The Nuremberg Toy Fair is probably the largest event of its type in the world. The show is held exclusively for professionals in the sector - manufacturers, distributors and retailers all attend to showcase their new products for the coming year. One of the (very active) 'sectors' is the area which concerns us - modelling...

Due to the number of model-related manufacturers attending and the huge amount of new items it would be doing a great disservice to simply cover the show in one report. Rather, what I have decided to do, is to do a series of News stories under the N'Berg '07 title. These will hopefully serve as a more detailed 'overview' as to what we can expect, and to a certain extent see some of the trends which may develop in the coming months.

The real News for 2007, is that although 2006 was memorable, 2007 may well be even more spectacular. In this, the first report, i'm also going to try and give some indicators as to who will be the headline makers in the coming months.

Before I left for Nuremberg, I did a certain amount of pre-planning. Due to the huge amount of exhibitors this was time well-spent as even though I was only there for two FULL days, I did manage to cover a lot of ground.

I will be covering many of the manufacturers in individual reports as, due to the time and assistance they gave to Armorama/KitMaker Networker, it really is the least I can do...

The first company on the list is inevitably Italeri. Although from their impressive and beautifully-presented stand, most of their income comes from the 'mass-market' products, what became obvious that the company is now going directly for the specialist modeller. Of the new releases for 2007, the only one which was on display, was the 1/35th scale Staghound Armored Car in 'prototype' form (see photos at the side. Italeri are during 2007, going to be releasing a series of 'Multi-Media' kits which will have the base model in plastic with additional details in resin and photo-etch. I was also told, by one of their senior designers, that we can expect a few more surprises during the year and in particular an enigmatic 'I like armored cars VERY much..' Expect to see Italeri's products featuring strongly in the review section in the coming months...

If there was one word which summed-up the attitude of many manufacturers I spoke to during the show it was CONFIDENCE. The most up-beat conversations I had were with companies such as MiniArt, Masterbox, Mirage, CMK, Adalbertus,Eduard, Aber, HobbyBoss and Squadron Signal - the latter, following its amalgamation with VLS has hit the ground running with new Squadron books announced and VERY importantly, re-editing many of their existing titles. Some exciting news is also coming from companies such as Sparta, Special Hobby or LifeColor.

Moving onto the other 'majors' Trumpeter, Dragon, Academy, Tamiya, Revell, Airfix and Hasegawa, 2007 will inevitably be a good year for the majority of them although there are a couple of 'greyish' areas...

Revell (Germany) had, as one would expect, one of the biggest stands however little was new and modelling (which is their 'core' business) was somehow lacking a dynamism...

Tamiya's stand was one of the more spectacular at the show - everything was nicely presented although the 'core' was (inevitably) R/C. In new releases, some nicely presented 1/48th scale vehicles although Aviation and Warships were showing little if anything new...

Academy had little which was new either. Two new 1/72nd armor releases were on display (only one in 'actual' form) No word on the rumored M7...

Airfix - probaly related to their recent 'problems', were relegated to the corner of the Hornby stand - no word on the Canberrras or really anything else...

Hasegawa had a truly specatular stand - due to their large list of announcements, this will receive a more complete story...

Trumpeter has already been covered although MANY of their announced releases look very close to shipping - no more word on the T62s or the German artillery unfortunately...

In addition to the 'also-covered' category is DML with all their new releases on show and the majority soon to be shipped...

In conclusion, it was an incredible experience on a personal level. Regarding the KitMaker Network, it was invaluable in raising our profile with the manunufacturers and distributors. My thanks to ALL those people who said such nice things about the site and in particular for the time they made for me by talking about their plans for the future and opening these all-important lines of communication on MANY different levels. Not only will the review sections (across the Network) be covering even more and varied products, we'll ALSO be adding to our site advertisers...