SEVENOAKS MODEL RAIL SHOW 10th July

[russianlayout]

date Sun 10th July - Sevenoaks

 

The show is 800 yards from Sevenoaks and Bat & Ball BR with free onsite parking plus overflow parking for 200 cars,   Full catering facilities with hot and cold food including real ale and ciders and tickets can be purchased online at discount rates and also gets you speedy entry and first through the door when we open. 

 

Venue is Sevenoaks Primary School, Bradbourne Park Road, Sevenoaks, TN13 3LB    DATE Sun 10th July 10am to 4pm

 

pre booking prices are £4.95 adults, £3.95 children/ over 60's and £12 family tickets -  Normal prices £6, £5 & £15.   Pre booked ticket sales stop at midnight on the 9th.

 

Layouts

 

KRATESVILLE   N  American

 

BELMONT ROAD  00

 

HAWKHURST  00

 

SMALL 'N' WORKING N

 

LOCO GRAVEYARD 00

 

TRAIN SIMULATOR

 

END DALE N

 

ENGINE ###### HARDY  OO

 

HILL DALE

 

HAVE A GO 00

 

TRAIN TO PLANE  T gauge

 

LOOE BASIN & STOP 

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​PRODEZKOVA HO

 

 

MAXWELL  N

 

​EBSWORTH STREET 00

 

 SAN MARIA GANDIA HOe/HO

 

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DEMO's

Weathering and painting workshop

 

 

TRADERS

Kent Garden Railway (new G, O and 00)

Peter Hollands (Rolling stock and track) 

Dareth Valley (paints, glues, backgrounds)

Rail Russia Holidays (Russian Tourist Office)

Dekota Dibdin (s/hand locos and wagons)

​Mike Pett (O & 00 figures)

​A1 Tooling (model making tools)

​Shed Engine (new railway based toys)

Allwheels (model cars for layouts)

Euroscale  (new HO & N loco's and wagons)

Harrison Brown (Kingsway Buildings Kits)

Angus White (past issue railway mags)

Engines U Drive (model train parts)

Roneo Models (locos and wagons)

 

                                                                                                                                             

see  http://www.modelrailwayexhibition.com

 

 

 

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[russianlayout]

OMG   just notice the sweary filter kick in on one of our layouts listed above on this forum group.....  full name is Engine Come Hardy with the middle bit spelt slightly differant lol.    Lets see how sensitive this filter is, our Sevenoaks show is not far from the Kent town of Pratts Bottom. 

[russianlayout]

Anyone fancy exhibiting a layout max size 6ft x 2ft and front operated at our  Sevenoaks show on the 10th July

 

We have one space left after doing the floor plan, we can supply the table for it and love to hear from someone who maybe hadn't exhibited before but has built an interesting fully scenic layout which is transportable by car.  You can set up the night before if local  or from 7.30am on the day.  

 

We also have one trade space left (no power and front trading 12ft x 3ft at £18  and one 6ft x 3ft at £12 left)    Happy to give these spaces free to any model railway society or transport society who are not directly selling items.

[russianlayout]

The following traders have now also confirmed this week

 

Harrison Brown - suppliers of building kits including sole exhibition supplier of kingsway models (some of these can be seen on the exhibition layout 'Loco Graveyard'.  Also supplies a range of smaller independent supplier kits.

 

Engines you Drive for all you loco components 

 

Steve Marshall  - block signalling and automated control for DC

 

Euroscale  - HO and N locos and wagons

 

and lastly Angus White not a professional trader and no doubt this will be the only show he is doing and local based, He just responded to the offer of trade space for £8 and is bringing a massive collection of past issue magazines, Railway modeller, BRM, Hornby etc  plus back catalogues for Faller, Peko, Prisner etc.  He said wife making him clear out magazines, if he wants space to build a new layout in the spare bedroom,  so please support him and marriage bliss by buying one, they all at 30p 

 

Full list of traders above

[russianlayout]

For any early birds getting there when we open, we have 30 assorted bags of ballast, static grasses, tarmac and scatter normally costing between £2.95 and £4.95 on offer at 50p and £1  (max two bags per person) and will be on sale on a table  next to the entrance. When they are gone, they are GONE!   We also have a free raffle with 6 prizes including 1 years subscription to Hornby Magazine, a weathering kit, Block Signalling kit, Plaxton 1.72 national express coach,  Tickets to the London Eye and two tickets to next years show.

 

We also have an extra trader just confirmed TOTAM SIGNS, so 15 traders in total.

 

See you all Sunday

[russianlayout]

Took the T gauge 'Train to Plane' out of garage to van, stopping outside at dusk last night to take this photo.  This will be it's first exhibition show

[russianlayout]

For any early birds getting there when we open, we have 30 assorted bags of ballast, static grasses, tarmac and scatter normally costing between £2.95 and £4.95 on offer at 50p and £1  (max two bags per person) and will be on sale on a table  next to the entrance. When they are gone, they are GONE!   We also have a free raffle with 6 prizes including 1 years subscription to Hornby Magazine, a weathering kit, Block Signalling kit, Plaxton 1.72 national express coach,  Tickets to the London Eye and two tickets to next years show.

 

We also have an extra trader just confirmed TOTAM SIGNS, so 15 traders in total.

 

See you all Sunday

 

The winner of the Hornby subscription has emailed to turn down the prize as already subscribes to that magazine, so with much banter and humour between me and him, the winner of the Hornby years subscription has now got their prize, a year's subscription to a boating magazine. The Plaxton coach winner has accepted the prize and it has been sent, lucky as it means they don't already own a 1;72 1970's national express coach lol

[russianlayout]

Overall show went 90% smoothly,  two layouts were no shows and two traders also never showed, (note to self, get pre-payments from everyone next year and no excuses to why they can't)  one actually who did prepay set up the night before with our help and then no show on the day, which was something we hadn't accounted for but   has they had put prices on everything, myself and the 'Enddale' layout operator stepped in along with Richard Green and  ran their stand for them for as much time as we could, even using my personal money in my wallet as the opening float.  Must have been odd for people buying as questions were answered about the items with 'not sure', 'I think it is' or 'sorry, we are just covering'   Assumed last night when I finally contacted him by landline, he would be happy and he would explain the no show, instead got the threat of possible legal action as we had no right to sell the items, followed by a call this morning saying he had collected the items not sold and they were not packed neatly, just put in a old cardboard box and left with the caretaker and £12 was missing from the items we had sold and could I explain the missing £12!.  I checked if I had nicked anything from his stand,  no and my non criminal record stands,  asked myself did I put the £11 into the box for the Kato overhead wire system for myself  and the American wagon I bought and gave to an exhibitor as a thank you for solving an electrical problem on my layout, yes I did. Turned out we were selling the back edition magazines at 30p each when they should have been at from 30p and did I know some were at a £1.   We sold them at that price as when he booked, it was just to get rid of the entire collection of railway mags he would be selling at 30p each. so we gave him the space for £8, What he set up was a full trade stand selling secondhand items. so actually it should be me annoyed with him.   Got into theatre this morning with a message from yesterday morning saying sorry not attending and he will come and remove stock and can we store it until Monday. Why he never rang the moby or answered any texts of messages we sent him throughout the day I will never know it seems.

 

 

Complete  loss of power along one side of the two halls reported to us when we turned up on the night before by the caretaker, meant some last minute re-jigging of the floorplan and the odd table and chairs set up for some of the exhibitors being taken and used as stock tables, meaning when we showed the exhibitor their space and said all set up for you, we looked a bit silly as it was just a empty void.  so had to nick them back again lol. 

 

 

523 tickets sold with a total attendance of 742 which was nice, had some very constructive comments from operators and traders, who preferred our staggered set up times for layouts last year so that everyone didn't show up at once all trying to get stuff in, so will go back to that method next year.

 

 

Had only one negative feedback email saying what a rip off as 3 of the 12 layouts were their last year and so demanding money their £4.95 back back.

 

 

We lowered some of the layouts to give better access to anyone under 5ft and those in wheelchairs and gave out portable steps but I admit lots of families turned up and also couples both young and old and bar from banning anyone who doesn't know what 009 is, there is nothing we can do, or actually want to do, as exhibitors actually found it great people were asking questions.  

 

 

Was concerned for some of our traders, especially the specialist ones and some reported ok trade, others said not so good and said they hadn't done well at a number of recent shows and blamed the internet and that no one was buying anymore, while others said excellent trade.   I felt the non modellers matched the modellers, having said that, it still would have meant 300 plus hobbyist showing up, which many shows would have loved to get anyway.   I know from my experience of helping man that trade stand, lots of the stuff he had sold, things like copper sheeting and French carriages with unusual couplings and also, we personally had a selection of ballasts and scatter we were selling and all of that went.  Was really worried when a seriously specialist trader asked to book, who even at model trade shows would have a very set narrow market.   When I went and said hello and asked how he was, he showed me the list of orders he had taken and kept running back to the van for more supplies. 

 

 

Personally had some nice comments about my T gauge layout and one negative comment saying why am I including this as one of the 15 layouts when it is only 2ft long, despite the fact is a fully modelled airport seen with HST train running past the runway.  

 

 

 Had some negative comments regarding the real ale we were selling including a few comments on the fact we should mention it is not cask ale, but bottled ale and one very upset person who will be reporting us to CAMRA for saying Camra approved ales, when they are bottled. 

 

We took 80 bottles with us, 36 were CAMRA approved plus bottles of lager and Meantime Chocolate Porter and were left with 9 at the end of the day,  the three choices of CAMRA approved ales sold out by 1pm and had a lovely moment having to go down the bins to get a empty Harvey Imperial Extra bottle with CAMRA approved written all over it to show him, even that I don't think convinced him.    What surprised us is one of the ales we bought not approved by CAMRA was the first ale to sell out, it's a toffee ale, I know sounds horrid!  

 

 

One thing we did learn from this year was that marketing doesn't stop when you open and just then hoping a banner will attract passing trade.  Because of Wimbledon, Grand prix etc which we were competing with, I had two people go to the town centre and the Tesco superstore and hand out leaflets on the day, a lot of the late afternoon  attendees were people given leaflets or had them on windscreens while shopping.  I know commercial shows get  lots of stick on here, and some clubs like to do it the way they always have, but seriously have a go at doing that on the day of the event, better use maybe of a club member going and getting people to the show on the day then standing around pointing to where the loos are. Also seriously this so works, it is so worth doing pre sale tickets, you don't need the commercial set up we have, it can be done online with some great ticketing companies and means you don't have to deal with the extra cash or change on the day.  We had 92 pre sales, any club want advice on how to set it up, feel free to contact me.  Also printing, a massive cost to MRC clubs, again happy to give details of our printers who do 5000 double sided full colour A5 for £73 and our banner company who do banners at £4.  I was shocked when some club members told me what they pay for printing yesterday.

 

One massive mistake we won't make again was going straight to the usual model railway insurance company most of us use and again getting the insurance from them,  then finding out we are covered by our own external theatre events cover and they class model railway exhibitions as low risk and the same as putting on a performance or event externally.  Charge would have been £20 to add Model Railway Exhibitions to our activities to offer the same cover from home to home of layouts and our public liability insurance with £40,000 accidental or criminal damage to stock and all exhibitors classed as part of the theatre under our management, so covered by our employers liability insurance even with exhibitors in essence being volunteers.

 

 

 

 

By the way, wasn't all negative comments we got, but the good comments are never interesting to read.  

 

 

Old newspaper saying dog bites postman, boring - Postman bites dog, that is what the reader wants