Eddies Mate

Why would modellers in mainland Europe want to buy Peco products ? When track like Tillig and Fleischmann is far superior to anything produced in the UK/China ?

So Corgi the dying duck of the Hornby collective is going to have a CEO that is also the Owner of one of it's competitors ? Good move Hornby, lets hope you are using blanks, otherwise they could be seen as shooting themselves in the foot.

Grass mat for large areas, especially Gaugemasters GM140, it has a sticky back, sticks to hills and uneven areas just with a dampening down, (it's stuck to PVA backing) can also be torn to random shapes, and as it is like static grass it is easy to blend it in with the same, around £8 for a sheet measuring 44 x 29cm

Your entrance fee probably went into paying for the hire of the two halls, schools actually charge a phenomenal amount for their halls and the caretakers overtime over a whole weekend. The quality of the traders is down to the people organising the show, I have no idea how AMRC select their traders, but you do tend to see the same ones year after year, perhaps that is an area they need to look at, one other missing this year was the guy that sells all the spares, like chassis etc. The organisers need or have to do a bit of research to find out who they actually invite, I would assume that like layouts you invite the traders you want. I don't think that demonstrators necessarily rely on show for a realistic income, after all at the most it is a 2 days a week job. They may do private work during the week and shows are more a means of advertising than income.

Up until about three years ago ? this venue as I stated served hot food at what was genreally accepted as dinner time, and as previously stated it also did bacon rolls for early arrivals, that for some reason has disappeared, even though this show has been held on the same weekend for as long as I have been going. If you go the show at Barton Peverill College ( Janaryish I think) you can get hot food in the college canteen virtually all day on both days, visiting the Wessex N gague show last year, they also had hot food on offer, so it's not a rare thing. I would envisage that as a 'demonstrator' you are paid to go and demonstrate, whereas traders have to pay, it is they who make the show as diversified as you claim, without them there is no money to pay the demonstrators and layout owners. If traders cancel a couple of weeks before the event or fail to turn up, then there must be good reason, perhaps they failed to make a profit last year at the same show, I know this to be true of one because I actually contacted him a couple of weeks prior to the show to order some stuff and collect it at the show.

Ah so this is post elitist forum, the more posts you have, the more weight Ah so this is a post elitist forum, at what number of posts do you have to have to have a valid point to express ? Or is it against forum rules to comment on an exhibition before you have made a certain number of posts ?

I've been going to this show for about 5 or 6 years now, since I moved to the area, and I'm sorry to say that in my opinion it's got worse over the last few years. You used to be able to get a good meal, even bacon sarnies if you arrived early enough, and hot food around dinner time, now you can't, all there is on offer is bread rolls, and a slice of cake and a cup of luke warm tea. If you take away the obvious two club stands selling second hand gear, then the number of traders must have fallen too, I counted 13 this year, and not all of those were selling rolling stock, coupled with a poor variety of layouts, and some that have been doing the rounds for a fair time, this years show for me was disappointing, very little modern era, a lot of OO. in various codes which made it all look samey ? Too many large layouts as well, the one Hoptons Aggregates was very long, but it was all happening at one end, the rest of the layout was a bit of a side show. After going there its no surprise that didn't bother to post up what would be at the show on the UKMS website, I shall do a lot more research before I attend next years, the shows at Basingstoke and Eastleigh cost about the same to get in, and IMO are ten times better.