Determined to get value for brass from the recent model railway exhibition, I have set aside my disappointment and drawn up a list of lessons learned.
a. If you go to a show, go for a reason. You’ll be paying show prices so get value.
b. The show should be on the stage in front of you. Not out the back of the bike shed. Particularly not on a wet winter day.
Show people can either display their layout or themselves. If they stand in front of the thing and block the view, they had better be more entertaining than the stuff on the table.
c. If it is the same show with the same layouts as three years ago, it should damn well be at the price it was three years ago.
d. Fancy signage is fine, but it should be attached to something worth looking at.
e. Flea market selling is perfectly acceptable if you wish to buy fleas.
f. If nothing moves on a layout, the spectator will supply the movement by walking away.
g. If it looks like a heap of rubbish, the only spectators that will stay for long are Steptoe and Son.
h. Less is not more. You are a model railway builder, not Corbusier. Bare boards do not a railway make.
I realise these seem petty niggles, but I assure you they were fully paid for at the car park and the gate. Had I had the patience or folly to stand in the endless queues for coffee or BBQ the bill would have been much higher. As it was I took a cheese and onion bun from home.
I will apply my new knowledge to my own display at the big local scale model exhibition.
The Little World 
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