IPMS Roscoe Turner, Indianapolis, Indiana 5-6 March 2004
Starting with the preliminaries, IPMS Roscoe Turner held a two day invitational this year. The first time I'd heard of such a thing, but since they got the venue for two days, they decided to go for it. The club's website had full information including a downloadable entry form. These folks use the one where you put your name and address on a part of the form that is folded under and goes with the model. I'd rather see no personal information accompany the entry. The entry fee of $10 for all the models you can bring is an excellent idea. It encourages a lot of entries and for Indy, there usually are.
The venue is the same as they had for their Regional last year and I really like it as there is a restaurant attached to the hotel so no need to drive off to look for lunch. As I'd already filled out my entry forms, registration was a breeze and efficiently handled.
The large rooms used for the show were turned over to the vendors and two smaller rooms were used for the contest. These rooms were a bit on the small side and because the hotel does not permit it, the tables were not on the usual risers as when this club has used other venues. I was told that the club is not only looking into other venues for next year, but if they do remain that they will rearrange things to provide more room between tables. It wouldn't be bad if most modelers weren't rather large, but we are and that does cause for quick crowding. Despite the crowding, I heard of no instances where any entries were damaged. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the entries this year as it seems standards get better each season.
There were quite a few places to sit down and relax, but thanks to some other function going on in the hotel, just about all of them were constantly filled and I spent just about all day on my feet.
The vendors were mostly in a very large room with a few and the raffle in a small one attached to the pool. Despite my fears that all the good stuff would be gone the first day, I was able to pick up a few things so came home with quite a few nice old Monogram and Hasegawa kits. I saw a lot of familiar faces as well as ran into some new ones.
The raffle was very good despite the almost total lack of involvement by manufacturers and local hobby shops. It seems as if most businesses are unwilling to support these events so it was up to vendors and they were generous contributors. Tickets were 20 for $5 and one was able to choose the category of prize. Tickets were then drawn and attached to prizes. It is the best way to do things as it eliminates the mad rush during drawings. 4 drawings were held starting at 11 and being held each hour. An excellent way to do raffles.
Because it seems as if business is backing out of support for these things, I might recommend to those attending shows to bring along one kit to add to the raffle. I do think this would be a real help to the club and often as not, it is something that we'd never get around to building. I'd only ask that it be complete and unbuilt as it is really disheartening to win a kit at a raffle that is partially built or missing things. It has happened to me a number of times and it sort of sours the experience.
Judging took a bit longer than some people would have liked, but I thought it went pretty quickly. With two rooms, it was possible to let the crowd in one right after it had been judged. Of course, once that happens, people immediately start to pack things up, so if something came in near the close of entry time, it may well never get seen by other contestants.
Awards for 2nd and 3rd were placed with the entry. This is great as it allows for a much shorter awards ceremony. The awards themselves were extremely nice and unlike the plastic plaques given in the past were nice wooden bases with a brass face. Special awards were only given for best of an overall category. I can recommend to those who might be willing to do so, that they contact the folks at Roscoe Turner and offer to sponsor a special award. Many modelers build for these things and it just adds to the flavor of the contest.
Since Indy is only about 230 miles from me and they did finish much earlier than most places, I was home at a reasonable hour, a real rarity for me and contests!
Overall it was an excellent event and one that I look forward to every year. The cast and crew of IPMS Roscoe Turner put in a lot of work on their event and it shows. If you want to see how a contest should be held, then I can highly recommend putting Indy on next years calendar.