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And THAT is where ONE location for the Nats comes into play. Once you stop worrying about bids, and who's going to host, and where it will be held; you can start concentrating on the event itself.

 

How does that come from the single location? Right now nothing is precluding the e-board from promoting the Nats as much as possible, after all they are not involved in the organization of the event, it is taken care of by a local club, yet nothing gets done. If we went to a single location all of the potential volunteers will be busy on the event and there will still be no one to do the promotion of the event.

 

I know some people lament that they'd miss traveling to different places, or that perhaps they'd be jaded with one location for the Nats after a few years because they'd have seen all of the local tourist attractions. But, is travel and local tourism really the reason to attend our Nats? To me, it's not! In fact, the wife gives me grief if I suggest that we make the Nats a part of our "vacation" because vacation is OUR time (not my modeling time!).

 

To you it isn't, to me it is. I have to spend a lot of money coming from the West coast to the event, so excuse me if I want to see more than just the model room (vendor room is not a draw to me at all since my modeling tastes are so esoteric that there is rarely anything interesting for me there).

 

It might be tough to find ONE place that would work. Then again, as Jim Clark has pointed out, if the venue in Omaha is SO convenient and profitable (and it's certainly centrally located to the country), then maybe that's a place to try to start. Centralizing the Nats committee jobs and expanding the volunteer base to all attendees could solve the man power problems that come with one location. And as also suggested above, perhaps it's not the end of the world (or IPMSUSA) if every Nats isn't a record setter, or if it sort of cycles through some ups and downs while being a steady (if not spectacular) success.

 

If Omaha it is, then I'll definitely stop going. It's an interesting place once or twice, but more than that - no thank you. Besides it's very inconvenient to fly to - there are no direct flights there from either coast. This adds time and money to travel and makes it less attractive to come.

 

No matter where we locate the convention, be it one place, or in a regular rotation; SOMEONE will be inconvenienced EVERY year. Perhaps it's time to put IPMSUSA's best interests ahead of ANY particular coast!

 

Funny how you continue to ignore the fact that many people just can't afford the nationals just for the sake of the IPMS USA. I don't know the statistics but i looks like every year there are the same 30% of the people who fly in from everywhere, and the rest of the people are the ones within the driving distance of the convention. They are not putting the interests of the coast ahead of the IPMS USA, they simply cannot fly for whatever reason (be it money, health or the size of their models). If we pick one location the people who are in that 70% and are not withing driving distance will be forever deprived of the Nationals experience.

 

Vladimir

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On the west - Jim continues to make this "for the sake of $$$." Fact is it costs more to hold a convention out there. So it's not just about money or more profit or anything like that it's about cost. If you compare a nominal western bid with a nominal midwestern bid, it's just going to be apples and oranges. It's literally going to take a year where you have all western chapters bidding on the show in order to have a western bid look favorable. And right or wrong, if you want the most members to get to the show you hold it somewhere central more often than not. That's not to say you have to do it all the time, but that does have to be a consideration when comparing bids. I'm sure there are statistics that could be done to back that up. Just plot the members on a map and then draw driving circles around different locations and you could see what percentage of the membership is covered. It's just pure, unbiased mathematics.

 

Does it suck, for the west? Sure it does! As has been said, the rotation at least kept the west somewhat relevant. But then quickly we started to see spots in the three-year cycle where it wasn't working, starting with Chicago back in 2001...

 

The idea of putting the show in a centralized location and leaving it there probably just doesn't work. I believe the society would adapt, but the reality is, as the graphic showed a few pages back, that the country is just too big for it to really work - until you change attitudes about getting to the national convention.

 

On centralized planning - I think this is something that should be at least closely reviewed. Where can we save? Where can we spend money to improve show infrastructure? Could we afford some degree of professional planning and operations if we weren't splitting the money between the national office and the local chapters? Lots of ways to structure the leadership, and the work gets lighter and lighter as it moves forward, especially if you're willing to spend a little bit to pay for the professional planning.

 

Now - and most importantly - regardless of all this squabbling about who runs the show or where it's held, we do need to do everything we can to improve how attractive the national model show is. This is something that should be easily agreed to by everyone. We can improve the seminars, we can improve vendors, but most importantly we need to reach out to more modelers. Right now, and I'll stand behind this, IPMS is there to serve its own members and has lost track of the bigger picture of modeling. the IPMS convention is there to serve long time members and does little to sell itself to new members or unaffiliated modelers.

 

Note, this isn't about attracting more kids to the hobby, this is about attracting more modelers to our show, and that IS an area where we can have a very positive impact without any concern toward where the show is or who is running the show.

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Oh and as far as 2018 (and maybe 2019 as well) is concerned, I'm thinking you're going to see some very strong bids from non-western parts of the country.

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And right or wrong, if you want the most members to get to the show you hold it somewhere central more often than not. That's not to say you have to do it all the time, but that does have to be a consideration when comparing bids. I'm sure there are statistics that could be done to back that up. Just plot the members on a map and then draw driving circles around different locations and you could see what percentage of the membership is covered. It's just pure, unbiased mathematics.

 

 

 

Paul, those of us who live in the west believe that this is nothing less than a myth. If you look at southern California, you have the second largest and seventeenth largest metropolitan populations in the United states within an hour of each other. Draw your driving circles and you throw in a lot of other large population centers with about 20 million people. If you throw together Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC you only get about 16 million. Omaha doesn't even get close to that, so someone smarter than I needs to do your "unbiased mathematics" and see what actually works but the east coast population myth is just that. Frankly, until we get a plot of member density, you will never know for sure how that works.

 

As to the cost, if you stay out of tourist destinations the costs are not likely to be any worse east coast or west if you go to comparable sites. You can do and Anaheim/Orlando once in a while and then an Omaha/Sacramento for the most part, but completely ignoring the west coast on any basis is going to cause "local" IPMS members some real heart burn.

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Not suggesting ignoring at all. And yes, you'll get superb attendance from California for a California show. That eight to ten hour circle will get almost everyone up and down the coast. However, as soon as you go east, that's where those driving circles fail.

 

Again, I'm not advocating against the west, just pointing out realities. And no, Omaha isn't the greatest example of what I'm talking about. But, if you're comparing Indianapolis, Dayton, Columbus or even Atlanta, that story changes quite a bit.

 

And avoiding tourist destinations might help a bit. But I'd have to compare real numbers to know. Sacramento might work. But going back to the point of comparison between Phoenix and Omaha, it was all about cost, Phoenix is just a more costly destination, and based on business travel, I believe most of those western destinations would suffer from the same cost issues.

 

All that said, I was trying to move beyond that discussion - if you read my post above, it was more about no longer arguing about the "where" or the "who" of the national convention, but rather about improving the attraction.

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Paul, your comments about making the convention more appealing to unaffiliated modelers...even the general public that simply finds modelbuilding interesting but not necessarily for them...brings up a question that I haven't seen addressed. Have there ever been any conventions that focused on publicizing the convention...and even the ipms/usa itself...on the general media? I'm talking local newspaper(s) and television news. Keep in mind that local tv news...whether 6:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m...are always looking for human interest stories as fillers. Find a local IPMS member who will be attending the convention and promote him (or her) to the news station as a potential story subject. That way you can tie in both the Convention and the IPMS.

 

Then there's radio ads on local talk shows...or even music stations. Advertising cost is generally very low. And keep in mind that model railroad clubs will frequently create a modular train layout that can be transported and set up at a local mall for the Christmas season. Believe it or not, they charge admission, with some of the proceeds going to a charity of their choice. IPMS could do something similar to promote the convention.

 

Richard

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On the west - Jim continues to make this "for the sake of $$$." Fact is it costs more to hold a convention out there. So it's not just about money or more profit or anything like that it's about cost. If you compare a nominal western bid with a nominal midwestern bid, it's just going to be apples and oranges. It's literally going to take a year where you have all western chapters bidding on the show in order to have a western bid look favorable. And right or wrong, if you want the most members to get to the show you hold it somewhere central more often than not. That's not to say you have to do it all the time, but that does have to be a consideration when comparing bids. I'm sure there are statistics that could be done to back that up. Just plot the members on a map and then draw driving circles around different locations and you could see what percentage of the membership is covered. It's just pure, unbiased mathematics.

 

 

Well, isn't it great to see how the rest of the IPMS views us on the west coast... I'm starting to think that IPMS doesn't deserve my support at all...

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I am curious, was there an official "rule" that the convention site will be rotated, and that rule has now, officially, been changed?? I thought that the rule, (whether official or just a fairness convention) applied as long as a club from the next area, submitted a bid within the required parameters (including bid submission schedule). If there was no bid "on the horizon" at the appropriate time, then the bidding was thrown open to all areas equally.

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Yes for years there was a constitutional requirement that bids had to be rotated through the three arbitrary regions of the US from East--Central--West. In a bid year for a East show for example, if no clubs in the East provided an intent to bid by January 1, then the bids were opened to all areas of the country to assure we had a convention in some location even if it was not the intended target region. There was also a requirement the convention needed to be between July to the end of August--so with that requirement gone it is now possible a bidder could propose a Spring Break or even Christmas convention--but the change has never been broached and we continue to have bids come in for late July to early August dates. Because that rotation was breaking down more times than it was working and at least 50% of the time the bidding was being opened to the entire country, in 2011, a constitutional amendment passed that did away with the rotation requirement and from year to year the convention can now be anywhere at any time with no rotation plan and no date range requirements.

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Thank you, Larry. I probably voted "For" the change without too much thought and have since, cast it from my memory. With hard feelings from west coasters, I wonder if it was such a good idea. Perhaps consideration should be given for the absent region to have a second chance for priority and if they miss that, then priority moves on. Priority would not excuse late bids, of course. If late, then competition follows. If lateness becomes habitual and a burden to the society, then perhaps the bidding schedule should be altered so that there would not be any undue burden to the society. I have to agree with west coasters, that they will probably never be able to compete evenly again with the present rules, in fact, probably no one will be able to compete with Omaha.

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While the constitutional requirement to rotate the bidding for the Nats is gone, there is NO reason that any Eboard cannot voluntarily attempt to follow a rotational bid schedule. All they need to do is publicly (and hopefully aggressively) ask for and pursue bids from the desired region up to a certain cutoff date. if that region doesn't produce a serious (as in written) bid proposal by the cutoff date, then they throw it open to the rest of the country.

 

This is, in essence, a return to the old system and as such carries with it the same problems that led to its demise: a lack of bids from the desired regions- leading to short notice bids from others. However, they are also free to do this or skip it from year to year, since it's not required by the by-laws, according to how well it's working.

 

However, we've also improved some things such as IPMSUSA fully funding the Nats, a regular registration system, and the awards program since then. And, I think the new Eboard will seriously look at "centralizing" more of the Nats committee jobs. All of this makes shorter notice bids less of a problem. Add to that the fact that we now have no less than 3-4 semi-regular hosts over the last 10-20yrs (VA beach area, Columbus, and (yes) Phoenix) that the Eboard can turn to in a crunch.

 

Centralizing more Nats jobs and (perhaps) a willingness to "help" (subsidize?) certain areas will make it more possible for more clubs to make bids, making it more likely a desired region can bid for the Nats. I'm not sure that IPMSUSA can actually make this work ALL of the time, but they need to be seen TRYING to make it work in order to keep from alienating a segment of the membership.

 

GIL :smiley16:

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