Organizing a show the size of Scale Model Challenge is a genuine challenge in itself. Admittedly, I asked for it, as I’m constantly looking for ways to improve the show. The easiest thing to do would be sitting back and see the same thing run over and over again, like an old TV show. But after you have heard the same joke for the umpteenth time, it just isn’t funny anymore. Get it?

SMC started out as an event to boost military modelling and figure painting in the Netherlands, but from the first edition on, it exceeded our own expectations.  I said “our” indeed because although the ideas to keep the interest going comes from a small group of people within the club (Scale Model Factory) we could not put down an event like SMC without the help of all members. Even better, we see an annual growth of the number of spouses, girlfriends (most members are male) or other family members. In fact these volunteers actually look forward to the event too and that’s one of the reasons that make me very proud of the show and what we have achieved with it so far.

This year we will introduce our contest application MONARCH. This application will ease our contest from the pre-registration to the awards ceremony showing  slides of the wining models and results, all in one application. Even registration at the show itself will change from filling out cards to entering all your entries yourself. There will be four working stations to register your entries. So at least we will see no more misspelled names or wrong  titles of your models or figures. Unless you mess them up yourself, of course 🙂

I often get the question how I see SMC in the future and to be honest, I had to adjust my ambitions for the event once or twice along the way. We have achieved a very international attendance with visitors, clubs and traders from all over Europe, which is a good thing. We ask people from all over the world to come to the show, and I strongly believe that you have to give them their money’s worth, meaning that we have to offer plenty of entertainment to make coming over worthwhile. I truly believe that we have achieved that with SMC.

But there are still steps to make.

The scale modelling landscape is very busy with good shows all over the world and even when I look at the European scale model calendar,  modellers have plenty of choice. Not every show is a large as SMC, with actually only very few being larger, but size really doesn’t matter in this case.  There is a strong sense amongst the modelling community that shows are also a very good opportunity to actually meet fellow modellers and painters, face to face rather than just on Facebook or on the forums. That is one of the reason that I am convinced that (good) shows have a future  in this hobby.

It is also one of the reasons that we have concluded that SMC should make the transition to a two-day show. We will start with a in-between-concept in 2015 and our 10th anniversary  show in 2016 will definitely be a full two day show. We have already managed to attract top notch special guests  for both these shows.

We hope that you  appreciate the effort that we have put into SMC 2014 and hope to see you there.

Be there and make the difference!