Model Armour

Everybody's been to the Danbury Plaza Hotel!  John Everett tells all....

IPMS AMPSEast 2011

Danbury Plaza Hotel and Conference Center

 

I arrived in Boston early on Thursday morning and a very generous Steve Reid picked me up.

By late that afternoon we had completed a three hour drive to the event and had begun to meet people associated with the show. During the first evening we met up with Iain Hamilton, Ken Abrams and Rob Ferreira (who's rusted and burned tank hulks you may remember from about a year ago). Iain, Ken and Rob are the boys from AK Interactive.

The event was held in two main halls directly next to on another. The first hall was set up for vendors and the second was for kits and dioramas on display.

We awoke early on Friday to set up the vendor's tables for the arrival of guests later that morning. At 10 a.m. sharp the doors were opened for business and the show officially began.

As new visitors arrived, if they had a model to present for judging they would fill out the forms and leave their model on the judge's table. Each model was judged by four individuals, the lowest score of the four was thrown out and the combined value of the highest three is used to arrive at a final point value, 30 points being a perfect score. This process continued through the day and finally over 130 models had been judged and placed into the display room.

During the day we also made contact with ModelArmour regulars Matt Parvis, Pam Orr, Devin Edwards and Tony Perrotta - just to name a few.

After the show had concluded for the day we adjourned to the hotel bar and grill for a spirited bit of......"spiritedness"! I finally got to bed around 2 a.m.

Saturday dawned to an even larger gathering of guests and vendors. An additional 150 models were entered into the contest by the end of this day. At 4 p.m. the winners of bronze, silver and gold in each of the categories were announce, and I am proud to say that our own Rob Ferreira took gold not only on each of his four models but Best of Category in several cases and most significant, Best of Show for his abandoned US Halftrack entitled Forgotten Veteran. It was a good day for the members of ModelArmour!

A quote from Steve Reid sums up the totals as best we can recall....

Matt Parvis- Gold Medal for the Horch- Gold for 'Wait' Vignette

Pam Orr - Silver for German Paratrooper figure
Tony Perotta- Silver for his M113 Fitter
John Everett (UAE Johnny) - Gold for 'Grandmas Quilt'
Rob Ferreira - Rob entered 4 models- and his pile of awards was larger than I could keep track of. It included four individual Golds - Best Allied, Best Soviet, Best Small Army and Best of Show. One talented, modest guy!

If you can make it to this show next year I would absolutely advise doing so!

Don't forget to see the pics on page two as well!