How often is a exhibition layout not 'ready to go' at 'doors open' at exhibitions?

[bandmbill]

On 14/09/2023 at 22:52, 5944 said:

I agree, and a lot of issues/failures can't be helped. I think the vast majority of people accept that. Likewise if the operators are scrambling around trying to fix the fault, not a problem in my view. These things happen. It's when there's a lack of urgency or pride that irritates me. You're there to show off your layout, if you want to stand around chatting to your mates all day go to the pub!

 

I went to one exhibition where an hour before doors opening, there was still a substantial sized layout missing. 45 minutes before opening time they waltzed in to try and set up their layout. Come opening time the boards are up but no lights and more importantly no stock! Frankly that's not really good enough, especially as they didn't seem to be in any sort of rush to get things sorted. 

 

Everyone has something go wrong or makes mistakes now and again, it's just the way things go. In the past I've had to drive back to the club room the night before a show to pick up the controllers for the layout! But the layout was ready to go at 10am when doors opened, and that's what the paying public expect.

Think you have to accept that, no matter how carefully we prepare, that things can go wrong.   I think that if you have tested, cleaned and fettled before leaving for the show that things can still go wrong.   
 

At a recent show one of the larger layout was having an issue and two hours after the show opened nothing was running - someone commented that ‘it did this last time out’……………

 

Although you can carry spare bits of kit there may be some bits that you couldn’t realistically have spares for, perhaps a DCC Command Station - if that was to fail then maybe you would have to accept that trains won’t be running for the rest of the show or if there was major damage to track or wiring in transit or while setting up.

 

 

[newbryford]

Putting some of the above comments into practice, let's see if Deadmans Lane is up and running at Wakefield by 0945 tomorrow!

 

 

[PaulRhB]

21 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

This weekend, one of the venue rules is no food or drink in the main exhibition hall. (Its a school sports hall)

 

thank goodness they forgot to mention cake,

 

21 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

And I find eating behind a layout can sometimes be untidy/unsightly.

 

To be honest most of the operators are too so don’t add to the horror?
 

18 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Biscuits ( and a bit of cake, but don't tell HH) can be ok,

The lads on a very nice and big tram layout were behind us one year at Warley and when they noticed our 35 lt really useful crate full of cake the comment between them was, “there’s more of us than them and we haven’t got that much cake!” 

We were glad to provide inspiration 😁

[roundhouse]

2 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

 

 

The lads on a very nice and big tram layout were behind us one year at Warley and when they noticed our 35 lt really useful crate full of cake the comment between them was, “there’s more of us than them and we haven’t got that much cake!” 

We were glad to provide inspiration 😁

Well, you do have a whole cake warehouse to fill on one of your layouts😄

[PaulRhB]

10 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

Well, you do have a whole cake warehouse to fill on one of your layouts😄

I found them very supportive   🍻

And it neatly gets round any ‘no food in the hall’ signs as they’re removable scenic items. 
 

On Lulworth they were the emergency bufferstops so again part of the layout. 

 

 

 

[Gilbert]

4 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

I found them very supportive   🍻

And it neatly gets round any ‘no food in the hall’ signs as they’re removable scenic items. 
 

On Lulworth they were the emergency bufferstops so again part of the layout. 

 

 

 

That looks like an HO continental version to me.....

[PaulRhB]

7 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

That looks like an HO continental version to me.....

I see you have the RAF Cake Recognition guide to hand, yes one of those fancy Gallic bite size starters to cleanse the palette. Don’t want any friendly fire, melts the icing! 
 

Tally Ho!

[Gilbert]

1 minute ago, PaulRhB said:

I see you have the RAF Cake Recognition guide to hand, yes one of those fancy Gallic bite size starters to cleanse the palette. Don’t want any friendly fire, melts the icing! 
 

Tally Ho!

A kipling we will go......

Edited September 29, 2023 by Gilbert

[009 micro modeller]

51 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

That looks like an HO continental version to me.....

Prefer 00 scale cakes myself, about 14% larger…

[PaulRhB]

3 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Prefer 00 scale cakes myself, about 14% larger…

you might knock the icing off in tunnels though,

 

  details, details, details . . .

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

I see you have the RAF Cake Recognition guide to hand, yes one of those fancy Gallic bite size starters to cleanse the palette. Don’t want any friendly fire, melts the icing! 
 

Tally Ho!

Hmmmm... a French Fancy. How long before it surrendered?? 🙄🤣

[Neil]

Each year I'm asked to sort out the floor plan for a local exhibition. About three months before the event I get busy with lists of exhibitors, graph paper scissors and a glue stick in a bid to fit everything in. This year all didn't go to plan; one trade stand and one layout failed to show up, which was just as well as two layouts that I hadn't made plans for turned up out of the blue. Still none the wiser whether it was my mistake or the exhibition managers.

 

Many years ago when I lived in York I helped with the Easter show at the racecourse. Each year we followed the floorplan drawn up by the late, great Mike Cook, an overlay on the architects plan. Each year we struggled with the same corner of one of the floors. After three years of struggling to mark out for the layouts and getting the barriers to fit in this small section, I measured and compared reality to the architects plan and found that they didn't match, reality being about four feet shorter than it should have been.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Neil

[Butler Henderson]

I remember one big layout where due a point failure nothing was run for ages because the operators could not fathom out how to run the layout without keeping to their preset rosta. Simply send something round somehow did not enter their minds.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

As the owner of a large 'exhibition-only' layout, this is a very interesting thread.

[TheQ]

When our club still had a big show, meal tickets were coloured with meal times on them. Each visiting layout with multi operators got staggered meal time tickets.

 

If a layout only had a single operator, a club member was delegated to be the standby operator and was supposed to go and assist to learn the layout before meal breaks occured.

 

Even today with our little shows , visiting layout operators get a bacon butty before show opening time. ( the club members would go on strike without that 😄, unlimited tea or coffee and a sarnie or burger or similar at lunch time.

 

We've had an uninvited layout turn up, luckily it was a small one and we just with a bit of shuffling managed to get it in.

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, TheQ said:

If a layout only had a single operator, a club member was delegated to be the standby operator and was supposed to go and assist to learn the layout before meal breaks occured.

Is this always a good idea though? In particular some small shunting layouts are often quite precise and involve slightly unusual operating practices.

[DIW]

On 29/09/2023 at 17:31, PaulRhB said:

 

.... “there’s more of us than them and we haven’t got that much cake!” 
 

I read that as the excuse to setting up a raiding party ☠️ ☠️🧁🍰

[PaulRhB]

33 minutes ago, DIW said:

I read that as the excuse to setting up a raiding party ☠️ ☠️🧁🍰

They were Irish not Scandinavian 😉 which is kinda more likely in my genetic tree so I’ll claim that’s the reason for Berserker like defence of my stash 🪓

[Suzie]

Even with just ten roads of staging it is not hard to create a train sequence that takes two hours to run through, meaning that the sequence (and each train) gets run about three times during a normal show day. This makes for an orderly packing away of stock over the final two hours of running as each train completes its final visit to the staging.

 

Running freight trains at prototypical speed does sometimes have its advantages.

[Ben B]

I'm increasingly a believer in both Murphy's Law, and the unpredictable whims of the Great Machine God. Not railway related, but in my work-world as an NHS Simulation Technician, I can test the robots, the suplimentary kit, the controllers, laptops, and all will be fine. It will then, of course, mysteriously fail as soon as there's 20 doctors and nurses in the room and my boss is observing. And work perfectly straight afterwards. And I'm sure it's a psychological thing, but the robots do seem more reliable if you talk to them!

 

 

I had the hideous embaressment of supporting an insitu training in Modular Theatres in May; 12 actual Doctors and Surgeons and a Sim Fellow. I'd got the kit ready a week before, tested it the day before with a colleague, got into work at 6am, scrubbed-up, we had 40 mins before Ward Round... and one component failed, ruining the whole scenario. All, it turned out, for the want of a 9v battery which someone had 'borrowed' the night before. Didn't do much to improve my reputation with The Big Important Surgeons, but did show the importance of paranoid checking of the kit.

[TheQ]

Went to collect SWMBO from a village fete yesterday, I was passing cars coming the other way from a classic car exhibit 45 minutes before the show closed. It's not just model railway shows where people pack up early..

Edited October 1, 2023 by TheQ

[F-UnitMad]

4 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

 

 

Kryten's career after Red Dwarf is revealed!!!

[Chris M]

I taking my layout to an exhibition in two weeks time, reading all this this is starting to make me twitch a little.

[Ben B]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

Kryten's career after Red Dwarf is revealed!!!

 

Can't say that!  My boss ticks me off even for calling them Robots... officially they're High Fidelity Medical Patient Simulators.  She takes a low view of sci-fi references.  Me testing the voices by growling "By Your Command" or "Kill All The Humans" gets particularly withering looks ;)  Also, the child-simulator is even creepier, with working facial expressions... when we last had the wigs on it to make it into a female patient, I got in bother for calling it M3GAN on her wristband after the murderous girl bot in the film that came out a few years ago ;)

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

I taking my layout to an exhibition in two weeks time, reading all this this is starting to make me twitch a little.

Provided the layout is up, if something is playing up find a work round. I had a point fail on the station buffers end crossover. So instead of running round I had to make extra use of the station pilot or bring a new loco for the train off the depot.