IPMS - Telford

After many years of dithering I finally made my way to the big IMPS show at Telford. Conclusions:

• Very expensive to get in £9 plus another £3 on top for parking
• Very busy, at some stands you had to queue to get in.
• Very well managed B&B (kit swap) but very slow, but at least this puts off the trader trawling you see at wargames shows.
• Enough 20mm wargames traders, including some you never see at (wargames) shows, e.g. Matador and Wespe. These two reflected the difference in style; Wespe had all their models out on display so you could see how good they were; Matador virtually nothing was visible.
• Lots of clubs showing their creations, but all very samey, except for a few who obvious gave some thought. In particular the Biggles theme, where every model was linked back to an episode in a Biggles book, and laid out with the extract. The Dunkirk theme was good, but needed more text. It was quite sad, a lot of excellent models, but with no explanation of why each model was unique and the modellers didn't want to get involved, just like the worst sort of demo games at wargames shows.
• An interesting point was that the clubs were not selling their surplus stuff under the table like at the South Cheshire Militaire (Crewe) presumably they have been told they have to use the B&B.
• Airfix, Revell and Dragoon/Italeri/Zvezda had stands so it was interesting to see some details of what is forthcoming suc as the Bedford QLT from Airfix, nice , the 88mm quick build from Italeri and the fast build Tiger I from Zvezda, impressive.
• Inspiration - very little, but nice to see what is appening in the wider hobby

Overall a good day out, but, not enough to tempt me again for quite a few years. Acquisitions were quite few.

• A brace of Matchbox 251/1s
• An Esci 251/7, which will donate it's pioneer bridge to one of the above and be resold as a 251/1
• Some greenstuff
• A pack each of the new Zvezda "Art of Tactic" figures, which I'll consider in another post.

For another view and some pictures see Dampf's modelling page