By a "quirk of fate", this year we
unexpectedly found ourselves with a massive 32 feet (9.75m) of display
space to fill at Scale Modelworld 2004 !!
It
seems that our "neighbour" display had to cancel at the last moment, so rather
than have bare, un-used tables on display, we were asked to try and fill them.
Unfortunately, we didn't know this until we arrived on the Friday afternoon for
setting up, so we literally had to come up with something using only what we
already had with us !!
But anyone connected with our SIG will know
that we typically have just as many models (if not more !) still in boxes
under the display tables, as we actually have out on them. We also
usually take too many tablecloths and baseboards too... just in case... And in
this case, it's just as well we did !
We just about managed to cover the tables in
baseboards, but it took every one we had ! As expected, we had plenty of models
to go on them.
So as well as the special "Thunder in the
Skies" theme for 2004, to tie-in with our work with the RAF Red Arrows
for their 40th anniversary, we also mounted a smaller display of RAF teams,
along with one of the dome display cases which we made for the Red
Arrows Gala Day back in May 2004. The remainder of the space was filled by
"general" models of aerobatic teams from around the world.
The whole display ended up with a
staggering 224 models, two of them in 1/48th scale and all the
rest in 1/72nd ! There were 28 models on the central "Thunder in the Skies"
theme and 35 models on the hastily-constructed "RAF Teams" mini-display,
including 3 in the domed display case. I just wish we had known some time
beforehand about the extra space, so we could have actually planned a
way of properly utilising it.
