Chris M

I often wonder about adverts in magazines. You kind of have to have them but they are quite expensive and how many additional punters do they bring in? The problem is you can never tell what advertising is effective and what isn't. I use the UK model railways site for exhibition info and before that I used the "exhibition diary" of the mags to see what was on. I expect nearly all of us do the same. But then does seeing an ad in the corner of your eye as you quickly flip through the ads plant a thought in your brain? Ads in four magazines are going to rack up those pre-exhibition expenses.

I think it all depends. I would never want or have expenses for a local show and have gone much further afield without expenses for some good causes. My next layout will require a small van so I will have to have expenses and probably wont go to many exhibitions. That's my expectation anyway. Taking a layout to an exhibition always leaves the owner slightly out of pocket. I find exhibition organisers are usually very good but of course you can't expect them to pay for your evening meal. We often head for the nearest Wetherspoons - steak and a pint for just over a tenner. The sticky floor comes for free!

I've never heard of expenses being paid before a show. The usual is still to distribute cash on Sunday morning so you have time to spend this cash that your other half hasn't seen at the show. The latest sad trend is to pay by BACS a few weeks after the show - most inconvenient. I can see post Covid-19 shows doing extremely well. Not having been to one since Leamington just before the lockdown I will be visiting more than usual when they do restart.

Difficult times. All you can do is decide on the last possible date you can make a decision and make the decision on that day. You also need two plans for exactly what has to be done and by who following the decision because there will be a lot of things to do on a short time either way. I always find hotels are a pain to deal with; they always seem to be trying to squeeze the punter in what ever way they can. I well remember booking a significant number of rooms at a hotel only to be told that the price was high because there was an event on that weekend . It was our event and the only reason they were busy was because of my booking! I was forced to accept their price but never used that hotel again. If you decide to cancel I would push them for something on the basis of future repeat business. Not sure what the chances of success are. I don't know how much you pay for flyers but Solopress will do 10,000 A5 single sided colour flyers for £97.70. I've used them quite a few times and am happy with them. I found putting a copy of the flyer on Facebook, sharing it with friends and fellow club members and then asking everyone to share it and ask everyone who receives it to also share it worked well. I also put it on the local area Facebook groups. The great thing about this form of spreading the word is that it is hitting the target audience (modellers and locals) and totally free. Best wishes to all those involved in organising an exhibition in these difficult times.

I think you have hot the nail on the head there. The manufacturers at the motorcycle show will need to be spending money developing their stand design specially for this show now. Even the big manufacturers in our hobby will be using the stand they already have. I'm sure there isn't much happening at the moment regarding late 2020 shows for our hobby. I expect the National Festival of Railway Modelling, like most others, is in a bit of a state of limbo. The exhibitors are all arranged but you can't really go too big on publicity at the moment. Neither Warley or Peterborough advance tickets are on sale at the moment which is sensible but all that means is nobody can be sure either of these shows will be on.

You are incredibly far off the mark there. I've had and still do have a huge involvement with organising exhibitions, especially the financial side of them. All things such as venue and hotel deposits can be negotiated and layout expenses are paid after the event. It really is as simple as when new cases drop below a certain level for a certain length of time then social distancing will not be required and exhibitions can go ahead. Until that happens exhibitions can't happen. We may get to this point by November or we may not, nobody can predict this. Unless the venue owner is being unreasonable about deposit terms there is no need to cancel just yet. Wouldn't it be great to be the first safe exhibition since covid?

I can't see why exhibitions for October and November are being cancelled now as we cannot reliably predict where we will be. I imagine many exhibition organisers have to pay an advance deposit to the venue. This would seem to be the point where a show is either cancelled or agreed to remain in planning with some written agreement re what happens to the deposit if forced to cancel. Cancellation of exhibitions can happen within a few weeks of the planned date without problem. With the exception of a venue deposit and a bit of leaflet printing or advertising there no major costs incurred months before an exhibition. As a layout owner I would rather have the unsurity of there being a possibility of a show going ahead in 5 months time than the certainty that it isn't only to find that it could have gone ahead. I accept the chances of exhibitions being allowed by November are no better than 50:50 but there is an admittedly fairly slim possibility that social distancing will no longer be necessary by then.

A friend of mine paid some cash up front for a class 17. When that project went belly up he naturally wanted his money back. DJ persuaded my friend to use that cash as deposit for the king instead of having a refund. Sounded reasonable at the time.....

I thought everyone would see that as just a joke comment.

I'd like to have a word with Dave round the back of the bike sheds with a few of my mates. Hope I don't get detention for saying this.:)

In Europe it is normal for the company who pays for the tooling to own it and have control over it. In China the factory who made the tooling usually own and control the toolong regardless of who paid for it.

I foolishly pit some money down for a king. I was a bit doubtful at the time bit decided to give Dave the benefit of the doubt. With hindsight I suspect Dave knew there was no hope by the time he was asking for deposits but it would be impossible to prove this. It may be that he was genuinely under a delusion that he could still succeed. Either way it's over now and there nothing anyone can do. Can't see Dave showing his face at any exhibitions when they start up again. I can't bring myself to show an interest in the KR models project.

Cancellation will almost certainly be by the venue owners or jointly with the venue owners. As they will have failed to fulfill their part of the contract then they have to return any deposit. As the venue owners will be up a financial gum tree it may be reasonable to agree that the deposit can be used as the deposit for next year. That way everyone has the best chance of surviving. In reality any deposit for the venue will be the only major spend. Trade exhibitors sometimes have to pay a deposit for trade space at an exhibition. I can see that many trade exhibitors will need their deposit back just to keep their heads above water.

I paid the initial deposit for a king. I didn't bother registering a claim because it was obvious there would be nothing to be retrieved. There are probably many like me. The problem I have is that Dave Jones must have realised there was virtually no hope for his enterprise when he asked everyone to send him the deposits for the king. He must have pretty much run out of cash when he asked for the deposits and just used our cash to keep him from going under for a while. It seems toe there was no real prospect of our money being paid to a Chinese factory to make the tooling. Some folk here did try to warn us off. I thought that, as I had registered an interest, it would be bad form to not pay the deposit and decided to trust Dave. That was a mistake. It's no big deal, there's a lot worse happening in the world today, but I don't expect to see Dave at any exhibitions when they restart.

The decision on Warley and other big shows will be entirely down to the venue owners. They are the professionals, they manage the risks associated with all the shows at their venue. The clubs etc who put on exhibitions are just amateurs doing a great job; I'm sure they will be happy to follow professional advice. Agreed that one should assume all exhibitions are cancelled until further notice. May I suggest a new thread stating which exhibitions are definitely on. It will be a rather short thread at the moment.....

A gathering of 200 wouldn't be much of an exhibition! Remember there are 2-4 (or more) people per exhibit before you get any paying visitors. Even a very small exhibition with say 20 stands in total will have a "staff" of more than 50. The fact is that one day, and nobody can say when, the number of new Covid-19 cases will drop to penny numbers. At that point all exhibitions will be safe. Some countries have already got to this point and that's without a vaccine. My guess is that exhibitions for the back end of the year are about 50/50 but that is nothing more than a wild guess. At the moment the only exhibition I am booked for this year is a one day job in August. I expect it will be cancelled but the organisers are right to not cancel untill they know it cannot go ahead. It is possible (but unlikely) that new cases will be low enough by August for meetings such as model railway exhibitions to go ahead - nobody can say at this point. Even though I don't expect this exhibition to happen I have a plan to make sure I will be fully ready to go to this just in case it does go ahead. To me this is the sensible approach. Just get on with doing what you do and let those who run the venues make the big decisions that only they can make. The thing I'm really hoping for is that I will be able to take my grandchildren to the panto this Christmas. It will be the four year olds very first proper panto. I love model railway exhibitions but family is more important.

Quite possibly, but you would still have to restrict numbers. I must get round to inviting the gang. In the meantime - Phil Parker - PM me if you would like to pop round one day. I can let you into the garden without going through the house!

I know my N gauge modelling isn't good enough to be mistaken for the real thing so I'm taking a slightly different view on being realistic. My model is based in the 1960s when the Inn had white window frames and hadn't had so many extensions. The roof was replaced on the real Inn circa 1955 due to a serious fire which is why my roof is so fresh looking, or maybe I just haven't got round to distressing it a bit yet. Like I say, wouldn't fool anyone into thinking it was real but hopefully is a reasonably realistic capture of a real place.

I had the Lionel one for a while. Can't recommend it at all. Sold mine on. I have quite a lot of G scale and this is the only 45mm item I have ever found unacceptable. There again it is very cheap and you get what you pay for.

I'm now quite happy shopping online. The risk from being in a shop that only allows two people in at a time for a couple of minutes would seem to be very low. The big difficulty for model shops is that kind of the whole point of going is to have a browse, a chat, and maybe pick a few things up to look at them more closely. I can't see this being a good thing to do in the short term.

I normally don't like politics on a model railway forum but I do like Edwardian's comment.

For me , putting a speaker into any N gauge or even 00 gauge model is a complete waste of time. The digitised sound may well be 100% accurate but it will never ever have the depth or bass required. It will never make the ground vibrate. It's the depth of the sound that is important to me. That's why I use a reasonably powerful speaker under the layout. If I use my 200 watt speaker I can feel the floor shaking under my feet which is great. Well it's great until others on the house express their opinion! For US N Broadway imports do a rolling thunder which combines a speaker in the loco with a big speaker under the layout providing the depth or bass. I was impressed.

One very common treatment for prostate cancer is ADT, where you have an implant that stops your body producing testosterone. As cancer treatments go this is a very mild sort of treatment. It doesn't have a major effect on your life but it does have a number of irritating and tiresome side effects. An Italian study has found that this treatment does appear to have one good side effect - https://www.oncology-central.com/disease-area/prostate/andriogen-deprivation-treatment-could-protect-men-from-covid-19/ . OK its a small sample with all the problems that entails but I thought it worth sharing as reading it gave me a good feeling anyway. Going way off on one, and probably being completely wrong as I have zero medical knowledge - what do young children and men on ADT have in common? No testosterone and not so badly affected by covid-19. Probably coincidental but you never know.

Warley isn't until the end of November and a lot can happen. Nobody can predict where we will be by November so there is not much point in discussion. I believe hall 5 is currently an unused Nightingale Hospital. If new Covid-19 cases are very low across the country by then social distancing will not be required. If new cases are high then social distancing will be with us and mass meetings of any kind won't be happening. With new cases in London being so low at the moment there is hope that the whole country will be in good shape later in the year. This latest thinking on T-cells may mean we are very close to a treatment which will help to cure 80% of very ill patients. Another cause for hope.

I thought the whole point of exhibitions was that you pay a fiver or so to spend a day chatting with people you haven't seen since the last exhibition.