Spalding v Zwolle Topic (split from 2011 Zwolle topic)

[BC]

Approx figures 

350 Lakeland, 450 Toytrac & Spalding April is around 1200 I believe

Those numbers for Toytrac and Spalding really surprise me. The new show at Aberdeen in May had 740 adults and 220 children...not far short of 1,000 in total.

[Hillview]

Are those attendance figures at the shows correct as they seem very low?

[bd contracts]

if there was to be a all UK show What Would people want to See.seems Europe and ireland have the display end covered and the mainland shows seem to have traders mostly. Yes there s displays but Not in big volume. If your interested enough distance Would nt be a problem.

[Tellarian]

May and June us silage time, Sean.

Toytrac was about 720 this year - only counting adults as children now free.

Ref the calendar, agree silage is an issue, but by late June the peak is over, and a lull before winter grains are on the go.  It is that quiet spot before everything kicks off.

Would folk be interested if a show was piggy backed on the back of Farm Sunday:

http://www.farmsunday.org/ofs/home.eb

I have a plan in place and have been having discussions....

[ploughmaster]

An important point to bear in mind when comparing a UK event with Zwolle, is that toy collecting (and toy/model tractor collecting in particular) is far more developed over there. They have also had a much keener interest in displays and dioramas, and in making working displays for much longer than we have in the UK - interest in dioramas is only just getting going here, and in most cases has a very long way to go to reach the standards displayed at Zwolle.  A show with such displays would be very welcome (when UK standards have improved), but I see such an exhibition as complementary/extension to Spalding, not as part of new show to compete with Spalding - whilst the farm toy hobby has expanded massively, it is nonetheless limited and new specialised shows are likely to not only fail themselves, but could bring the downfall of existing shows.

Someone mentioned the show at the National Motor Cycle Museum which happened a couple of years ago - in my own opinion, the standard of the displays was pretty poor (with a couple of notable exceptions), and whatever some people may think, the show was undoubtedly an utter flop both from a traders point of view and from the attendance (there have been several attempts to get various toy/figure related events started at the museum over the last 20 years, and they have all failed).

Farm toy collecting in the UK only really started to take off significantly at the end of the 1980s; the 1st Spalding show was in June 1987 and occupied what is now the small hall (the rest of the exhibition complex didn't even exist back then).  There were only around 15+ dealers, and there was room for a cafeteria/refreshments area at one end, and Stuart Gibbard used to bring one of his full sized tractors to display at the other end (there was plenty of room for his Doe Triple D in 1988!). I don't know the numbers through the door in those days, but I would think it would be no more than 100 - 200 at most.

In the early nineties, the show moved into the old Springfields Restaurant (later flattened to make way for part of the shopping centre) - it was quite small and rather too 'friendly' for some people.  When the show moved into the newly built large hall later in the 90s, the dealer tables were spaced out round the outside and Colin and Stuart had persuaded some of the local machinery dealers to take space in the middle of the hall to display full sized tractors.

As the years went on the show rapidly grew in size to fill the big hall and then to utilise the small hall also.  Sadly, most of this expansion has been money driven and has occured through a proliferation of what I would describe as 'money-grubbing' traders offering new, standard toys from the main manufacturers on a "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap basis", which I believe has devalued the show.  At those early shows, there was very little in the way of new mass produced stuff, most of the traders dealt in obsoletes, and it was really only G&M who had new on display (and almost all of those were from the likes of Ertl, Scale Models and other makers whose products were not easily available in the UK).

The Autumn show originated in a small gathering that used to be organised by Bill Richardson on the first Sunday of October at his farm at East Hatley in Bedfordshire, and  pre-dated the summer Spalding show by a couple of years - again only ten or a dozen invited dealers and Bill used to have his big Ford FW30 and John Deere artic and a convenient stubble field where he would from time to time take a few favoured guests for for a round with the subsoiler or somesuch. It made for a very enjoyable, friendly atmosphere - something which is certainly lost with the modern large events. When Bill retired and sold the farm, the show moved first to Standon, and then to Biggleswade before being merged with a new Autumn event at Spalding.

I am not convinced that a move away from Spalding would be necessary, or indeed beneficial - it is well sited within the biggest agricultural area of the UK, and is also the region where the majority of serious farm model/toy collectors are.  A move to better facilities at Peterborough might be worthwhile, but better facilities will be more expensive to hire, and to move it further afield would detract from its appeal I think, and I can't see that moving Spalding show, or starting a new tractor/farm show further south or west is going to do Toytrac any favours . 

Bearing in mind the relatively small number of visitors to these shows, and the resulting limited income from entrance charges, the size and standard of facilities of any potential venue will also be limited (unless you all want to have to pay £15 - £20 to get through the door??)

I would like to see some changes, but I would start by trying to reduce the number of traders with piles of (the same) brand new issues all trying to undercut one another; a show with quality rather than quantity.

[ploughmaster]

May and June us silage time, Sean.

For those on arable work, March, April, and into May are pretty flat out - drilling, planting, top dressing and the heaviest spraying workload of the year.  By a similar token, August, September, October are even more flat out; harvest, land work, drilling, spraying.

June would probably be much better for us (and indeed is the month when the Spalding show used to take place in the early days ).  The principal reasons for the move to April were the competition with other events wanting to book the halls, and a cheaper hire charge earlier in the year when demand for the hall is not so great. 

[Hillview]

I am very suprised by the low numbers for these shows. There are quite a few smaller shows in Ireland that would be attracting these kinds of numbers - Irvinestown, killead, Armagh etc.

The show in Scotland seems to be getting good attendances. Can the Lakeland show be expanded as this is more central and convenient? People from Ireland and Scotland and Wales would be more likely to travel to it rather than to Spalding.

[ploughmaster]

Again, as with the Netherlands and Germany, the farm toy hobby is more longstanding and much more strongly developed in both Northern Ireland and in the Republic.

[Lord Ferguson]

Birmingham is central England Peter.. Penrith is a billion zillion miles from most of us Southerners buddy.

Also remember that the mainland UK'ers are nowwhere near as passionate about agriculture as the Irish are... when I sold my MF35x Industrial model most of them ended up in Ireland.. God Bless De Irish 

[Lord Ferguson]

Take a look at the UK Population map below... this strengthens the arguement for a central England based show...

[Hillview]

Birmingham is alot more central than Spalding. Still a long drive for the Paddy Scotch and Paddy Irish men if they want to display. 

[Tractorman810]

Birmingham is alot more central than Spalding. Still a long drive for the Paddy Scotch and Paddy Irish men if they want to display. 

still a long way from gods country down in devon and cornwall to peter  :laugh: :laugh: one thing i find with spalding in its defence is its actually reasonably easy for me to get to, no real need to use the major pain in the neck routes like the m25 ect, not saying the distance is a real issue either, i am more than used to it given my familly is all up that way anyway, a good show is worth the effort to get to at the end of the day,

[robbo]

Population density is one thing but can you say for sure that the areas with the highest population are going to give you the highest attendance? I would suggest that tractor collectors tend to come from the less populated and more agricultural areas which is why Spalding and the East of England have done well in the past. I still think that Peterborough would be a reasonable choice as it is still close enough to the agricultural heartland but with better transport infrastructure than Spalding.

Hillview........I don't think that Penrith can get any bigger without a move to another venue, the rooms that we use are on the second and third floor of the building so there is no further room to expand.

Other than that it is almost the perfect venue, 1/2 mile off the M6 and with the Lakeland Visitor Centre on the first 2 floors so there is plenty to do for the non farming wives/partners.

[True blue]

ha ha! lads

You seemed to all getting very wound up about this model show although I have just joined I have been on the Moira forum for a while and some of the guys directed here after looking back through some of the photos from the show it all looks like a big toy shop what has splading got to offer that you wouldn't see anwhere else

[robbo]

That is part of the problem, we want the show to develop and continue to grow, to become more than just a big toy shop.

When you see the likes of Zwolle for the overall experience and then Toytrac and Moira for the dioramas we want Spalding to cater for the whole hobby.

[Tractorman810]

i have a dio i could bring to spalding, but for 1 day the pain in moving it is unreal, breakages occour with ease seeing as its all scratch built, whilst moria is great for dio stuff, from pics i have seen its very limited in people selling??? correct me if i am wrong , where as spalding is the oposite,

certainly do not see anyone getting "wound up" over it, infact its all a pretty sensible in its posts so far ,i think the overwealming opinion is a 2 day show would aid in catering for this

[Hillview]

You are correct. Two day shows are the way to go. One day is too short to enjoy all the hard work you put into a diorama.

Moira is 90% dioramas with 6-8 sellers. If you overcrowd it with sellers then it is not worthwhile for them to come.

Moria is a diorama show and Spalding a selling show as you have said. However Moria needs a few sellers. This works well for sellers as visitors see a particular model on display and will decide to buy it.

Have selling shows had their day with ebay etc? Sooner or later people will get tired of diorama shows as well.

Zwolle works well as they have dioramas, scratchbuilt and standard models for sale.

[Tractorman810]

indeed peter, theres some truth in formats having their day, if layouts keep depicting the same stuff every year, then people wont come back the following year if its been there 2 years already, but to us collectors that gets expensive, as you know building and evolving a layout costs, selling shows can get boring as most of us hard core collectors do see most items on sites like here and Moria ,so its not new to us. finding a nice sensible balance is the key ,theres no reason why it cant be a success, its all down to venue and access for all, making it easier for you guys to get over for instance, sadly we will all have to travel  unless very lucky and its right next door i guess

[Leakeyvale]

Toytrac was about 720 this year - only counting adults as children now free.

Ref the calendar, agree silage is an issue, but by late June the peak is over, and a lull before winter grains are on the go.  It is that quiet spot before everything kicks off.

Would folk be interested if a show was piggy backed on the back of Farm Sunday:

http://www.farmsunday.org/ofs/home.eb

I have a plan in place and have been having discussions....

I would be interested although it would depend on the location of course

[Leakeyvale]

Plenty of talk about attendance numbers but farm toys collecting is only a small part of the collectors market.  All the toyfairs are suffering from reduced attendance and I do not think eBay is the reason as I have seen a gradual decline in numbers over the past 20 years.  Several toy fairs in my area have either ended altogether or are held every 2 or 3 months instead of monthly.  The current recession and increases in VAT means people are simply not spending as much on their hobby as they once did.

There is the chicken and egg situation in that if the punters do not appear the  traders stop going and if the traders are reduced in numbers the punters stop.  Some toyfairs have put up the cost of tables and others the admission fee (and some have done both).  Some of my local toyfairs have REDUCED the admission which has increased the buyers passing through the door but the tables are still thin on the ground.  Shepton Mallet is one that is much smaller and less crowded than it used to be.  Several traders I know have reduced the number of events they attend.  For example Jill Horne (old farm toys) used to attend Toytrac while her husband went to Shepton Mallet (the same day) but this year she said they could not justify the cost both in time and money in having a presence at both.

Taking on a bigger venue is a big step and means higher prices and I for one am not happy about paying even £6.00 entry fee.  I certainly would not be prepared to pay even £10 for the privilege of shopping there and sometimes finding out there is nothing there for me anyway!

[Andy]

I think Spalding is still a good location (you may think I'm biased!!) but with the new road now being finished, it cuts travel time from Peterborough down to about 15 minutes. It does not however solve the issue of room for dioramas and displays.

For a fair sized lined / floored marquee (400 m 2), it would probably cost around £1500 to £3000 as a bolt on to the event. It would then perhaps be an idea (to trial for starters) the concept of introducing displays and layouts into this, along with a few other new components. All combined with an attempt at a two day event. If this additional space can be filled and can be seen to increase visitors to the show (over the course of the two days), it would perhaps give greater scope to then build a plan of eventually "upping sticks" to a larger exhbition venue.

[walsh35]

good point andy, it might also give a small bit more space to traders in the small room, there not stuck for prking space outside

[dave the farmer]

i like going to spalding twice a year.have been going since 1993 i think.great for shopping for

the wife, only 4hrs drive from home.never been to zwolle,don,t think you can compare the the to shows,zwolle been going 4 a long time and is easy to get to 4 mainland europe, more model farm collectors closer to the show.been to the national farm toyshow in dyersville,iowa usa a few times,massive show, must have over 2000 model sellers there.takes over the whole high school and town hall over 2 1/2 days,inside and out - 20c one november i went.hope spalding stays where it is,i would like some dioarmas.will continue to go 4 years 2 come.

[kinsella]

Take a look at the UK Population map below... this strengthens the arguement for a central England based show...

maybe im just paddy but these large populated areas are all citys are surrounding areas . how many people in citys are large built up areas are into farming models?

[Andy]

I have spoken to Colin about the discussion we have been having on here and he certainly appreciates that space is the issue when it comes to displays, dioramas and generally as a problem point for expanding the show. He was in agreement that it would probably add something to the event too but of course there would be factors to consider before any additional firm planning decision was made.

However, IF FTF was to play a role in sourcing and managing a marquee to bolt on to the exisiting show (as an initial step for developing the event), could we:

1. Count on the support from you, the membership, to help fill it with displays, dioramas and anything else we can think of to enhance the event?

2. Would FTF members be more inclined to attend as visitors?

I must stress that nothing has been agreed as additional costs, car parking and other technical bits and bobs would need to be resolved.

That said, there is potential here, so lets carry on the discussion / debate. I would be interested in those who would be on the borderline or attending as visitors of exhibitors, in terms of particular requirements or conditions you may place on making a decision?