| Joe Shmoe's Review of... |
 |
| On June 7-8 in Louisville, KY the 14th Annual Wonderfest,was held . This was a record breaking show at this location, and the following is a review of the show and contest. The show is promoted by Lee Stanton, Dave Hodge,John Davis,Donnie Waddell,and Dave Conover. The very special guest of the show this year was Ray Harryhausen, legendary stop-motion animator.Also attending the show were several guests: Greg Nicotero- FX designer and co -owner of KNB FX, Tom Savini- Horror special effects artist, David Fisher- teaching painting techniques, Caroline Munro-star of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and The Spy Who Loved Me,and John Eaves- ship designer for Star Trek series and movies. There were so many others, I can't possibly list them all. With the attendance of these guests were accompanying seminars and Q/A sessions. |
 |
 |
| At this show I was selling kits of my own production, so I didn't get much time to look around as I would have liked to do. So this review will be of things I had a chance to see. This years show had the usual seminars: painting, sculpting, Make-and-Take for the kids,and guest talks. But along with the return of Harryhausen to the show, came extremely long lines of people waiting to get his autograph. The lines started forming about 2 and a half hours before he was to begin, and went from the front door of the showroom to the hotel entrance (about 125 yards). On both days, people had to be turned away, much to thier dismay. The dealers room was packed pretty good even before the regular customers came in on Saturday morning (regular customers pay $22, and get in at 10 am, 'Early Birds' pay $45 to get in at 8 am). But when the regular customers came in, it was crazy! For a few of the dealers, kits sold out on Saturday, but for myself and others, sales were kinda slow. I was really quite worried. Then Sunday came around. Appearantly, people were walking around looking for what they really wanted to buy on Saturday, and then purchased others kits that they liked on Sunday. I sold out of 5 of the 12 different kits that I brought to the show.My confidence was restored!! This years entries broke a previous record of 405 kits, to 475. As they show promoters said, "This proves the hobby is NOT dead!".It may not be, but some of the entries sure took a serious ass-whooping. This years panel of judges seemed particularly hard-core; some of what I thought were the nicest most detailed kits, got Certificates of Merit. Almost all of the kits I have pictured only got a Merit. In my opinion, some people got robbed! Rumours of "politics" were being tossed around, and from what I saw, they are probably right. Other than that, another fun time was had at this years show Also the Silent Auction and Charity Raffle brought broke records, bringing in $1,796 ,which has brought the total of monies obtained by the show promoters for charity to $17,527 The next show has been scheduled for May 15-16 of 2004. Don't worry folks, this is a week AFTER Mother's Day, so you won't have to miss it... |
| As I said before, I didn't get as much of a chance to look around as I would have liked, so here are the few pics I have on the next page... |