Another nail in the coffin of the local / regional show?

[silverlink]

Am I missing something in the original email

 

"The UK has five main Model Engineering exhibitions at present. Of these Bristol, Harrogate, Sandown and our own Midlands"

 

It then goes on to mention Ally Pally, but I havn't heard of the four mentioned in that sentance, and I thought Ally Pally had closed down - which begat Doncaster - and then someone decided to restart the Ally Pally show.

 

Not that it matters to me, in my mind "comercially organised" shows, like this one advertised, the Warners/BRM and 'Warley' show at the NEC are not focused on the enthusiast.

Warley show is organised by a local model railway club and when I last looked is not 'commercial'. The Warners shows whilst 'commercially' organised absolutely attract the enthusiast. I have been involved with model railways for close on sixty years and am still as enthusiastic as ever so when I go to a 'commercially' organised show what am I if not an enthusiast?

silverlink

[PLD]

I mentioned Preston for a start and heres the rub - its the same weekend

 

Les Nerlich has worked hard to build up the standards of Preston show, including moving it from the inclement Jan date to this new date. Its a damn good show and well worth a visit.

Absolutely: Preston has always been a nice show to do - well looked after by a welcoming host club. I bet exhibitors at this new venuture don't get the same hospitality!

 

See you at Preston then Andy!

[Kenton]

Firstly this is advertised as a "Model Engineering Exhibition" which suggests larger scales (garden railways, sit on and ride, etc.) than 7mm which the model railway world is use to, although I appreciate there is some overlap.

Please do not limit that to 7mm as the ALSRM Shows cater well for 7mm on up to ... well .."Large Scale"

[Unchuffed]

The tone of that email suggests that THEY DON'T KNOW what they're doing and are in it purely for the cash. They'd be staging the Northern Doll Collecters' and Doll's House Exhibition if they thought there was money to be extracted from those hobbies.

 

Any copy that CAPITALIZES words for emphasis always strikes me as wanting to extract your cash with minumum effort on the advertisers part.

[Edwin_m]

From my own visits and comments on forums I think most people are pretty happy with Meridienne's N gauge show, though I think that is organised more by modellers than by the company itself. And the fact (I think!) it was a new venture rather than muscling in on someone else's patch probably meant it started off with more goodwill.

 

The N gauge show is obviously very targeted at a specific market, and the fact it has been repeated must mean the company considers it sufficiently profitable and enough people liked it to want to come back. This one seems to be doing the opposite, trying to gather custom from as many genres of modeling as it can, and my feeling is such a scattergun approach will probably end up attracting very few. I don't think most railway modellers for example will want to go to an exhibition which is mostly about other sorts of modelling, when Preston will offer more railway content at a lower entrance fee.

 

Perhaps they are hoping to tempt some local modellers into helping organise and promote the Manchester event, in the hope they will do it rather better than Meridienne itself would be able to, and also unpaid!

[Tricky-CRS]

I suspect the Target audience will be the thousands of families listing Trafford Centre that weekend. Probably get a few more people into hobbies in general.