The GnATTERbox

[rue_d_etropal]

Just thought I woulkd do a bit of stirring, as we are in middle of exhibition season in UK.
I tend to only go to only a few shows, some good some bad, and have exhibited at quite a few shows mostly local.
Now I have never won any prices, not surprising when I model out of the normal.But, at some shows there has been a tendency for either home club, or home club members to win the 'best of' . If this only happened occasionally I would not bothher, but it is happening over and over, and has become a big joke amongst my friends. It is only a hobby, but it seems some in the hobby think it more important to win. I did hear that at one show the independant counter, was surprised at the layout announced as winner as they were sure it was not correct.
Our hobby needs all the help it can get, and I am concerned underhand tactics such as this don't help the hobby long term, and maybe all exhibition judging needs to be done independently or at least monitored properly.
_________________
Simon Dawson,
Narrow gauge Francophile interested in 1m, 60cm,50cm and 40cm gauges. Build in scales from 1/12th to 1/24th. Also 1/32nd and 1/35th using 16.5mm track to represent 50cm and 60cm gauges respectively
http://www.rue-d-etropal.com

[Will Vale]

Our local exhibition doesn't have any competitions or prizes (as far as I know) which might be a nice way to get around this.

[Adrian]

G'day Simon
We have the same problem on the otherside of the world as well.

In the nearly thirty years that I have been exhibiting there have been a number of similar happenings.
There was one local club that awarded itself best club layout several years in a row.
Another club had the judge stand up and describe what he looked for and the chose a layout that had none of those features.

But there have been other clubs that run a competion and after the awards have been handed out the judging sheets are also handed out. So even if you lose you know why and can see what you have to do to improve your modelling. This is a good thing.

There are also the best in show judged by the exhibitors and the public. Both of which seem to be fair although I have heard the owner of a really good finescale layout complain that he was beaten by a Lego layout.

Early on in my exhibiting life I discovered that if you please the public it really does not matter if you get an award or not (although it is nice if you do)

Personally I think that any judging at exhibition needs to be based on the NMRA system which awards points for specific sections of modelling which allows a model of an outhouse to be compaired fairly with a model of a factory complex. And copies of the result sheets should be handed to the layout owners after the show as well.

I am just glad that although it is a few years since I actually received an award I still receive more invites to exhibit than I can handle.
(Not sure if this is because of my modelling or the fact there are not enough layouts on the circuit )

Cheers
_________________
Adrian Hoad
I might be daft but not stupid.

[PeterH]

... or you can 'exhibit' and more by - as you have - joining an internet forum and avoid these concerns; though having its own limitations sure ...
_________________
Peter

[Gavin Sowry]

[John New]

[chris krupa]

[Rant mode 'on']

Exhibiting very small and "boring" layouts that don't go round and round at high speed and never use unmodified stock out of the box, has meant that I don't get the attention of the uneducated 'thrill' seeker at shows. However, in my experience I can well do without them! I'm not a children's entertainer, I'm a modeller who has spent many hours taking small parts of various realities (some of them imaginary and of my own design) and assembling them into a whole that is, to the best of my ability and artistic sensibility, a small scale depiction of something that could easily have existed.

I was at a public show recently that seemed to have overdosed on the roundy roundy N gauge layout. No owners (I hesitate to call them modellers) seemed to have done anything to their stock or buildings except remove them from the plastic and cardboard packaging - perfect examples of collecting and assembling rather than model making. The layouts were all approximately the same size, of various prototypes, but none of anything that couldn't be purchased ready made. The show as a whole had a bland sameness.

What was remarkable also, was just how relatively few small boys and bored parents there were at a show that was blatantly aimed at and advertised to them. The most popular exhibit that could be said to be for them was the Thomas layout and great entertainment it was too.

The vast majority of visitors to that show were older (and I use that term in its widest form) enthusiasts whose age range was from about 25 to 75. Few of them were standing next to the roundy roundies and none by the Thomas layout. I'm tall and don't appreciate layouts that are three feet from the floor and are said to be that height to entertain the kids. There weren't any standing by such a layout throughout the hours I was at the show.

By all means provide crowd pleasing layouts, some of them roundy roundy even, but the market for exhibition visitors seems to be changing away from the bored parent/small child and such excuses are beginning to wear rather thin.

Personally, I'm very happy to see layout owners and show organisers providing step ups for small visitors rather than inviting layouts that are around my knee height. I'm also gratified to see just how many people both modellers and not, who are intrigued enough to stop by my layouts and chat about what I have modelled. I make a point of engaging people rather than staring intently at trains whizzing round at hundreds of miles an hour, having conversations with fellow operators behind the layout or doing multiple reshufflings of trains in the fiddle yards behind and mostly out of view of the visitor.

I think that aiming shows at 'kiddies' and trying to fill halls with crowd pleasers is short sighted and lazy.

Chris

[John New]

Chris and others.

In case anyone thinks I was with content of my earlier post I am not anti finescale en-block and there are some extremely bad layouts of the roundy-roundy tail chaser type too.

For that reason I added the note about the Gravetts. I will not name him but on the other side of the finescale equation to the Gravetts are the layouts by one of the leading "names" in the hobby. I have seen most of his made over the last few years and yes they are exquisitely built and well researched but are totally boring to look at as an exhibition model. Good to read up in magazines as examples of techniques etc but no "grip" factor in the flesh.

When I presented the "Classic Train Set" around the time of the 50th and 60th Birthdays of Hornby Dublo I did so in the style that Meccano had done in the 1950s with their dealer demo' layouts in an attempt to explain the system in context of the era -"Why three rail?" as just one example. It is for others to say whether or not I got that right. What I will do however is state that I did that for a reason - namely to avoid what I had seen and perceived as "wrong" when seeing other layouts attempting to show Hornby-Dublo.

Just like product advertising theory there are sectors to appeal to within the railway exhibition field. Like the difference between a good and bad advert there is a mystery "something" or "rightness" about the layouts that grip.

It is far easier to define the things that don't make a good layout than the things that do. If it was easy to get it right we all would. For me believability and credibility of what is presented to me are part of this and that lets many layouts down.

Time to stop how as one could write books on this - as of course some have and the quality of those is variable too!!!!
_________________
John
Webmaster http://www.wamrc-railway-modellers.org.uk | http://www.stephensonloco.org.uk | http://www.yorkshow.org.uk | http://www.waggonways.fsnet.co.uk

Remembering it’s a hobby and I am allowed to smile!

[underworld]

[Korschtal]

It's interesting to read this- I work as a storyteller (amongst other things) and I've often thought about having a 'show' that combined direct interaction and acting and then other stuff happening on a model, which I suspect would be a bit like the pirate layout that won the paper challenge, rather like some puppet shows have people interacting with the audience and then action with puppets as well. Gn15 would be perfect for this as it's low cost and large enough for animations. I doubt we'd be in many model railway exhibitions with it though -pity the poor layout operators each side of us who would have to listen to our story 20 times in the course of the day...
_________________
Andy in Stuttgart
More railway misadventures on:
www.korschtal.wordpress.com

[chris krupa]

Many, many years ago, I went to an Ideal Home Exhibition with my parents. Great enjoyment and entertainment was had from a large coarse scale 0 gauge layout belong to Harold Elliott. On it trains went round and round but were carefully described and a story told about each of them. The owner was a good showman and story teller.

However at an (in)opportune moment a small depiction, and it must have been scratchbuilt, of Sammy the Shunter (http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2007/04/eileen-gibb.html) made an appearance. He would creep out from tunnels, hide under bridges, steal wagons, move them into the wrong place and generally create mayhem, much to the apparent annoyance of the layout's owner. Attempts to thwart Sammy by swatting him with a rolled up newspaper were always unsuccessful! It was great entertainment but of course only possible on a layout which did not have fine detail.

I am not against entertainment, nor against roundy roundy layouts per se. I was not getting at anyone in particular but I think that there is too much emphasis on entertaining children at our public shows. I also think that it leads to some of us not taking ourselves seriously as adults producing works of art at good levels of craft to the best of our ability. This can lead to silliness which only perpetuates the 'grown men playing with toys' attitude of the non enthusiast.

Chris

[rue_d_etropal]

whether a layout is good or bad at an exhibition, mthat is always a matter of opinion. But my original point was that competition was driving exhibitions in the wrong direction, and in some cases some home grown layouts were getting preferential treatment and unfairly getting 'best of' awards. As Gandhi once said 'Competition leads to Greed' or words to that effect.
Maybe the aim of introducing competition was to improve exhibition layout standards, but in some cases that has gone too far. Finding a balance between building and ioperating a layout that entertains me, and one that entertains the paying public can be difficult. I nearly always come away thinking I could improve next time. I used to prefer exhibiting circular layouts at exhibition as they were easier to operate but more boring, then with 'Christmas 1945' I discovered shunting in public, and that was fun, but harder work. That layout also had a continuous run, separate so when the shunting stopped, there was still something moving.
With 'Port d'Étropal' it was just shunting, initially with added sound, but difficult to take a break, so I introduced a 'shuttle' device, which is not as interesting to watch as a circular run, but at least something was moving. This my no1 layout so I am looking to 'improve' it before its next outing. My other efforts are experimental.
The Gn15 layout was operated as a circular, and as a result bored me to operate, and my latest 1/12th scale included a circular, and end to end, and two trpes of loading wagons, plus thr T gauge module. This was built to try out some ideas, and for me it worked well. I think it also entertained the public, but it will never be exhibited in the same form again, although its components may well be exhibited again.
So for me I want some type of continuous run(preferably separate), and somewhere to do some shunting. For added interest there should also be some interaction, something to make me think, but also something I can just switch on to give me a break. I am not aiming to win prizes, but still don't like to see prices given out to people who don't deserve them. So far the general public haven't noticed, but one day someone is going to stand up and cry foul. Maybe noone will take any notice(we are only playing with trains ) , but in the current political climate, someone might use it to knock the hobby, and we will all suffer. Before that happens, let's make sure the hobby is sqeaky clean.
_________________
Simon Dawson,
Narrow gauge Francophile interested in 1m, 60cm,50cm and 40cm gauges. Build in scales from 1/12th to 1/24th. Also 1/32nd and 1/35th using 16.5mm track to represent 50cm and 60cm gauges respectively
http://www.rue-d-etropal.com

[chris krupa]

I refrained from mentioning the whole thing about competitions and competitiveness in model making but as it has come up again I will say what I think.

On principle I will not voluntarily enter model making competitions. I don't think they do the hobby any good because judging omits too many variables and competitions end up with models built only to win prizes and I have never done that. I have only once agreed to be one of the actual judges in a competition and only then because the rules of entry were specific enough to preclude the kind of modelling that I am unhappy with in this context. In the end our choice of prize winner was unpopular because we were using a set of criteria that others disagreed with.

As for prizes being given to club members, I don't know whether or how often this is the case. I know that in some of the competitions I have been around, great care has been taken to include judges who are not part of the organising club. This is the case in the ExpoNG competitions. If a member of the organising club wins then it is because the judges decided that theirs was the one that fitted the criteria best.

Judging must always be subjective and others will not necessarily agree with it. Whether it is because of a club bias I can't say.

Chris