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Norwegian IPMS show 21st/22nd Feb

The Norwegian chapter of IPMS held its annual show and competition the 21st and 22nd of February at a conference hotel 10 km outside Oslo. Since Norway is a large country, with a fairly small population of 4.8 million people, large shows are few and far apart. The annual IPMS meet however stands out and is the largest show in Scandinavia. People come from all over the country and neighboring countries to attend. Compared to the large shows we see in Central-Europe the Norwegian IPMS is however still a small cousin, but with around 500 models it’s at the moment the largest in Scandinavia. The show has an air of familiarity and homeliness to it. Many of the attendees stay the weekend at the hotel, several with their wife or girlfriend, and meet people they only chat with on the forums and maybe just see once a year at the show. So Saturday evening is a very sociable affair with a dinner and a few drinks in the bar. The topics of conversation? Well you can just answer that yourself.

When I attended on Saturday, the first day of the show, the weather showed itself from one of its nastier sides with a heavy snowfall. This is however a once in a year thing so people brazed themselves and faced the elements. The turnout was good both from visitors and vendors. In fact I happened to overhear some hotel staff talking about the high numbers of visitors to the IPMS meet and that it was fun to work at. They had just recently had a gun show that was poorly visited and a big bore to work at. I at least think it’s good to see that the plastic versions of the weapons are more interesting then the real thing.

This year IPMS had upped the ante a bit and had brought in several speakers, both local and international, to hold key notes and workshops in different topics;

• Adam Wilder (US) – Painting of armor
• Len Thomson (UK) – Scratchbuilding of airplanes
• Per OIav Lund (N) – Diorama techniques
• Kjell Terje Trones (N) – Painting of cars
• Magnus Fagerberg (S) – Figurepainting

There was also a key note by test pilot Frode André Evensen (N) who has flown in a vast number of planes like the Eurofighter, Mirage 2000, Mirage III, A-10, F-16, F15 and many more.

The only problem I could see while I was there was that they might have underestimated the interest in the different workgroups, they where jam packed. This is however a very positive problem and something that is easily rectified next year.

Most of the models at the show were entered in the competitions and the standard in the different categories was very high. It’s especially fun to see the quality that is shown in the junior classes, up to 12 years old and 13 to 17 years old, let’s just hope that they stick to the hobby in the years to come. There were the usual different categories at the show but I chose to concentrate on armor and dioramas with armor. The lighting in the mess hall was not the best so the flash kicked in a couple of times but I hope you will enjoy the pictures.