Boy, am I glad to get to the end of the week. With a bit of luck there won't be another panic to write news, as yet another major piece of the model railway jigsaw crashes and burns.
Anyway, the latest to go is the Warley National exhibition. To be fair, we knew a little about this on Tuesday, when the AGM details were leaked. The trustees made it very clear that they wanted to knock the show on the head. Numbers through the door were declining slowly, as was the number of traders, with many specialists deciding to rely on internet sales, rather than travelling to a show for people to handle, but often not buy, the products.
The killer though, was there simply weren't enough members willing to take on the enormous burden of running the show. Even if you ignore the 100 person strong army required to set up on the Friday, many recruited from other clubs, a show this size takes a lot of organising.
Rumours about this have been circulating from years. It's been noticable, that Paul Jones, the original exhibition manager, has struggled to pass the baton on. Although it doesn't help that we all know him, and will wander over for a chat.
When the official statement came out, of course there were plenty of people who see it as the begining of the end for toy trains.
My favourite moans, on Facebook, start "I've never been to the show, but..."
Followed by a rant that it cost too much to get in, and the petrol bill would be too high. Quite what the organisers are supposed to do about this last one has always been a mystery to me. I seem to recall someone suggesting that there should be a subsidy for those travelling a long distance, but it never went anywhere, because it was a stupid idea.
My guess is (I'm sure I've said this before) is that those making the most noise, never, ever go to anything that isn't toy train related. Entrace is fairly middling. Certainly cheaper than football, or even a couple of trips to the cinema. As for food. Bring your own if exhibition prices scare you - there were always a lot of seats put out for sandwich munchers!
I've attended pretty much every NEC show, and a good few of the Harry Mitchell Centre events that preceeded them. I've been as a punter, exhibitor, trader (sort of, with BRM) and demonstrator. Being reasonably local helps of course. No need for any accomodation for me, I'm cheap!
Warley was a show like any other. I think a lot of people tried to relate it to "normal" events, but you couldn't. It stood alone, and realising this helped a lot. Don't try and spend hours in front of every layout, there isn't time. And you can't dig through all the trade in detail either.
The work required to put on such an event was imense, yet generally, things ran smoothy. OK, getting in and out of the hall might try your patience, but that's the problem when a large number of people want to enter or exit the space in a short period of time. Full credit to the Warley club team for making all this happen.
I'll miss Warley. It was show I enjoyed a lot. But others will shuffle around to take up the gap in the calendar. Some will benefit a lot I suspect. And in a couple of years, the NEC event will be fondly remembered but the hobby will move on.
4 comments:
Warley's strength and weakness in recent years had been being all things to all people. I suspect most people going were only ever interested in about 20% of what was in the hall.
I quite enjoyed the mix, even if I usually rushed past the box-shifters and the big-name layouts.
I don't think the enthusiasts of almost any persuasion will be greatly impacted. There are still shows with an emphasis on more specific interests.The one thing I think I will miss be is the inspiration from overseas modellers, but I still have a subscription to Voie Libre.
What the hobby has lost though is a family event that attracted publicity. Arguably even that area is now covered by some of the more recent high profile shows.
I can't see Warley's demise, or that of Hattons, will affect the hobby in any way in the long run. Other box-shifters will fill the gap and the hobby is bigger and older than any one show, no matter how big.
First of all, massive thanks must go to the Warley MRC for putting on such a feast of railway modelling for so many years! Will we ever see something on the same scale again? Probably not.
My take on this — and the impending closure of Hattons — is that they are clear signals that the hobby is changing. Yes, there are alternatives to both; but in the case of Warley, the most telling aspect is the lack of new volunteers (and the age of the current ones). Technology and manufacturers are still bringing us wonderful things (if we can afford to pay for them). Whether there will be enough people willing to pay for them in another generation, or even in ten years, remains to be seen. However, I would like to think that we will always have kit-builders and scratch-builders, even if much of it is computer-based…
Christopher,
Change is the key. I suspect younger generations are taking part in the hobby in new ways. Certainly, YouTube has a fair number of videos by younger modellers, and I suspect it is a fairly young demographic that is buying the post-modern image releases.
A shift I've seen in my professional life is that the nature of physical events has changed. We go to them to meet people we know, but they are no longer the key conduit for authoritative information or to see products in action. At the same time, the profession is in some ways more connected than ever with online communities.
The big loser in all this might well be the local club. These days it is often quite late in life that you can make a regular time commitment. Certainly, for most of my life, the chances of making a weekly or monthly club night would have been about zero. What I have managed to maintain is my membership of specific societies, like the EMGS
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