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
Turning Competition Into Recognition: February Model Show Spotlight
A snowbound Kentucky chat meets sunny Jacksonville plans as we sit down with Bob Tate from IPMS First Coast to explore how JaxCon reshaped the classic model show into a warm, community-first experience. Think Friday evening setup and a pizza social to slow the pace, then a crisp Saturday run with registration at 9, judging at noon, and a focused awards wrap by 5. It’s efficient, friendly, and designed so builders, vendors, and visitors all get time to breathe and actually talk models.
We dive into the heart of their approach: an open gold, silver, bronze system that evaluates each model on its own merits. No podium pressure, just recognition for quality work. Bob explains how initial resistance gave way to buy-in once people saw honest standards and consistent results, and why they still zone tables by genre for judging flow and easier browsing. The result? Strong turnout with 150+ entrants, 600+ models, and a calmer show floor where learning beats rivalry.
JaxCon’s extras add real value. A sold-out vendor hall arrives early on Friday, three food trucks keep lines short, and the raffle is both exciting and strategic. One-dollar random draws every half hour keep the buzz going, while five and ten-dollar targeted tickets let you aim for high-value kits. That structure raises enough to offer free public admission, which brings new eyes to the hobby without raising participant fees. This year’s theme, 80 years of the Blue Angels—rooted in Jacksonville’s history—anchors special awards alongside memorial trophies that honor club members and their passions.
If you’re planning to attend regional shows or thinking about how to evolve your own, JaxCon offers a practical blueprint: reward excellence, encourage connection, and make the logistics work for people first. Enjoy the insights, steal a few ideas, and share your favorite show innovations with us. If this spotlight helped, follow, rate, and leave a quick review so more builders can find the show.
In addition to JaxCon, a couple of other shows we would like to promote are:
4M Mayhem hosted my the Mid-Michigan Model Makers on February 7th
and
AMPS-Atlanta 2026 on February 20-21
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
Kev, tell everyone why you started Kit Mask.
Kevin (KITMASX):Well, manually masking canopy sucks and somebody had to step in to save those countless kits from the shelf of Doom.
Janelle (KitMasx):And now we've got over 400 sets and counting. We've got old kits, new kits, forgotten kits, you name it.
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Janelle (KitMasx):Yeah, people don't realize we take custom requests and we even have a service that gets you canopy masks for free.
Kevin (KITMASX):We do.
Janelle (KitMasx):Our masks are precision cut, they fit well, they're easy to apply. Kevin cuts and tests every set.
Kevin (KITMASX):Several times.
Janelle (KitMasx):Yeah. Precision is kind of his thing.
Kevin (KITMASX):And Janelle, she does everything else. She cares about each customer and is the heart of our business.
Janelle (KitMasx):If you ever reach out, you're talking directly to us. Real people, real modelers.
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Janelle (KitMasx):Visit kitmask.com, join the mailing list, and treat yourself to easier, cleaner masking.
Kevin (KITMASX):Kitmask, made by a modeler for modelers.
Janelle (KitMasx):Hey, what about me?
Kevin (KITMASX):You're not a modeler.
Kentucky Dave:Staying warm, Kentucky Dave. I'm trying to, man. It is cold and snowy. This thing that they said was coming, it came.
Mike:It's coming. We'll see how bad it gets, but uh not too terrible yet, except for the cold. But we got another 24 hours of this precipitation.
Kentucky Dave:So it's gonna be a lot. Yep. And I'll tell you what, I almost the cold is worse than the snow for me.
Mike:It can be. It makes it no fun to do anything outside.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:Well, Dave, we've struggled a little bit this month to get a show Spotlight out, and we kind of teased that the PSA we did for Brandon and Winter Blitz might be it. But we f shit. We finally got somebody we want to talk to. Yep. They agreed to it and we worked it out. So we do have one to promote for uh the upcoming month of February, and we're gonna go down to a region 11 figuratively. We're not actually going down there, unfortunately. Might be nice now. Region 11, IPMS First Coast chapter in Jacksonville, Florida, Dave. We got Mr. Bob Tate from that club, and he's gonna tell us all about JaxCon. Well, Dave, as we're getting ready for Snow Mageddon up here in central Kentucky, we have a guest from Jacksonville, Florida. Mr. Bob Tate from the IPMS First Coast chapter, Region 11. Bob, how are you doing tonight?
Bob Tate:I'm doing very well, thanks. Thank you, gentlemen, for having me.
Mike:Well, we hear you got a show coming up, and we're trying to promote shows, and I was going through the details of your show and thought it would be worthwhile to let the modeling community know for kind of twofold. One to get word out for folks in your geography that maybe they don't know about it. That'd be hard to believe, but it sure certainly happens, or in a commutable distance and may push them over the edge to actually come to the show. And the other is for other clubs to and modelers to learn about what other clubs are doing as far as their shows go, because a lot of folks these days are doing some different things, and things are getting interesting on the show front. So your your show looked inviting for that kind of thing. So we want to talk to you guys. So give us the uh the ins and outs, the who, the W's, the who, what's and where's about your upcoming show.
Bob Tate:Okay. Well, first of all, it is Jack'sCon 2026. It will be on Friday afternoon, February 6th, and all day on Saturday, February 7th. The Friday afternoon is really a setup time to allow vendors to come in, and we do have some pre-registration models can bring their models in. And we also have kind of a social hour at the end of it, you know, just to mix a little bit prior to the show the next day. But the real show starts, registration starts at 9 a.m. And then we hope and expect to have judging done and awards done by 5 p.m. on the on Saturday. Our show is held at the North Jacksonville Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, real quickly, 8531, North Main Street, Jacksonville, Florida. And you can of course Google it and forget directions to it.
Kentucky Dave:Now, how long have you all been running a show in Jacksonville?
Bob Tate:It's we've uh had a show for uh more than 20 years. Actually, I came in about 10 years in, so I'm not exactly uh sure of the start date, but it was early in uh in the uh 2000s that we started this show.
Mike:Well, I'm gonna back up a little bit. Your show, this show, JaxCon, is about the third one, I think, who's doing a day plus doing the Friday before, doing some stuff. I think Chattanooga does that, Dave. Yep. And then somebody else, one of our recent ones, also does that. I just want to know how that's been perceived and and how that works on the ground as far as, well, not the logistics of it, but do folks like having that extra time at the front end? Do you get you get a fair amount of participation? I assume you do from the vendors.
Bob Tate:Absolutely. The vendors love it because they don't have to get up at O-Dark 30 to come in and get set up. And and you know, the the early morning preparation is always a madhouse. So we've basically spread it out to the night before. We, you know, that's the main purpose is to get the uh the vendors in, uh, though we do have an opportunity that for people who want to go ahead and come and register and and put their models on the table that evening. Our raffle, which is a really big part of our show, is we get a lot of models to put out. I can talk about that in a little bit if we have time. And so we get that set up. And then we have just kind of a social hour. We uh bring in about 15 pizzas and they offer it for free for anybody there, just to you know, come in and socialize and and talk modeling because we find that uh during a show, you know, everybody's so busy you just never really have time to do much more than just say hey.
Kentucky Dave:Bob, I'm really thrilled to hear that because Mike and I were both both big promoters of shows. And one of the things that we both emphasize on in regard to shows is the social aspect, the modelers getting together and seeing either guys that you see every year at the show or people that you've never met before, but you may have interacted with online, and bringing in pizza and sitting around and spending time talking about models and the show and whatever else you end up talking about. We're we're both big fans of that. So I'm I'm thrilled to hear that the club supports that by bringing in the pizzas and and making available time and a space for people to do that.
Bob Tate:Well, thank you. We would definitely agree. We we've got a lot of feed good feedback about it, and uh it's it's a uh a routine that we would intend to continue.
Mike:Good. Another thing that made me take interest in your show, it's a it's uh another of a, in my opinion, a growing number of clubs who are who are running an open gold, silver, bronze system. I'd be curious to know how long you guys have done that and what's been the general reception in in Region 11 down there where you guys are.
Bob Tate:Uh we've been doing it for several years now. I don't know the exact, but I would guess that as time flies, it's probably been at least four or five years that we've had gold, silver, bronze. And uh frankly, initially there was an awful lot of opposition within our club about it because people were just used to the competition, the first, second, and third. And frankly, people like to be able to say, hey, I got first prize in the uh you know the 48 to scale German aircraft category. However, uh we uh overcame that opposition and we found that that uh we really like it as a club. I really can't speak for everybody, and we haven't done any kind of uh polling of the uh people that enter in our contest, or I should say our show, because it's not a contest. But uh we've gotten a lot of positive feedback. And the one of the biggest criticisms of it, or at least the uh I guess the opposition is people think it's gonna become just a participation award, that everybody gets a gold. But uh we have found that just with honest judging, that uh roughly it really is quarters. What you know, about 25% of the participants get a gold, 25 get a bronze, 25 get a silver, and then there are 25 that uh get away with just a participation badge. Which really sounds pretty fair when you consider that that people that enter these contests are generally the best of the best, or that uh uh the competition is really fierce. But it's not a competition anymore. It is a recognition of excellent work. And that's our intention, and I think people really appreciate that they can walk by away with a gold medal that still really means something.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I assume that once you made the changeover and people experienced it for a couple of years, there's has there been any push among your club members or to switch back?
Bob Tate:No, none at all. Uh we're just all really I I think as a club I can really speak that uh we're very enthusiastic about the formula and no, we won't go back.
Mike:Well, I've looked at your website and you you do have a couple things going there. You you do have written standards for each of the the uh the meddling category categories. And then you've sounds like, and you can elaborate a little bit, it sounds like you've set the table for the the entries up just as zones based on loosely based on general genre of the subject matter. Is that correct?
Bob Tate:Yeah, we still do that, and honestly, it really doesn't matter because you're judging you know just one model you know by itself, but it is we still keep them within the genres and subcategories and so on, mostly so that people, when they're looking at it, you know, again, a 148-scale German airplane, uh, you know, can look at all the others in the area and it and you know, all in one location. And so it it makes it easier for for judging because the judging is you know they still are or judging by category, and also for the general public as they're walking around to be able to conveniently see the models on display.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, almost all of the open systems, gold, silver, bronze that we've encountered do the same thing, even though you're you're correct. Technically, you don't need to organize into categories and all for display purposes and for viewing purposes. Well, and for judging purposes, too. Right. It still makes sense to do that.
Mike:But I guess I was assuming it was not quite as granular if you'd split everything down by scale and number of engines and all that stuff.
Bob Tate:Yeah, and then frankly, also for the judge's point of view. I mean, you you when you've got a judge is he's gonna be judging all cars, or a judge who's gonna be calling judging aircraft, and that way they're not bouncing around from table to table trying to find a loose uh model in some you know far off table in the corner.
Mike:Your subject matter experts just have one or two places to go instead of all over the show floor. Yes. That's right. Trying to find all the entries. So really interesting. I I think uh you said you've not done any polling, but I think if you change your perspective a little bit, you actually have, because folks are still coming to your show. What's kind of size-wise number of well, there's two ways to look at it, number of entrants as far as people actually bringing things, and then the number of entries on the tables when it's all said and done. What's what's kind of what's that looking like?
Bob Tate:Well, uh our last show, I don't know the exact numbers, but we had well over 150 enter or I should say yeah, entries with uh over 600 models on the table.
Mike:Okay, so uh for that's a good turn. For an invitational type show, that's that's a really, really good, that's a strong turnout. So yeah, so there's your polling right there. Folks are fine with it. They're bringing 600 models to this thing. Very interesting.
Kentucky Dave:On Saturday, you say registration opens at nine, then closes about what?
Bob Tate:It closes at noon, and then we rope off the uh the show area from the vendors area, and and then so that the judges can have no distractions while they judge. And the judging normally goes, of course, that's one of our biggest problems with our show is having enough judges.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Bob Tate:Uh, because of course the number of judges determines how quickly we get through and and get to the award ceremony. But typically we start at noon with the judging, and about 4:30 they're done, and the award ceremony usually wraps up. We don't really do every award, of course. We just recognize the uh the special and the uh theme and category awards, and then and the medals themselves of gold, silver, and bronze are just put on the table next to the models.
Kentucky Dave:Now you mentioned special awards or theme awards. What are you what's your theme this year, and what's in addition to the gold, silver, bronze, and the category, the best of, what other specialty awards do you have this year?
Bob Tate:Oh boy, I can name a few. I couldn't give you exhaustive lists, but our theme. Yeah, our theme is 80 years of the Blue Angels. So the special award is for the best Blue Angels display, because I don't know if you're aware of it. The Blue Angels started in Jacksonville, Florida back in 1946.
Kentucky Dave:Don't tell anybody from Pensacola that. That's right.
Bob Tate:Yep, we're the birthplace. There's no doubt about it. They recognize it too. And then uh we have a series of special awards, uh, things like uh the I'll just say the uh the best armor, the best aircraft, uh best natural metal finish, you know, best ship, and things like that. Uh and then we have a couple of uh special awards. Uh we have a uh a couple of our members who passed away during the last year. For instance, uh Buck Dean was a big armor guy. So we are having a special award, the Buck Dean Award for the best German armor, as an example.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, a lot of clubs do that to honor members who have passed. I'm glad to hear your club is doing that too.
Mike:What's the vendor landscape looking like? If they're all going to come in early, hopefully there's a lot of them.
Bob Tate:Yeah, we have well, I better, I'm only guessing that uh first of all, all of all of our tables are sold out. I'll just say that. Okay. That's good.
Mike:That is good. All right. And I, you know, a lot of times it's a mix of collection dispositions and then hobby shops. And is there any any any notables that come to your show down that area? I'm not familiar with uh that that part of the modeling world down there.
Bob Tate:I really can't speak to that. We've had one or two on occasion, like grec uh airbrushes and things like that. Oh, okay. A couple of the decal companies, as I recall. But then generally virtually all of our vendors are just local, you know, Southeast U.S. vendors, mom and pop kind of uh um operations that just you know bounce from show to show every week.
Kentucky Dave:Do you all have food on site or food nearby, or how are people getting their fee their food intake during the show?
Bob Tate:Well, the answer is we don't have any food. It's it's a church meeting hall, and that's too hard to try to do anything there, though it wouldn't be that hard, but uh we have three vendor trucks that will be there, one serving breakfast, one serving you know, tacos and things like that, and then and a burger joint. Okay, so three food trucks. Yeah, and they do very well. They're very happy to come back.
Kentucky Dave:That's good news. Uh the food trucks is another trend that Mike and I have been seeing, because you're right, a lot of the clubs, the venues are either church halls or school halls or stuff like that where there's not food truly on site, but you can bring in food trucks, put them in the parking lot, and it's pretty much the same thing, especially in beautiful Florida weather.
Mike:Yep, it's gonna be 71 degrees tomorrow, by the way. I think it's gonna change. It's still gonna be better than here, Mike. It probably will be. Yep. Well, Bob, you mentioned your raffle and said you would say a little bit more about that.
Bob Tate:Yeah, uh honestly, our raffle, we're very proud of it, and be it for a couple of reasons. One is it is extremely popular. Second of all, it is a real good moneymaker uh for us. We normally bring in somewhere close to $1,000 in donations to the raffle, uh each JAXCon, which really comes very close, or actually it allows us to have free admission. You know, we we have, of course, a uh registration fee for the models, but for the general public, it's free.
Kentucky Dave:That's fantastic.
Mike:That is. That's that's a new thing there. I don't think I've heard that before, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:No, I don't think so. Usually there's at least a little charge for general admission, but it's great that your finances are set up in such a way that you can encourage the general public or not discourage them by by making it free to come and look.
Bob Tate:Yeah, the the way we run the raffle is that first of all, we take donations throughout the year and we accumulate somewhere over a hundred kits of all different genres. We try to get a good spread over armor, ships, cars, aircraft, figures, and so on. And then we have three categories of raffle tickets. The one is just a general raffle in which, you know, like for instance, I'll just take an example for uh cars. Just uh your normal AMT kit, you know we'll have a stack of around 30 of them, and tickets for them are one dollar. And what we do is that we draw tickets every half hour, and the so you can you can get a kit for one dollar. The problem is you don't get to select a kit. It's random within that shot within that particular category. And then that's so we have like 10 or 15 different categories. And then the then we have for bigger ticket items, more expensive kits, we will have a five-dollar ticket and a $10 ticket. And in that case, you are actually when you put your ticket in the bucket, you are actually trying to get a particular model. Again, taking an example, say 132nd scale uh F4 Phantom. When you put your $5 ticket in for that bucket, you're only trying to win that particular model.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, a lot a lot of uh clubs seem to be going to the raffle and super raffle type format where you have bigger higher ticket items, but the tickets are more expensive and they're focused on either one or just a few items.
Mike:Is there anything else unique about JAXCON you'd want folks to know that's maybe as different than most of the other shows?
Bob Tate:Well, no, not really. I can't I can't think of anything as a comparison. I would just speak about our our club and the way we run it. It you know, we recognize that modeling ultimately is simply a hobby. It's something that people do for fun. And that was one of the reasons why we went to Gold, Silver, Bronze is to take the competitive option, not option, but competitive aspect to it and make it more of an enjoyable thing where you're recognized for the work that you do without any of the competition that sometimes really can get cutthroat. And so we're very happy with with the way the show is run. We run it at the North uh Jacksonville Baptist Church. They're very gracious hosts to us. We have a devotional at noon in order to uh recognize and thank them for their uh sponsorship of it. I really have to say it's a very comfortable experience and a very enjoyable experience, both for the To the vendors, the uh competitors, or I should say the showers. Keep falling back into that. And also to the general public.
Kentucky Dave:Before we let you go, let's do a wrap-up one more time of the when, the where, etc. Okay.
Bob Tate:Well, it's JAXCon 2026. It will be on February 6th in the afternoon, Friday from 5 to 8 for early registration and for vendor setup. And then February 7th, Saturday from 9 to 5 for model registration. And at noon, the uh judging begins. And with the uh award ceremony around 5. The North Jacksonville Baptist Church Fellowship Hall is at 8531 North Main Street, Jacksonville, Florida, 32218. And general admission is free.
Kentucky Dave:That's fantastic.
Mike:Well, Bob, thanks for stepping up and and offering us the opportunity to help you promote your show, and we wish you the utmost success. And sounds like a great show, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Yep, it does. Hope for hopefully somebody attending will take a lot of pictures and post them to the dojo, our Facebook page, and we'll get to see what it looks like uh on the ground in February.
Bob Tate:Well, thank you very much, gentlemen, for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I hope you guys have a lovely day and come on down and come to Jacksonville.
Mike:Well, Dave, it's another gold, silver, bronze. It's another food trucks. Yeah. It's another show that's doing some things that no. When we were coming up in all this doing the shows back in our younger days, you know, food trucks weren't much of a thing yet.
Kentucky Dave:No, but it's a great innovation. Um lots of contests are adding them now. And it's a whole lot easier than having to go get in your car and hunt to go someplace in the middle of a contest. And they're usually pretty good.
Mike:Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Well, folks, if you're down that way in Jacksonville, Florida, or the commutable area around Jacksonville, take in the show. Again, it's a kind of a half, well, it's an evening on Friday with the pizza social and then all day Saturday. So that's another thing some folks are doing now. That that really wasn't much of a thing either until seems like more recently.
Kentucky Dave:And another thing, I like it. I like the social aspect.
Mike:Well, we had a couple other shows, Dave, we were hoping to get on here, but I'm gonna go ahead and mention them. We got Amps Atlanta 2026 coming up February 20th and 21st. That's gonna be held at the Hilton Atlanta, Marietta Hotel and Conference Center Center in Marietta, Georgia. We'll put links in the show notes to this show. And one reason folks might want to consider this one is uh the proximity to the armor collection. Yep. So you may be able to take that in as well. And then our friends at uh Mid-Michigan Model Makers.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:Their 4M mayhem is coming up. It's actually coming up sooner, February 7th, so it's about two weeks away.
Kentucky Dave:Yep. Hopefully the weather clears up by then.
Mike:Would hope it might not up there. Yeah. They're in Saginaw, Michigan, and the show is held at the Saginaw Valley State University. Theme this year is Red, White, and Blue 250. It's a semi-quincentennial celebration. So uh says they got double the space, double the vendors, double the parking, and ten times the fun at the 41st anniversary for M. Mayhem. So shout out to the mid-Michigan guys. Wish them success as well. So there's plenty of shows coming up in February, Dave.
Kentucky Dave:Yep.
Mike:Anything else?
Kentucky Dave:No, I I would love to get down to the Jacksonville show because man, I figured it'd be warmer than it is here, but it ain't gonna happen. Not this year.
Mike:Well, folks, if you're in the middle of this mess, be safe, stay warm, don't anything crazy. Stay inside if you can.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, get to the get to the bench and model.
Mike:That's right. Well, all right, Dave. I hope that's what you're about to go to. I'm gonna get away.
