Plastic Model Mojo
Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby
Plastic Model Mojo
Two Double Barrels Of Plastic: November Model Show Spotlight
Ready to turn November into a nationwide model show tour? We line up four standout events—ModelZona in Phoenix, the Cleveland Model Show, Charlotte’s Region 12 contest, and Middle Tennessee’s ModelCon in Murfreesboro—and dig into the details that actually affect your day: judging style, registration windows, vendor-room depth, food, parking, and how fast awards wrap so you’re not stuck in your chair at dusk.
We start in Phoenix with ModelZona’s clean one-room layout near Sky Harbor, a clear first/second/third judging approach, and thoughtful specials like Best 1945 Subject and the Raleigh Williams Craftsmanship Award. Cleveland follows with a Sunday show that truly works: two gyms split contest and vendors, elevated tables for easier viewing and photos, and an eclectic slate of special awards—from Scandinavian subjects to pop-up headlight cars to a people’s choice Gundam/Mecha Pose. Charlotte adds a strong theme—From War to Peace—plus a non-sweeps policy, sold-out vendors, custom-designed Best Of awards, and a legendary Atomic Model Smasher for anyone needing a dramatic reset. Murfreesboro’s ModelCon caps it with smooth flow, full IPMS categories, sold-out vendors across every genre, and Smokin’ Butts BBQ parked out front; last year’s 542 models set the tone for an even bigger turnout.
Along the way we compare what each organizer gets right: editable PDF forms that speed check-in, early registration cutoffs that keep judging on track, separate halls that reduce crowding, and smart awards that celebrate more than just the top category winners. Most of all, we celebrate the real win—camaraderie. These shows are where online friends become real-world collaborators, techniques get traded, and inspiration sends you home itching to build.
Map your route, print your forms, charge your camera, and bring cash for that rare kit you didn’t know you needed. If you enjoy the show, tap follow, share this episode with your club, and leave a quick review to help more modelers find us. Where are you heading first?
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ModelZona 2025
Cleveland Model Show 28
IPMS Region 12 Regional Contest - Charlotte
IPMS Middle Tennessee
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Kentucky Dave show season is well, it's two things. It's in full swing.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_08:And it's gonna be coming to an end for the season here, probably in November, for the most part.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. But we got a double barreled set of adventure for this one.
SPEAKER_08:I think we got a quad barreled set adventure for this one.
SPEAKER_06:That's right.
SPEAKER_08:Two double barrels. Two double barrels. Don't let you call that. But you know, it's it's a busy time of year for these shows, and looks like November's gonna be pretty busy for folks around the country wanting to get to uh to a model show.
SPEAKER_06:Yep.
SPEAKER_08:Lots to choose from. We got some spots all across the map of the United States. Let's get into it, man. It's gonna take a while to get through these. So let's inform some people of what's going on. Our first stop is gonna be out west in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
SPEAKER_06:Great place. Pinned nationals there, loved it every time.
SPEAKER_08:Dave, our first show we want to spotlight for the month of November is all the way out in sunny Arizona. We have past guest Mike Mikowski with us from the Phoenix Club out there. Mike, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00:Pretty good, Mike. Thank you for uh inviting me.
SPEAKER_08:You're very welcome. I I know uh our good friend of the show, Ed Bareth from California, speaks very highly of Model Zona. And uh you contacted us and we thought we'd feature it this time and see what it's all about. So why don't you give us the high-level who, what, where, and when?
SPEAKER_00:Alrighty. We've been doing a local show here in Phoenix area for decades. I believe from my notes, this is the 20th anniversary of us calling it Model Zona. We we were doing a local show and tried to up it a little bit, and we needed a name for it, and we went around and around and somebody jokingly suggested Model Zona, and everybody kind of laughed, and it turned out uh the name stuck.
SPEAKER_05:Hey, it works.
SPEAKER_00:It works, yeah. It's kind of a cool little name. It's it it's worked for us. So we've been doing this for quite a while. We've had it at several locations a couple years ago. We went to a new place because you know, as these things go, the the venues uh they change managers or they change uh requirements or whatnot. But anyway, it's gonna be Saturday, November 1st, 2025. We typically have it the first Saturday of November because the weather's lovely. We used to have it in in an open hangar at a local air museum, and so it was awesome. It was we had airplanes all around and the hangar open to a small airfield, and it was a perfect venue, but they expanded their exhibits and didn't have room for us to host something, so we've moved since then. But it's November 1st, it starts at 9 a.m. and hopefully we get everybody out of there by five. The registration for models starts uh when the doors open and shuts down at noon, so get there by noon with your models. Judging will start right after that, and hopefully we'll wrap up the judging around three o'clock. We have a traditional first, second, and third with a lot of categories. Our folks here are not big fans of gold, silver, bronze. I think uh from listening to the discussion, they feel that with a local show where you have a lot of judges that may not be very experienced, it's difficult to get everybody on the same page in terms of what's a gold, what's a silver, what's a bronze in terms of getting a standard scale for those ratings.
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:And so we're sticking with first, second, third. It's it's quantitative, is what they were telling me. You know, you you count good points and you subtract bad points. Not that we're we're we're keeping a score or anything, but mentally you're judging teams are looking for the best quality, and then of course, you know, it's negative judging, admittedly, but you're looking for the guy who has cleaned his work up and and not left any flaws to be found. And and that's kind of we feel it's more straightforward judging. You don't have to decide, well, what's the break between a gold and a silver, and and then have everybody work to that same perspective. So we're sticking with first, second, third, at least for the time being.
SPEAKER_06:Now, what's the location this year?
SPEAKER_00:This year it's at the El El Zareba Shriner's Auditorium. And the address is 552 North 40th Street in Phoenix. It's uh just north of the Sky Harbor Airport.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00:Sort of in a little industrial area, but it's it's a big hall. Uh, we've got everything in one room. Well, a couple of years prior to this, we had this in a uh church, you know, meeting room hall, and we had to break up the the event contest area and then vendors out in some classrooms, and it was kind of scattered, and some people were saying, Hey, where's all the you know, where's the vendors? They might have missed a vendor room. This hall is about the same square footage, but it's all in one area, so the vendors and the models are in one big, one big space. And we've had it there twice now, and it's worked out very well.
SPEAKER_06:Well, great. Now, speaking of vendors, how many vendor tables do you have? Have you sold out?
SPEAKER_00:We we've got 46 vendor tables, they've been sold out for quite a quite some time. Uh, I think we sold most of them at after our last show. We always go around and see who's coming back.
SPEAKER_06:Yep.
SPEAKER_08:Well, that makes it easy. Get those people on board early. They must like your show if they're signing up every year. So good to hear. You mentioned that you're running a fairly standard IPMS format with the categories. Any theme to this show or special awards outside of the theme that you might want to mention?
SPEAKER_00:We don't have really a strong theme. We we do have some specials. We're doing an 80-year anniversary from uh 1945, so it's the best 1945 subject, which means it it could be a lot of different things. Certainly, you know, the military is gonna be heavy there, but you could bring in an old car or a ship or something uh from that era. And our our club sort of a mascot is the the the F4U Corsair. So we we give an award for the best Navy Corsair. And there's a gentleman from believe it's from Tucson. We work closely with the folks. There's a nice club down in Tucson, and we they come up and help us with the judging and working working the uh registration and and some of the other overhead. And one of their longtime members, his name is Raleigh Williams, and he did some amazing work. And so we've named an award after him, the Raleigh Williams Craftsmanship Award. It's it's kind of a uh something special the judges pick out. But that's those are our specials. We get a lot of out-of-town participants, like I say, we've been doing this for a long time. Of course, you know, we've we've hosted four national conventions in in this in this century. That's a scary thought.
SPEAKER_06:I've been doing I've been to all of them.
SPEAKER_00:And and I believe we have a good reputation with our guests who attend our events, and so they they tend to come back for the annual show. Uh last the last show we had last year, the last show we had was not a year ago in November, but it was in February because the room uh they were doing some remodeling and it wasn't available, so we just decided to postpone it a few months. But the the last show we had people from eight different states, and I think we even had somebody who just randomly was here visiting family or on business and saw that there was a a show and he he came with it with some stuff, and he happened to, I don't know why he had models with him, but uh we get random visitors from you know California, New Mexico, Utah, other other modelers in the state of Arizona. We had over 500 walk-ins at our show last last time. We had 647 entries and uh uh from 139 different content contestants. 23 different clubs were represented.
SPEAKER_06:Are you saying you don't travel with models randomly when you go places?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just throw one in my pocket.
SPEAKER_06:Well, that sounds like a fair size show. I mean, six hundred.
SPEAKER_00:It was one of our bigger ones, the almost the big I think it was the biggest one we had last time around. We we were wondering why it was the different date. One one thought was that normally the first week in November, all the snowbirds aren't here yet. But in the first weekend in February when we had the last show, I think a lot is still around. So we may have had more Canadians and and people from northern climbs that were still in Arizona. But uh, we're going back to November for for various reasons.
SPEAKER_08:So just for my own clarification, you're really less than a year out from your last show, is that right?
SPEAKER_00:That's correct. Yeah, it was uh November 1st. So what is that? 10 months. Yeah, but it was a one-time oddity because of the availability or inavailability of the venue.
SPEAKER_08:Understand.
SPEAKER_06:Now, do you all have food on site, or is there food nearby, or do you have food trucks? You gotta you gotta feed modelers.
SPEAKER_00:Modelers get hungry. Modelers get hungry. Yeah, you know, hiking around that vendor room, it works up an appetite. The uh the venue has an on-site little cafe, and they have uh sandwiches and burgers and other other food that'll keep you happy for the day. So it's right there in the same room. They got a little corner set up, a few tables. Uh, there's an outdoor, I think there's a little outdoor area if you want to go sit outside. And but yeah, it's on-site, it's in the room, right in the building, so very convenient. By the way, uh general admission is five dollars, and that includes the first five models. Additional models are a dollar each. That's a good pricing structure.
SPEAKER_06:That'll that'll that'll bring in lots of models.
SPEAKER_08:Well, you we mentioned registration times. Is there a good spot online for folks to find registration forms or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we have the registration forms are downloadable as most local folks. Uh there, I believe they're you can you can type on the form. They're editable PDFs. So you download the form, you can type right on there, print them out, and bring them. We're not doing uh you know like an online computer database registration. So just bring your forms, it saves a lot of time. There'll be blank forms available, but obviously it's more convenient for you to fill out the registration forms. In fact, we've got a deal for that. The the general admission of$5 is just for visitors. If you're entering the contest, it's also it's also five dollars. And but that's if you filled out the forms. If you don't have pre-filled forms, it's seven dollars. So there is an incentive for you to do that ahead of time.
SPEAKER_06:That's a good idea. Make the workload on the poor registration guys take a little less time.
SPEAKER_08:Well, anything else going on? You got any uh raffles or seminars? Oh, yeah, anything like that.
SPEAKER_00:There'll be a make and take for the youngsters. The venue does not have any classroom space available, so we we're not doing any seminars, unfortunately. But there is a make and take. It's it's sort of an auditorium, flat, you know, flat floored auditorium, dance area, and there's a stage, and we we go up on the stage area and uh do the make and take up there. So it's it's got its own little corner, and we have a nice supply of, I think some of them are even Gundam type kids for the youngsters. So we we do have that available. Another feature we're having the awards are in laser engraved wooden plaques. First, second, and third place gets a five by seven inch plaque, and they get larger for the best of category, and the grand awards are also very, very attractive laser engraved wood plaques.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, well, I I can remember from the previous nationals you all have done, you all have always done really, really attractive awards. Not that I'd ever know that by getting one, but they they were nice to look at as other pe as other people were carrying. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I'm not holding any grudge.
SPEAKER_08:All right. Well we'll put the uh the link to your website in the show notes for the episode. Now I I w I could say something about that. As far as local chapter level websites go, uh the Craig Hewitt chapters websites are pretty nice. Pretty I would almost say sophisticated.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you. We we we try to make it useful and easy to navigate, make sure it's up to date with our latest club meetings and any other events we might be up to and get photos. Sometimes it takes us a while. We will post photos of all the winners of of from Model Zona after the show and try to make uh you know interesting for people to come and look around and see what we're up to.
SPEAKER_06:Well, hopefully on the day of the show you can get somebody to take some photos and post them on the uh uh plastic model dojo Facebook page. Because one of the things as as you know, if you listen, Mike and I are both big fans of going to shows. I mean, the contests are fine, but we're really fans because it's a chance for modelers to interact with other modelers, and that social aspect is really, really good. So hopefully somebody at your club or one of your visitors will take a lot of photos the day of the show and post them on the dojo so we'll all get to see them.
SPEAKER_00:We'll definitely try to make that happen. And we think we're a pretty friendly club. We're we're very we try to be open when we have our regular meetings. We we are always trying to encourage the the Gundam folks and you know, me with my space modeling stuff, and we work closely. There's another local car modelers club with them, and we help each other out. And so we're we're trying to be very inclusive in terms of our genres of modeling. We encourage people to ask questions at our meetings and encourage people to judge because, like you guys always promote, and I believe in this as well, uh, the best way to learn better modeling for yourself is to judge. And we will be looking for judges. You know, these local shows, we we're always trying to get through the judging, and people are sitting there tapping their hands, waiting to be judged the judging to be finished, and it goes faster if we get volunteers and we are more than happy to get visitors from out of town because you know we don't want to be we're we try very hard to be objective and avoid the idea of home cooking judging. You know, we we may know who who built stuff, but we try to be very objective in evaluating the stuff on the table.
SPEAKER_06:Why don't you give us one more time the who, what, when, where, etc., the location, the date, the times opening, closing, registration, etc.
SPEAKER_00:All right, thank you. Again, this is Model Zona. It's in the uh Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, November 1st. Doors open at nine. Registration for models closes at noon. Judging will be right after that and hopefully wrap up by three or so. It's uh seven dollars if you fill out forms ahead of time or five dollars to enter models. And there's food on site. The address, it's the El Zariba Shriner's Auditorium at 552 North 40th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, 85008. It's uh just north of the uh Sky Harbor Airport, and parking is free, parking is behind the building. Come on down if you're in the southwest, come on out and visit us, you'll have a good time.
SPEAKER_06:Sounds fantastic.
SPEAKER_08:All right, well, best of luck. Hope it's another rousing success because I I know uh from what I've heard, it's a great show.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:All right, we we we will try to uphold that reputation.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, have no doubt. And looking forward to Phoenix bidding for another national sometime.
SPEAKER_00:Quiet, quiet, don't give anybody ideas.
SPEAKER_06:I seriously have been to all four of the I've got not only have I been, I've got shirts from all four of the Phoenix nationals.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've worked on all four, and two more when I was in St. Louis.
SPEAKER_06:So I've you all have done a great job.
SPEAKER_08:All right, Mike. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_06:Thank you for coming by.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Dave.
SPEAKER_08:Well, that shows on the typical Saturday, but the the the the day following, if you're not in Arizona on a Sunday, you can have a show in the Midwest. You can go to Cleveland.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah. And you know, there are there are southwest flights between uh Phoenix, Arizona, and Cleveland. You hop right on, fly to Cleveland, double barrel that model show right up there.
SPEAKER_08:Well, they have a neat thing going on in Cleveland. Yes, they didn't use so uh we'll let the we'll get right into that. All right. Dave, these things are getting exciting, especially when we get to talk to a longtime listener like we did last time and like we're gonna do again this time. We've got uh Mr. Kevin Kelly from uh the Western Reserve chapter of the IPMS. Kevin, I look back through our emails. When I get an email from somebody I recognize, I always look back and see if I'd heard from them before. And and you've got some emails to plastic model mojo going all the way back to 2020. So you've been with us for the long haul. So we appreciate that. He's an OG.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, I I've I've I really glommed onto the show when you guys first started. I really enjoyed it. It's funny how each show has kind of a different culture to it and things that I like about it. And you guys remind me of my well, the Western Reserve Club, but when I first joined when I was a teenager in the 70s, and it uh you guys remind me not not because of the the of age or anything, obviously, but because of the the way you guys talk and and that. It's it's like being in an old-time club meeting. So that's one of the things I like about it a lot.
SPEAKER_06:Well, we've got a lot of friends up in Cleveland.
SPEAKER_08:And we appreciate that a lot. And this is our opportunity to at least return the favor a little bit, at least uh not necessarily to you directly, but to your club, and uh give you guys a little time to talk about uh your show coming up. So tell us what chapter you're from and uh it's kind of the who, what, when and where of the show that's coming up for you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, you bet. So we are the Cleveland Model Show, and two of our clubs in Cleveland, the John Glenn Club, which is primarily a west side club, and the IPMS Western Reserve, which is primarily an east side club. We combine and we have been doing the Cleveland Model Show for 28 years. This is the 28th year. I have not, but the rest of the club members have. I've came back into the fold about five years ago or so. So it is going to be held on Sunday, November 2nd at the Kirtland High School Complex in Cleveland, uh Kirtland, Ohio. That's 9150 Chili Coffee Road, which is Route 306 in Kirtland, Ohio. Now we do have a website and a Facebook page for both the Cleveland Model Show and Cleveland Modelshow.org. Cleveland Model Show is is on Facebook where you can download the show flyer and the registration flyers from there and print them on your own as well. So it is it is a Sunday show, which is kind of unusual, we realize, for for most model shows. And we do that primarily because we've had a really great relationship with our venue, and we don't want to conflict with any of the other events that they may want to be having, and we've never had an issue since we've been on Sundays, and it works really well for us.
SPEAKER_08:Attendance-wise, it's not it's not been a problem.
SPEAKER_01:No, it is not. You know, we we recognize that it's it does have an effect on people who may want to travel to the show. The our slogan is it's a local contest, it seems more like regional. We have we have typically 600-ish entries. We had 640 last year across all categories, and we we do pretty well with attendance. It's it just like I said, it kind of uh uh affects people that maybe want to stay overnight because you haven't if they have to travel very far to get back to work on a Monday morning, it's it might be rough for them.
SPEAKER_08:I understand, but it sounds like with that number of displays on the tables, you're Sunday's not a factor.
SPEAKER_01:No, it has it has not been. And and one of the nice things is even though we are both IPMS clubs, our show is open to the public. If you build a model, whether it's you know, whatever subject matter, which whether it's your first model or you've been a longtime builder that this is the only show you ever come out to a year, you know, we want you to show up. And we do get a lot of folks from the general public that have never joined a club, never interested in joining a club. We occasionally pick up a couple of people for our clubs, but we get a lot of people that just enjoy coming to the show and seeing what everybody's got and having a chance to put their stuff on the table and walk and talk and hit our vendor room, which you know, with that many with that many entries, that's another reason why, like I said, we have a great relationship with with our venue. We had previously had one gym with half of it was our our club displays, the uh and the models and the contest, and the other half was vendors. We we spilled out and overflowed into the hallways with our vendors then with that. So we're fortunate that because it's a school complex, we have two gyms. There's one for each of the schools that are there, and they they attach by a very short hallway. So we've been able to put the contest area and our raffle in one gym, and then the other gym is entirely filled with vendors, and it is filled with vendors. We we do really good with our vendors. We have uh over a hundred tables sold right now. And wow. I'm not sure if they have any any left or not, but we we get we do really well with our vendors, and people really enjoy it. Last year, when I tried to walk through the vendor room, I I I really couldn't even get through the vendor room. I it was just elbows and and you know what.
SPEAKER_08:So I imagine with it being a Sunday show, what what kind of is the makeup of the vendors? Is it mostly is it stash clearers or secondhand kit guys, or you got some shops coming out?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we get we got a little bit of both. We have we have one guy who who has he gets like 12 tables in himself, and he is a vendor, but he doesn't have an actual shop. And this is one of the only two shows that he does. We have a lot of stash clearers that have one or two tables. We have several pretty large secondhand dealers that buy buy collections, and we're very fortunate that we have three really good shops that are in the local to the area. We we give each of those shops one gratis table, and they always get extra tables for that. And we're we're really good with with the hobby shops we have. We have uh one on the West Side Haven Hobby, we have a great hobby town, and then there's another nice small mom and pop shop, which is Stewart's Hobby, which comes in and they all have a unique on unique selection, and they do really, really good by us. And we do we try and do good by them too.
SPEAKER_08:Well, that gratis table might be a good incentive to get them interested to come out on a Sunday. Yes, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. It it's kind of a give back for us too, because sure um they they do great, they do a great job by us and they're very friendly with us and they're very supportive of our clubs, not just you know, because of the business relationship. They're they're they're in it because they like modeling.
SPEAKER_06:Now, your contest, when does registration start and when does it close?
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So registration in the vendor areas open at set, I'm sorry, 9 a.m. So we go from 9 a.m. to 12, and that's when registration closes. So we get we have to get quite a few people in and get them registered. We actually opened a second door this year, and we're having a second set of tables for registration to try and expedite that process as much as we can. Registration closes at 12, and then we have our judges meeting, and then we get started judging and work that pretty quick. One of the nice things about judging for us is if you judge for us, you get a free lunch. You get a meal ticket, and one of the nice features with with this facility is the boosters. They put on a real nice spread of sandwiches, not just hot dogs and hamburgers. They have some kind of world-famous cheesy potatoes that everybody is always coming and getting as as well. But you get a you get a meal ticket, and after after we're done meeting and having the judges meeting and eating, we we go out and hit the tables and start judging.
SPEAKER_06:Now, do you all do a classic one, two, three style judging?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's correct. With with that many, and that's what that's what our clubs are comfortable with. I you know, I I like I like both styles of judging, honestly. I I I you know I look at any contest that I go to as what's what what are we at? And you know, that's that's you you you abide by the rules. But we do one, two, three judging. It it helps us with the amount of entries that we have, and we we do pretty good. If we have uh any type of overflow where our category is completed a little bit early, the judges will come and pick up some slack and something we we we might have extra with. But we we do one, two, three judging, and we're working on trying to expedite our awards process a little bit faster this year by putting some of the awards out early on the tables and only announcing the special winners. Juniors, of course, too. Juniors get announced first, all junior winners get announced first, and they're the top of the show. And then we're gonna do the specials and the best of the traditional best of.
SPEAKER_06:A lot of shows are going to that simply to try and expedite the process so that people can get done at a reasonable hour. About when does your award ceremony start approximately? So I know it varies time to time depending on you know how many models, et cetera.
SPEAKER_01:We try to start by three. And they they try and hold that as close as possible because by by contract, we have to be out of the facility by five o'clock. So we have crews that are working on tearing down the the vendor tables and and what half of the building when we're doing the awards ceremony. And once we're done with the awards, there's actually sometimes there's a little bit of tearing down during that. So, because we we have a lot of tables. One of the nice things about our tables is we do have them uh they're elevated. We have the uh the risers on there, and it it makes uh I can tell you for myself, it makes a day of judging go better when you don't have to crouch down and quite start.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and it makes a day of viewing go better for most. Now, I know there are certain challenges for people who might be in a wheelchair scooter or small uh shorter people, but sure if you go to a big show, especially something like 600 plus models, and you really want to look at them, if they're not on on risen tables, you get you get a major. I'm getting old, and that really it really starts to hurt.
SPEAKER_01:I I agree, and it makes it better with with the exception of, like you said, folks that have a challenge reaching the reaching the tops of the tables to see, it makes it better for everybody, not just the judging, you can take better photographs of the models. And once we were able to last year when we were able to get in that second gym, there was no jockeying for position to see something. It made it much more comfortable to be able to walk the aisles and talk and and and show off your models and talk to people who built, you know, see what they they built, and it was far less frenetic.
SPEAKER_06:Now, do you all have a theme this year? And do you have uh uh special awards besides a theme award?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we do a lot of special awards. We we have and of course these are all available on our on our show flyer and on the website. We have 61 actual categories. We have Judge's best of show, a people's choice award, which is of course, you know, voted on by by by everybody that's there, the best of categories, which are your traditional best of aircraft, ship, armor, vehicle, automotive. We have nine special awards. And I'm gonna go over to special awards just because that's one of the things our committee really enjoys doing. After we do our debrief of the show the following month, we decide what type of special awards we're gonna have and and f for the following year. For for our special awards, we have a best Scandinavian, which is uh Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and that has to be your origin subject. So I don't know, a Saab vehicle or or Anything from it doesn't have to be a specific vehicle, anything Scandinavian, a best African country subject, best reconnaissance aircraft. For your automotive builders, we have a best pop-up headlights automotive subject, best German naval vessel, a best real life personality figure. So that could be defined personality, could be a military personality, could be an actor, could be politician, best Vietnam War military vehicle. So it's not as specific to the vehicle. It could be any Vietnam military vehicle from the Vietnam War. Best miscellaneous TV sci-fi subject. And uh I'm sponsoring this last award, so I want to talk about it for just a second. We have the best people's choice Gundam and Mecca Pose, which we're trying to encourage all our Gundam and Mecca builders. We do very good with our sci-fi. We've been averaging in the six to twelve Gundams, and we have some more mechas sprinkled in there occasionally. And one of the reasons why we decided to do the best mecca or Gundam pose was because if you did just the best Gundam, it would probably be the first place Gundam, right? So this gives you an opportunity that even if you didn't place, you know, if you have a great posed model there, you have a shot and it's gonna be a people's choice award. So it's not necessarily best construction and traditional, traditional judging. So we're hoping that that'll encourage people to bring more models out, even if it's a builder that's gonna bring one Gundam, maybe they're gonna bring three or four if they could pose them because they have a little bit better of a shot at that. So we're hoping to do that to encourage a little bit more participation with our our Gundam and Mecca builders.
SPEAKER_06:You said you had food on site, is I assume there's also uh places to eat nearby if somebody wants to go out.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So it we are not in a like a big metropolitan area, but there are fast foods that are not too terrible far. If you want to drive about 15 minutes down the street, you can get into some more traditional sit-down or after the show for your for your post-show meal. If you don't mind driving, just maybe about 10 to 15 minutes. There's plenty of restaurants, sit-down restaurants that of of all different styles that that you can get to relatively quickly.
SPEAKER_08:All right. Well, we've touched on a lot of the stuff we like to talk about. Is there anything else unique about this show that you think folks might want to know about?
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, I I I just I just wanted to you know emphasize the fun factor. We really want to try and encourage people to come out and have fun and and talk to each other and and and bring your model out so it can be seen and so we can talk to each other and and see everybody's see everybody's models. You know, that's what it's all about. And while there is a contest that goes on, it's still it's still a large show. It's a nice show, it gets inspiration, and I really like to emphasize the camaraderie. The quality of the stuff that's on the tables is really good. I mean, it's it could be discouraging for me, who is not the greatest modeler in the world, but it it gives me a lot of inspiration. But what I really enjoy is when I get to talk to my friends that maybe I've only seen on the internet and and talk to on online at some of our, whether it's uh the dojo or one of the other podcast pages, uh, or or just met through other shows. You know, I've met several people at other shows that I I never see it anywhere anywhere else but at shows. And it's it's it's a real kick to be able to see them and talk to them and meet them. And now, you know, we text back and forth, and it's it's a lot of fun. So the fun factor is what I want to emphasize.
SPEAKER_06:Well, Mike and I are big, big promoters of shows for that very reason. The contest is secondary, it's the fact that you get to go and you get to interact in real life with modelers, friends, I mean, people who all have a common interest. And even if you don't know anybody at the contest, you're gonna meet somebody and you're gonna end up talking modeling. And when you're not building models, the next best thing is standing around talking about models.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're a hundred percent correct. And um yeah, you know, this was a this was a great time for me to be able to sit down and talk to you guys too. I mean, it's like you said, the the if you're not building models, of course, I'm at my bench, I did already glue a couple of pieces on while I was talking to you guys, but but oh great. But but yeah, the the social aspect of it is is just it can't be beaten. I I've said this before, you know, I consider these model shows, not model contests. It's a model show, and there's a contest that's part of the show. And honestly, it's like a penny any poker game when you enter, at least for me, when you enter something in a model contest, it's just to make it interesting. I don't expect to win. It's nice if you do. If you don't, that's still you get to walk and talk and see.
SPEAKER_08:So 100% agree with that.
SPEAKER_06:So tell us one more time where, when, registration open, registration close, award ceremony. Give us the the whole nine yards one more time so that we can remind people and get them to come to your show.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Sunday, November 2nd, which is the first Sunday of November at the Kirtland High School Complex in Kirtland, Ohio at 9150 Chillicothe Road in Kirtland, Ohio. The registration opens at 9 o'clock, the award closes at 12, and the awards are targeted to start as long as everything proceeds as it's supposed to be at 3 p.m. The one thing I did want to mention is we do not have the capability to register online ahead of time. You can print out your forms, and we recommend that you have them printed out when you come in just smooth to make things go a little bit faster. But we we have that capability at least.
SPEAKER_08:Good. We'll get all that in the show notes, all those links for folks. And uh well, Kevin, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being a longtime listener. We appreciate that, and uh, we wish you great success with your show. It sounds like uh you've got a a legacy of that already, so you probably don't need much encouragement from our end. It's probably just gonna happen organically. But all we ask is that uh you or somebody who's at the show to give us a little uh photo expose on the dojo after the fact so folks can see what the either either they missed or if they were in close proximity and should have gone, or if they're on the other side of the country, the other half of the world, and we'd just like to see what's going on over here.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I can't move I can't guarantee you that it'll be a little bit of photos. I I tend to go overboard on those. That's fine. It might be a dump. It might be a dump. I might have to break it up into different, you know, different genres. That's perfect. That's however you want to do it.
SPEAKER_08:We we appreciate when folks do that, and folks are starting to catch catch on to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I appreciate you guys and and love the show, and I appreciate you guys helping us out. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_06:Not a problem. You take care. All right, guys. Have a great night. We need to get up to Cleveland sometime.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, it's you know, it's a pretty good haul. It's not awful.
SPEAKER_06:No, it's not. You could, I mean, if you were willing to make a real long day of it, we could do it in a day.
SPEAKER_08:That might be a lot, man.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, I know. You drive, you drive, I'll nap in the car, I'll be nice, nice and fresh for Monday.
SPEAKER_08:Well, the week after Cleveland and Model Zona there in Phoenix, you can come back down to Charlotte, North Carolina. Home with the voice of Bob.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. As the winter, as the fall sets in, moving south is a good idea. The weather's nice and beautiful.
SPEAKER_08:Dave, our guest in this installment is uh Joe Najeburger from Charlotte, North Carolina. I have have it on good authority that we're supposed to call you Crazy Joe.
SPEAKER_03:You're right. It's a name that I earned a long time ago. Okay. I was an art student at the Atlanta College of Art, and uh me and my uh Motley group of artist friends went to see Animal House, and I went from being cool Joe to Crazy Joe. Stuck.
SPEAKER_08:Well, Crazy Joe, we heard you got stuck with the short straw to do this with us tonight, but we appreciate you letting us feature your show there in Charlotte. Won't you give us who you who the who the host is and what it is and where and when and all that?
SPEAKER_03:Okay. All right. I'll uh go from our page. It is the Charlotte Scale Modelers Region 12 contest. The theme is From War to Peace, which uh would feature end stage of uh World War II victory over Germany and Japan. That's pretty much our theme. It is gonna be at the Providence Road Baptist Church on Randolph Road that is very close to the busy Cotswold area. So there's lots happening around there. On our internet page, our webpage, CharlotteScale Modelers.com, all that information is there. Registration is pretty much in line with a lot of the IPMS entry fees, uh 20 bucks for the first five models, five bucks for each additional model. General mission is five bucks for each adult and children 12 and under are free. It is a non-sweeps contest. So if you're populating a category with about 18 of your wonderfully built Mesher Schmidt 109s, you're only getting one award, bro. So might want to be judicious about that. Got a really good raffle, and as a matter of fact, I just got$200 in gift certificates from Squadron Mail Order, good guys, which is being well run by my good buddy Brandon Lowe. So what's the date of the show? Gee, you would ask me that.
SPEAKER_06:Uh it's November the 8th. And when does registration open? 9 a.m. Okay, and when does registration close? Noon. And when is when do you all anticipate wrapping up, getting the awards out, and getting everybody on their way?
SPEAKER_03:We should be getting the awards announced probably two-ish, three-ish. I'm uh I'm also the I'm also the head judge.
SPEAKER_06:Oh man. So your club must your club must hate you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, I volunteered.
SPEAKER_06:I'm not a crazy Joe makes a lot more sense now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I've selected a bunch of judges that are in a club. We do not enter our own contest. We do not want any accusations of home cooking. And we as a club, we have a lot of modelers who have pretty much won a bunch of awards on the regional level, on the national level. And some of them like me just get paid now. I do do a lot of commission work. But I do love the fellowship and I love looking at uh people's models and digging on good work, and and I love love sharing my techniques. I mean, nothing I do is proprietary, and I make sure I take the time to tell. Now, how long have you all been doing this show? We started doing shows in the 90s and we've done we've done things called unconventions, where we actually went to the open judging standard, which a bunch of IPMS people don't like. I personally love it because if that guy with the 18 wonderfully built ME 109s was in an open judging standard, he'd have the possibility of all his airplanes getting gold.
SPEAKER_06:So you are doing a standard one, two, three. Yes, it is the uh first, second, third. Right. And non-sweeps and the categories are roughly, you know, the pared-down version of what you see at at uh regionals or nationals.
SPEAKER_03:Correct.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Although um I was going through and making judging forms last week, and I noticed that the there was only two categories in the figure award. And I I did not generate the categories, and I said, guys, we're gonna have to add categories to the figure categories, because there was one category open division and another for painters. And I think this was more like your figure shows, like yeah, that's the way Chicago does it. MMS show does it exactly they I slid them up. You figure builders who have busts, don't worry. Crazy Joe's got you covered.
SPEAKER_08:Well, given that this is a regional show, or yeah, a regional show for Region 12, I believe you said. Um what are you expecting? What do you think size-wise?
SPEAKER_03:What am I expecting?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, compared to one of your your standard yearly shows.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's going to be well attended. I'd love to see anywhere from five, six, maybe even seven hundred models. Okay.
SPEAKER_07:Nice.
SPEAKER_03:I I I think that would be mighty successful to have that. It's a fairly large space. I think we could accommodate those kind of entries. We put a lot of work on the judges, but we've we've already we've had several meetings about how we want to execute the judging to make it as streamlined and as fair as possible. So I'm thinking it's not going to take as long as some shows do. A lot of confidence in my in my judging teams.
SPEAKER_06:You spoke of space. I assume that means since you've got plenty of space, you've got plenty of vendor tables. Do you know how many vendor tables you have? We had 30. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And they're all sold out. Gotcha. We've got some good vendors showing up. Um I know Cult TV man from Georgia's coming up. He's got a lot of groovy stuff. And there's some estate sales being made. So some rare esoteric stuff could be had for you bargain hunters. So I think that's gonna be a lot of good stuff going on at this show.
SPEAKER_06:Do you all have food on site or is it food trucks, or is there just restaurants nearby?
SPEAKER_03:What's uh there are plenty of restaurants nearby. There's a ton of food. We're like I said, it's uh real close to the Cotswold area. The church gymnasium where we're at is very close to the Cotswold neighborhood in Charlotte, which is a very busy, well-retailed neighborhood. Easy to get to, very good location. Um I'm real happy with the contest committee's uh work on this.
SPEAKER_06:Now, you mentioned judging forms earlier, which brought up to my mind the registration forms. Do you have those online so that people can go and download them, print them off, and fill them out ahead of time?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, we sure do.
SPEAKER_06:And that's on your club's website? That's right.
SPEAKER_08:Well, we'll make sure we put the uh the link to your page. Uh we'll link specifically to your contest information in the show notes of this episode. But uh yeah, that's always a big help when uh those are available ahead of time for folks, even if they can't submit them online. Just the fact you can have them and not sit there and try to remember everything you did uh at the little provided table at the entryway to the model show.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, we have a it's a fairly large space coming into the show, so there'll be lots of room, I believe, for folks to uh to do their stuff if they need to.
SPEAKER_06:You mentioned the theme from war to peace. Do you have other special other than the category awards and best of show stuff? Do you all have some special theme award or special awards beyond the theme award?
SPEAKER_03:No. We used to. I used to give a Crazy Joe's Big Gun Award, but um I'm not doing that this year. There's just so much going on, and the uh best of awards are are really nice. I'm I'm also a digital artist, and I uh I created some really good designs for the best of awards. So if you if you win best aircraft, best armor, best uh watercraft, etc. etc., you're getting something really, really nice.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_08:Custom by Crazy Joe, sounds like you got it. Is there anything else with your show that's unique to it other than the fact this is a regional show? If you mentioned your theme again, I'll bring that up.
SPEAKER_03:But uh Well, I I don't know who's got it, and I hope it shows up, but for years, I think since oh my god, probably the 1990s, somebody in our club created a device called the Atomic Model Smasher. And it it's been a big hit.
SPEAKER_08:No pun intended.
SPEAKER_03:If you're if you're pissed off because your model didn't win, don't you put it into the atomic model smasher and and send it to its doom? It's essentially some kind of strange mix between a catapult and a guillotine. Oh wow. But the the business end is this big old sledgehammer, and you punch a button and the thing swings down on a target where your model is, smashing it into a number of pieces, which is kind of fun.
SPEAKER_08:Get many takers for that?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, we usually do, and um people go scrambling around for the bits and bobs that are ejecta from that.
SPEAKER_08:I imagine it might make a mess.
SPEAKER_06:Now that is something unique. I've never seen that at a show.
SPEAKER_03:I hope hopefully it shows up. Yeah. I I I hope it does too. Are you guys going to attend?
SPEAKER_08:No, we're unable to attend your show, but man, we'd like to see some pictures of that if it shows up. Yes. Well, Joe, I think we've covered the basics here, but won't we r circle back around and get the basic information on the name of the show, the host club, the who, what, and where, and all that one more time.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, we are the Charlotte Scale Modelers, and we are hosting the Region 12 Contest. Theme is from War to Peace covering the end of World War II. And now there will be a theme award for such. The registration is$20 for the first five models,$5 for each additional model, and general admission five dollars for each adult, children 12 and under for free. It's located at Providence Baptist Church at 4921 Randolph Road, Charlotte, North Carolina. Beautiful facility, lots of parking. Come on down.
SPEAKER_06:And the date and time and opening and closing.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, November 8th on Saturday. Registration starts at 9 a.m., cuts off at 12, and we should be wrapping up about four.
SPEAKER_08:Well, sounds good. Uh Joe, we thank you for letting us help promote your show. We wish you all the success. And we always ask, I don't know, our buddy Bob Bear might do it for us, but he since he made you do this, you should make him take all the pictures at the show and uh post those over to the Plastic Model Dojo page that uh supports our podcast. So uh look forward to it.
SPEAKER_03:Plastic model dojo. Oh man, I call my workshop the Jojo Dojo.
SPEAKER_08:Well, great. Sounds like we got some synergy there. I like I like I like that name.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I hope your show goes well. You or Bob or somebody, please take photos so that those of us who can't get there can at least experience it vicariously. Right.
SPEAKER_03:We have somebody shooting, we have a club member that's gonna be shooting a bunch of pictures. Good.
SPEAKER_08:We'll remind Bob too, because he is a member of our dojo, so uh he can make cool. He can help you with that. We'll let you get back to your workbench and your Jojo Dojo. Right again. Thanks again. We like uh supporting the the shows, local shows, and wish you all a success.
SPEAKER_03:All right, thanks a lot, gentlemen. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Keep pounding.
SPEAKER_08:Charlotte sounds like they got a good thing going on, too. Pretty big show.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, they do. I'll tell you what, dude, if if you were retired with a with a nice vehicle and plenty of time, November would be your time to simply drive around the country, see the beautiful fall weather, and go to model shows.
SPEAKER_08:Well, and the week after Charlotte, folks kind of in the Mid South can uh head to Murfreesboro, Tennessee for the Middle Tennessee IPMS show.
SPEAKER_06:Murfreesboro is a lovely, lovely place.
SPEAKER_08:Well, Dave, now we're off to Middle Tennessee. Yes, we are fine folks down there in Murfreesboro. I've got another show coming up, and we've got world-famous World of Armor Facebook page manager and creator, Bill Moore. Bill, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_02:Doing good, guys. How are you?
SPEAKER_08:Uh, we are fantastic.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, we are, yes, we are, and I will tell you, I am looking forward to coming down to Murfreesboro. I've got it scheduled in and absent uh absent uh a life event. I'm gonna be there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, good. Glad to have you, man.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Well, Bill, so Dave knows where to go and all that. Why don't you tell us uh who, the what, and the where and the when?
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Name of the show is gonna be the 2025 Model Con in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Date's gonna be November the 15th. Ours that Saturday will be from 9 to 4:30 Central Standard Time. The place we'll be at is going to be the Rutherford County Agricultural Center, and that's gonna be located at 315 John Rice Boulevard, Murfreesboro. So it's real easy to get to off 24, so no problem finding it.
SPEAKER_08:Okay. That's all sounds great. Is there a place that uh folks can get to this information online? Is your your yes?
SPEAKER_02:They can go to our page. They go to the Middle Tennessee IPMS page on Facebook. We have a actual, we have a middle tennessee.com. We have a webpage there that you can get the address from. Also, of course, I'll repost the flyer on your page, and that should be pretty much so it. And if there's any questions, you know, you can always call me. My name's Bill Moore. My phone number is 615-546-1323.
SPEAKER_08:Oh, there's a brave man.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I was gonna say, now you go now.
SPEAKER_08:That's right. You got it you got you got Prince Albert in a can.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. And the little pouch.
SPEAKER_06:Hey, hey, Bill, now do you all have your registration forms online where somebody can download them and print them off and fill them out?
SPEAKER_02:Sure, Dave. Good question. If you go to our website, middle Tennessee IPMS.com, we have the entry forms there that you can download, as well as the classes that are all divided up and everything.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. And so you talk about the classes. I assume that you're you all are doing a traditional one, two, three with IPMS light categories.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it's we'll we'll be under the IPMS rules. Yes, exactly right. First, second, third place. As of right now, of course, we have all the major classes: auto, plane, armor, ships, sci-fi, figures, and yeah, about 52 classes total over everything. So all the major categories will be there available.
SPEAKER_06:Now, obviously, you're gonna have the best of award and then the best of category awards. Do you all have a theme or any special awards?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we have one. We unfortunately lost a member a couple years ago that it's a memorial award that we're gonna give out. And under under the under his name. And then, of course, yeah, we have best of classes and then, of course, best of show.
SPEAKER_06:Well, what's the the is the memorial award for a specific category or type, or is it just a memorial award in his honor that can go to anything?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Dave, it's gonna be under the airplane class. He was a big airplane, airplane builder, so we're gonna leave that with the airplane class.
SPEAKER_08:Well, what's your uh raffle vendor uh landscape looking like?
SPEAKER_02:It's pretty good. Pretty good. We've got a lot of raffles going on, a lot of really great donations. I tell you what, I'm gonna do I have, of course, we were all at the uh at the IPMS Natch this year. There's a guy named Bob that was over where they were selling the t-shirts, if you remember, over there in the corner in the vending room. And I watched him and he got a buggy. I have a little buggy like you use, you know, you go to take stuff to the beach in.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And he took that little buggy. I said, What are you doing with the buggy? He goes, I'm going around around each vendor and tell him to donate something for the raffle. So I'm gonna bring my little wagon and everybody's just gonna have to hand it up.
SPEAKER_06:Now, about how many vendor tables do you have at the contest?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, Dave, we have a total of 61 vendor tables.
SPEAKER_06:That's a good turnout.
SPEAKER_02:And we have uh, as of right now, everything is sold out. Sold out a couple months ago, sold out pretty quick. That's good. That's good with an average, I think he I think Bill said we had another 23 in waiting. So yeah, we're we're we get booked up pretty quick.
SPEAKER_08:Oh, that's fantastic. Well, I'm not familiar with shop scene down there in your part of Tennessee at the moment. Is it gonna be a mix of uh shops and stash clears or anybody big coming?
SPEAKER_02:What uh well, I don't know if you all do y'all know who uh Westmother Car Corner is in Bluntville, Tennessee?
SPEAKER_08:I do not.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. He's a very, very popular and well-known auto man, and he's out of Bluntville, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_08:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So he'll be coming in for the show. We have a father and son team that comes out of Atlanta and he usually has like about 12 tables, and that thing is full of cars. The great thing about our vendor area is that every genre is covered. We have a new company that's coming in that one of our members at our club starts called Zenith 3D Printing. And he does some wonderful figures, sci-fi figures, historical figures, 3D. And so there's, yeah, they'll be, we pretty much they'll cover everything in, you know, that's that you want to look at.
SPEAKER_06:So well, Bill, you taught me something new because I always thought it was Blountville, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I call, well, you know, I'm from the South, so we don't pronounce very well. So I always call the Bluntville. It might be Blountville, I don't know.
SPEAKER_08:It's it's Bluntville, Bill.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Days are wrong.
SPEAKER_06:No, I'm gonna I did, I'm admitting I did not know. Because if you look at the way it's spelled, Blountville makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:You know, when I first, guys, when I first moved to Tennessee, I was originally born and raised in Oklahoma City all my life. And when I first moved here, I was working in a big air aircraft factory, and I was wanting to go to uh Louisville. And so I asked the guys at the table, I said, how far is Louisville from Nashville? And they go, where? I said, Louisville. He goes, Oh, you mean Louisville?
SPEAKER_08:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I had to kind of learn the genre.
SPEAKER_08:Or they thought they thought you meant Louisburg. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's not Knoxville, it's Knoxville.
SPEAKER_06:Knoxville, yeah. You kind of swallow half of Knoxville. Uh so do you have food on site, Bill? Or are there restaurants?
SPEAKER_02:We have an excellent vendor, Dave. That we've used for years. It's Smokin' Butts Barbecue. And if you like some good brisket and barbecue sandwich, he can get you covered.
SPEAKER_06:So it's a like a food truck?
SPEAKER_02:It's a food truck, yeah. Right when you walk outside, he'll be sitting right there waiting to take your order. Uh as well, if you know you want to take off and go somewhere else to eat, within a mile range, we've got, oh gosh, any major franchisee restaurant you can think of.
SPEAKER_06:Good. Good. You know, modelers, they tend to get hungry.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So we got all that covered for everybody. You know, it's a real good location. Those that aren't aware of Murphysboro, Murfishboro is the home of MTSU University. So it's a college town, and this town is growing like crazy. So no problem to find something to eat.
SPEAKER_08:Well, is there anything else going on at the show that you might want to talk about? Anything special or unique that might set you off apart from uh any of the other shows in the region?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I tell you what, in the building that we use, you come right on in and it's shaped kind of like a T. You walk through the doors, the registration tables are right there in front, or you know, to get in. And then we have a registration room that's all by itself. That's where you take your models and you register, fill out your paperwork, hand in your paperwork. And when you come out, if you look to the left, we have a room with two doors, two glass doors, and that's the competition room. There's, you know, that's the only thing that's in that big room, it's just where all the competition models are. You go straight back over to your right in the same aisleway, that's where the big, big room is where all the vendors are. So it's it's it's it's kind of a neat little setup, you know, because you don't have everything, you know, and in some places you're kind of crowded, and then you got your vendors right right with you next to Monso. No, we separated. Turns out really well.
SPEAKER_08:Sounds like you got a lot of space.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, it's pretty pretty good little venue. Uh huh.
SPEAKER_06:Sounds like I may need to go sell some blood to get some money for that vendor room. That sounds like that's gonna be a good one.
SPEAKER_08:Got to bring me back some barbecue, too.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_06:Well, Dave, anything else we need to cover? Well, before we let him go, we need to have him tell us one more time the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the contest.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, once again, it's gonna be 2025 ModelCon, Murphursboro, Tennessee. The date will be November 15th, hours from 9 a.m. to 4:30. Judging starts around about noon, of course. And I'm proud to say that we do a pretty good job of getting through with our models, our contest models. So it doesn't take that long. We hand out the uh awards, it doesn't take that long. So the address for the show is going to be at 315 John Rice Boulevard in Murphy's Boro, Tennessee. Very easy to find, it's right off 24, which would be Highway 96. So that's the uh exit you would take. Super easy to get to, no problem. And guys, if I might add that I'm very proud of what we did last year. Last year we broke our record and we had 542 models on the table.
SPEAKER_08:See, I was supposed to ask that. Yeah, that's a good turnout.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, very good turnout, very good turnout. Thanks to you guys and you know, helping us get the word out. You know, I'm a big show guy. I'm in a lot of shows in all our regions, handing out flyers, networking like I always do, Mr. Jawbone here. And, you know, we just it's it's the biggest show in our region, and we uh take very good care of it. The show's been going on for almost 50 years now. So we we introduced last year our new uh medallions. They're very a very good-looking medallion, so you'd be proud as you win something. Good looking medallion, and we're looking forward to maybe hopefully uh maybe even getting more models, more modelers this year.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I I can't wait to to get down there and uh scope out the entire thing. I'm looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, good. I'm glad I'm glad you're coming, man. I will show you around, my friend.
SPEAKER_08:All right. Well, Bill, we wish you you and your club the best of luck and have just a I hope you break your record.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. We we're we're we're aiming to.
SPEAKER_08:And uh hopefully somebody will take some pictures and throw them up on the dojo.
SPEAKER_06:So uh, I'm gonna be there. So assuming I'm there, Mike, I think you can count on that half.
SPEAKER_08:Hopefully, somebody will take some good pictures. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:What are you saying, Dave?
SPEAKER_08:What are you saying?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. See, Bill, see what I put up with? Uh yeah, don't I don't get no respect.
SPEAKER_08:Well, Bill, we'll let you get back to your workbench and uh your final show planning, and uh, Dave will see you real soon. I'm gonna try, but I can't make any promises right now. But uh Dave's coming for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Well, good. We'd love to have you, man. You know, uh Mike, you're starting to form a pattern here now. Come on.
SPEAKER_08:I know, fingers crossed. It's not been it's been a bad year. It's been a bad year.
SPEAKER_02:I I know that's right. I hear you. Yeah, we look forward to having you guys.
SPEAKER_08:All right. Take care, man. Take care.
SPEAKER_02:See y'all.
SPEAKER_08:Oh, I hope you have fun at that one, Dave.
SPEAKER_06:I I do. I hope you're gonna be able to come down. We gotta figure out a way to get you down there.
SPEAKER_08:That's that's about a month off. I can we'll see how it goes. I got I got time. I gotta start planning now.
SPEAKER_06:I was gonna say, start planning now. Uh you can make it work out. You know, that's a lot of model shows going on, man. I'm telling you what, you you got no excuse wherever you are in the country, there is a model show going on in November near you. Go to them. We love model shows.
SPEAKER_08:Well, with the calendar pretty much open in December, we probably won't have this featured next month in November for December shows because right now, to our knowledge, at least on the IPMS schedule, there don't seem to be any.
SPEAKER_06:But if you're a model club and you're listening to this and you put a model show on in December, reach out to us because we would love to feature your model show.
SPEAKER_08:We have some special stuff coming up in November, so folks are gonna have to wait until the 12-minute model sphere to figure all that out. And it's gonna be a good time. November's a good month for modeling.
SPEAKER_07:It is indeed. Well, Dave, you better get back to modeling and let folks get back to their benches, as we always say. So many kids. So little time, Dave. Take it easy.
