Warley.

 

I totally understand that with 90 layouts most enthusiasts will concentrate on their particular speciality - N, Modern Image, GWR or whatever - but what can I/we do to engage more with a wider audience?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who sends a PM (preferred) or replies

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
  • Like 6
  • Friendly/supportive 11
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
9 hours ago, melmerby said:

Several of the traders at Warley were complaining about the poor connection for their card machine.

 

Really?

 

I am a trader, I was at Warley over the whole weekend and my card machine worked flawlessly throughout. I cannot recall any problems in previous years of trading at the Warley show either.

 

Unsubstantiated sniping posts like this really give me the pip.

 

The Warley show is a miracle of organisation, goodwill, enthusiasm and most of all bloody hard work by a lot of people, and I really don't comprehend the need of some of us to endlessly snipe and criticise.

 

So, thank you to everyone who helped to organise and everyone who contributed to this fabulous show, I for one will definitely be back there next year and look forward to seeing hundreds of happy faces all over again.

 

Not Jeremy

  • Like 1
  • Agree 10
  • Thanks 2
  • Friendly/supportive 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

This an odd request ……………….. I would like to hear (by PM preferred as I don't want to take this thread off topic) from people who didn't like my layout, those who took one look and walked past, those who had no interest.

 

Why?  Because I want to make my layout more 'visitor friendly'. I want to know how I can improve the layout/display to engage with more visitors.

 

Let me explain ….. my layout is set in China in 2004 and whilst we did have visitors engage with us and say things like 'I was there at about that time and it looked just like your model' the number of Warley visitors who had a great interest in or knowledge of our prototype was probably less than  0.1%.

 

49115870996_1556b09a96_b.jpg.5568485f5dab86ac4b2c42b01347a411.jpg

 

My layout is too big to set up at home and so it only exists to go to exhibitions and in order to get exhibition invites I/we need to reach out to a wider audience and TBH I/we got zero enquiries from exhibition managers visiting Warley and that is a bit worrying. Especially as I have already done quite a lot to engage with the 'wider audience'  such as …...

 

 

 

Unfortunately the vast majority of British railway enthusiasts - modellers or not - are utterly & totally Xenophobic about anything "Foreign", almost regardless of it's nationality. 

What we do about it, I don't know. 

Welcome to what US-Outline modellers have faced for years - & not just at the larger shows either. I even saw an Exhibitor at one show take down the US flag from the front of his layout in a futile bid to get people to look at it before they knew what it was.

 

Edited by F-UnitMad
  • Like 2
  • Agree 7
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

This an odd request ……………….. I would like to hear (by PM preferred as I don't want to take this thread off topic) from people who didn't like my layout, those who took one look and walked past, those who had no interest.

 

Why?  Because I want to make my layout more 'visitor friendly'. I want to know how I can improve the layout/display to engage with more visitors.

 

Let me explain ….. my layout is set in China in 2004 and whilst we did have visitors engage with us and say things like 'I was there at about that time and it looked just like your model' the number of Warley visitors who had a great interest in or knowledge of our prototype was probably less than  0.1%.

 

49115870996_1556b09a96_b.jpg.5568485f5dab86ac4b2c42b01347a411.jpg

 

My layout is too big to set up at home and so it only exists to go to exhibitions and in order to get exhibition invites I/we need to reach out to a wider audience and TBH I/we got zero enquiries from exhibition managers visiting Warley and that is a bit worrying. Especially as I have already done quite a lot to engage with the 'wider audience'  such as …...

 

1. Info boards with photos of the prototype locations which inspired the layout and information about what the visitor is looking at

 

2. Four tracks of movement.. Continuous movement (in theory at least) on three tracks with shunting action on the fourth

 

3. Fully detailed and illuminated shops and restaurants to look at when there is no train

 

4. USPs include double headed 2-10-2's, 16 coach passenger trains and double banked steam trains on the 1/30 grade out of the station on the industrial line

 

5. Various 'gimmicks' which are triggered by the steam trains - but these features are so subtle that unless we point them out people don't notice them, when we point them out the family audience in particular love them.

 

Now I'm not saying that we didn't get a reasonable crowd at Warley, but what I am saying is if we are going to get the exhibition invites we need we need to reach out to a bigger audience. So what more can I/we do to make it bigger next time we go out - Aly Paly in March. I think that we have two target markets - the extremely small niche market of enthusiasts who know/love Chinese railways and the family audience who like gimmicks and detail and lots of movement and perhaps the family audience was not big enough for us at Warley.

 

I totally understand that with 90 layouts most enthusiasts will concentrate on their particular speciality - N, Modern Image, GWR or whatever - but what can I/we do to engage more with a wider audience?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who sends a PM (preferred) or replies

Must confess I made no effort to see this layout. I do like to see foreign layouts but I had very limited time to look at layouts so i had to be quite selective . There always seemed to be a crowd round your layout when I went past so it must have attracted a fair bit of attention.

 

At a smaller show with a lot less to look at I would probably stop and enjoy this layout; it looks like a lot of good work has gone into it.

 

As for being invited to other exhibitions, well I have taken three layouts to Warley and got somewhere between none and very few invitations. I always seem to get a lot more invitations at the medium sized shows such as Taunton or GETS. Don't know whether anyone else has found this to be the case.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...