Is our hobby, growing or skrinking?

[Art Anderson]

What figures are those? What type of survey? Taken by whom, consumers or industry "insiders?" What questions were asked? It's possible that total revenue in the industry rose slightly while actual consumer numbers dropped, due to rising prices of products.

We would need to see a lot more specifics to really know whether the industry is growing or shrinking. And besides, the question isn't if the industry overall is growing, I think the OP was asking whether car modeling (which is only a relatively small segment of the overall hobby industry) is growing.

Hobbies in general seem to me to reflect an old saying I'd heard years ago: "When times are good, it's Wine, Women and Song, but when times are hard--It's Beer, the Old Lady and Television". 2011? We were just beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel of the "Great Recession", which I'd be pretty sure impacted the higher priced segments of the hobby industry.

A well-known plastic model kit industry executive was quoted in a magazine article a few years back as saying they could only identify perhaps a couple of hundred thousand model car hobbyists across the US. I suspected then, and still do, that this number is way, WAY off--years ago, in the 1980's, when I owned a hobby shop here, the vast majority of model kits got sold to people who were not truly avid modelers in the sense we on this board think of as being avid modelers. It seemed so typical back then that come Thursday or Friday of the week holding a payday at the University or local factories (and we have here all the same factories that existed in 1985, PLUS several more that came on line since!) guys would come in, peruse the model car aisle, pick up a kit, a few bottles or spray cans of paint, perhaps some glue and maybe a tool or two--pay for their purchase and go down the shopping center to the supermarket or perhaps the liquor store for a 6-pack, and disappear. I'd seldom see most of them until next payday or so, and I never, EVER saw anything that the majority of those customers built either. Back then, I could have counted the really serious builders I knew on a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch notebook paper, double spaced. In other words, while we modelers who build, post up pics of our builds, go to contests and NNL's may seem limited in number, behind us, back there somewhere ensconced in the privacy of their personal "man caves" exists a pretty large legion of unknown, almost "closet" model car builders.

Another interesting thing that I've noticed from my years in the hobby, and almost exacty 30 years in and around the retail hobby business: Hobbies in general are very much "counter-cyclical" to economic cycles. I still remember Trost Modelcraft & Hobbies from the south side of Chicago. While my interface with Trost was completely that of a retailer dealing with a hobby wholesaler, on a trip into their warehouse, I searched out, and walked through, their retail hobby shop which was several blocks away from the warehouse. That hobby shop first opened for business in 1932--the very bottom, the depths of the Great Depression, and obviously it not only survived, but prospered way back then! The first real boom in model car building happened when? In the spring of 1958--the very bottom of the so-called "Eisenhower Recession" (which shrank US auto production by almost 40 percent, nearly killed off American Motors, and delivered what was ultimately the fatal blow to Studebaker)--even 1959-61 were lackluster years of recovery--and yet a lot of us in now our late 60's to early 70's remember that period as being truly halycon times to be crazy about model cars. By contrast, the boom period of the latter 1990's impacted model car building and model kit sales, as consumers not only went for other things, but in a way, went over to "Wine Women and Song", until events such as the "dot-com" bust and the tragedy of 9/11 turned things pretty sour once more. The "revival" of our hobby in the 1980's had its beginnings in the severe recession of 1981-82, and the 1990's "boom" seems to have had its start about 1990-91--again hardly boom times economically.

It's been nearly 10 years since model car kits started getting less and less space in the Big Box stores--their demise there spurred by declining sales of them compared to other items that could turn more $$ in the same amount of space. Toy sales tanked in 2002-2004, causing the "Marts" to rethink just how much floor space and capital to tie up in that category--and unfortunately, those retailers consider model kits to be toy items--much to our consternation and disdain.

What we are seeing right now, while it is a resurgence of interest in this hobby, which so many of us remember fondly from our collective boyhoods, is a "reinventing" of the industry--no longer shackled to price points dictated forcefully by the likes of Walmart, but rather determined by what it takes to develop, tool and produce truly interesting model car kits. For the first time in years, or so it seems to me, the plastic model kit industry seems driven more by new product rather than by constantly regurgitating reissues of old product designed and tooled, some of it, well over 50 years ago. True, there is still interest in those old kits of yesteryear (I just received a kit of the last reissue of the AMT '36 Ford before the tooling was munged into Dick Tracy's movie car), but that interest really generates only so-so sales--it's the new stuff that sets our model car world, figuratively, on fire once again. Sure, there are some real gems of long-ago discontinued model car kits to be resurrected, but it's the anticipation of what new kit of a never-before-kitted model of a car might be exploded on our scene at this year's iHobby that intrigues me, and I suspect, a very large number of readers of this board and the magazine that supports it.

Art

[Harry P.]

One thing that does nothing to grow "the hobby" is to speculate and bicker openly on the Internet.

One man's speculation and bickering is another man's lively debate.

It's what happens on online forums. It's what they are for.

[Tom Geiger]

A lot of good points. I will agree with Brett and others who said hobbies do prosper in bad times. NNL East has held it's own, and even increased in attendance and vendor sales in the past few years of bad economic times. When I talk to attendees holding big bags of stuff, the usual response is something like, "We're not going on a big vacation to the islands this year, so I'm splurging on a few more things here." Agreed, creative entertainment in the home.

It's a given that the kids of today aren't as hobby driven as we were in our youth. I hear that same moan from all the traditional hobbies like stamp and coin collecting too. Also note that when we were kids, we were the baby boomers, the largest generation ever. Since then the birthrate had declined so even the kids who are interested in cars and building models would be down just by the trimming of the population.

I do see a decent future for the hobby in our lifetime. Note that the model companies are in the hands of good knowledgeable management that knows how to cater to the serious adult hobbyist. They are counting on more and more of us baby boomers retiring and having more leisure time to pursue hobbies. And as said in this thread, each one of us who is active in the formal hobby of attending events, building very detailed works and communicating on the message boards is worth ten of the passive builders in dollar volume spent each year.

[Harry P.]

And as said in this thread, each one of us who is active in the formal hobby of attending events, building very detailed works and communicating on the message boards is worth ten of the passive builders in dollar volume spent each year.

That statement isn't valid, you have absolutely no way of proving that.

Just because a person is active on an online hobby forum doesn't necessarily correlate to that person spending more $$$ on the hobby than a "passive" modeler. In fact, a so-called "passive" modeler might be so involved in building (and buying) that he has no time or desire for online forums or entering contests.

Like me, for example. I have never entered a contest, but I'll bet I spend many times more in a year on the hobby than most "active" modelers who enter contests. And I'm not the only one.

[Art Anderson]

The HMA (Hobby Manufacturers' Association)'s Size-of-Industry survey, and the analysis of same published in industry trade magazines Model Retailer and Hobby Merchandiser. There was a new survey for 2012 published earlier this year, but I haven't really gone over it in detail for myself yet. I believe it will show a little more of a overall decrease than the last one did. One problem we have trying to judge the size of the modeling segment it that the kits themselves get grouped into the "Plastics and Die-Cast" segment, while the tools and supplies used to build and finish them get put into the "General Hobby" segment. Plus having Die-Cast attached to plastic models has skewed the figures, it seems to me that die-cast has been in a big decline over the last few years. I'd like to be able to see the plastics figures without die-cast attached.

The HMA usually will post a brief summary of the survey on their website, hmahobby.org in the news and press release section.

One set of statistics, were they accessible, would be the "annual reports" of the various model companies. However, not since AMT Corporation was bought out by Lesney in 1979, has there been a publicly traded corporation (and annual reports filed not only with the IRS and SEC, but also provided to each stockholder) in the US producing exclusively plastic model kits. Aurora Plastics was gone. Revell had been swallowed up by the French toy company Cegi, Monogram had been a subsidiary of Mattel since about 1967, MPC was bought up by General Mills (the Cheerios people) in 1968 and so on.

I had the opportunity, on one of my frequent trips to AMT Corporation on Maple Road in Troy, Michigan, to read several AMT corporate annual reports to stockholders, which included a couple of annual reports from the middle 1960's (I saw these in 1977 BTW). It was fascinating to read of $100,000,000 in annual sales by AMT in the 60's Annual Reports, and then to note that by 1976, company sales having been static at that $100 million level 10 years or more later (and those sales by then were NOT all model kits--AMT was doing other plastic molding alongside model kit sales by then, just as I saw AMT/Ertl doing in 1994 while on a tour of their Dyersville IA plant) Now, those years of huge, but static sales figures came during a time of high inflation--meaning that the units (model kits sold) were significantly fewer than what had been sold back in the 60's.

When I got a phone call from the then-Managing Director of Lesney AMT in March 1992 that Lesney had filed for bankruptcy, he assured me that I would get paid the nearly $2700 I was owed for box art and trade show models, but pointed out specifically that the model business had declined so deeply that Lesney-AMT had shipped just six thousand model kits in the entire first quarter of that year. Talk about "in the tank"! In a way I should not have been surprised though, as in December 1991, at the height of the Christmas season, upon walking into my favorite Marsh supermarket, I was confronted with cubic yards of Monogram model kits, mostly cars, and the blowout price of $1.50 each, your choice, no limit--that was a "fire sale price" considering that model car kits carried a $3.00 MSRP by then. Later on, I was told by a source at Monogram that the company inventoried all the old Aurora tooling, and those that they could not see as meeting the standards for Monogram Models products were sold for scrap, their having been made not from steel, but a rather valuable metal alloy. That same source told me that the "fire sale" of model kit inventory and the sale of nearly all the Aurora model kit tooling was a major part of saving Monogram from obliviion--and we know now, of course that it helped do the job.

Over these past 10 years or so, the diecast model industry has declined precipitously--no longer do the big box retailers have 18-24 foot aisles with 6' of pegboard just for Hot Wheels, no. Now it's less than 6 feet in many stores--some have very little in the way of Hot Wheels. Many of the brands once crowding diecast aisles are now completely gone--what remains of 1/24 and 1/18 scale is more and more a specialty market. So, lumping plastic kit sales in with diecasts, as industry journalists are wont to do gives a very inaccurate picture--but then, journalism graduates write, they aren't very good at analyzing things all that much in business publications to the extent of telling US meaningful information.

I used to track model kit sales, along with tracking tools, paints and supplies, and then compare them in my hobby shop, I could figure that a model kit would generate, on average, at least its selling price in add-ons, such as glue, paint, tools, aftermarket details. Not each kit, but certainly over the aggregate that was my experience. So, any statistic that just lumps even two of the three categories together really skews the numbers dramatically. But that's the press for you.

Art

[Art Anderson]

That statement isn't valid, you have absolutely no way of proving that.

Just because a person is active on an online hobby forum doesn't necessarily correlate to that person spending more $$$ on the hobby than a "passive" modeler. In fact, a so-called "passive" modeler might be so involved in building (and buying) that he has no time or desire for online forums or entering contests.

Like me, for example. I have never entered a contest, but I'll bet I spend many times more in a year on the hobby than most "active" modelers who enter contests. And I'm not the only one.

Folks who attend NNL's and enter contests, indeed those who never enter a thing but shop the vendors at those events, frankly represent only the visible tip of a rather large iceberg.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

One little bit of information to consider is the number of folks joining this forum. I count over 40 in August so far, and it's probably considerably more...as a lot of joiners never do the introduction thing on the "introduce yourself" thread.

It's also obvious that there are far far more people looking at this board than actively posting, so again, as Art says, most of us see only the tip of the iceberg.

[Harry P.]

It's true that the number of people here who are actually actively taking part is a tiny minority of the nearly 12,000 members we have. I'd guess that maybe less than 5% of that total are active here, at least semi-regularly.

It would be interesting to compare forum memberships of several of the more common hobbies... crafts, stamps and coins, dolls, woodworking, military memorabilia... whatever... and how those membership totals compare to us. It wouldn't prove or disprove anything, of course... it would just be interesting to see how we "stack up" in the hobby forum universe.

[Eshaver]

Someone earlier mention the hobby is becoming a Niche , I agree. As Harry posted , yes , fewer are buying . Me , I'm probably spending at least twice as much on a given build as a couple of years ago for a couple of reasons . One , stuff is costing a lot more . I'm also building a few pieces I thought were actually beyond my skills too. Combine that and the inflation , I've got a much larger expenditure than I had even two years ago .................

[Brett Barrow]

. And as said in this thread, each one of us who is active in the formal hobby of attending events, building very detailed works and communicating on the message boards is worth ten of the passive builders in dollar volume spent each year.

Maybe so (and I would debate that dollar figure) "passive" car modelers outnumber "active" car modelers by a factor I'd conservatively estimate of at least 50 to 1.

[Aaronw]

Hobby shops are not in decline, they are changing.

How many online shops were there in 1990? Include mail order shops like Squadron and I'm guessing it is still practically none compared to today.

The vast majority of Walmart, Micheals, Hobby Lobby type places are at best an introduction to the hobby, they do little for the serious modeler. I'm guessing the only people who really lament / celebrate the comings and goings of models in such places are the old (who refuse to use the internet) and the young (who don't have credit cards to order with). The vast majority either have a quality LHS with a good stock (or is good about ordering), have an old style mail order they use or have adapted to life in the 21st century and use the internet.

I've got at least 1/2 a dozen online shops I use regularly, another dozen or so saved in my favorites for occasional use and know of probably 20 beyond that I haven't bothered to save.

If the hobby was in decline I don't think we would be seeing so much growth in the online hobby shop.

We are seeing a pretty lively aftermarket and specialty market (resin / short run kits) and the major producers have been pretty active in producing new kits. I wouldn't expect any of these to be so productive if they were not seeing a return on their investment.

[Ognib]

When Revell and AMT entered the plastic kit market, the 1:1 hot-rod mags pushed the hobby in print as a way to build, in scale, what enthusiasts maybe

didn't have the resources to build in 1:1

, or as a means to build a MODEL of a proposed 1:1 project before committing big-bucks to something full-scale, and avoiding SOME expensive pitfalls.

Recently I've seen a smattering of interest and coverage in the 1:1 mags, but more would surely be better.

That's why I'm in it.

I built 1:1 all of my life, but now that I'm retired this is the closest I can afford to another build.

[martinfan5]

Are we talking the within the USA?, or world wide?

[grayghost]

Why do we not see any tv ad from model companies?

I would think if the right as'd were run i beleve would help.

The hobby needs new life in it or it will be gone.

[chevyfever2009]

I agree as like the older stuff i also like the mini trucks lowriders ect and theres not much available in the terms of mini trucks. Id love to see ext cab versions of the s10 bodies as well as ext can duallys of the 70s & 80s as well as newer 18 wheelers like rollbacks and car haulers

[chevyfever2009]

I think its debatable on the topic as the kits were i live fly off the wally world shelves but to me theres no selection my local carriers dont carry non of the newer kits.

[Harry P.]

Why do we not see any tv ad from model companies?

Probably because the cost of buying TV ads is way beyond the budget of model car kit manufacturers.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Why do we not see any tv ad from model companies?

I would think if the right as'd were run i beleve would help.

You don't see TV ads for modeling because TV advertising is insanely expensive, and the costs would have to be passed on to the the model buyers...making the cost of new kits even farther out of reach for many.

Look at what you DO see TV advertising for...prescription drugs that will be paid for by insurance usually, OTC drugs that have MASSIVE markets, foods, beer and cleaning products that likewise have markets that cut across all demographic boundaries...just think about it.

Revell, for one, HAS made it's moving-media presence more visible by sponsoring enthusiast productions like the Stacey David thing, the Foose tie-ins, etc. But these all ADD to the cost that has to be paid by the consumer, and the numbers have to work.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Rob Hall]

You don't see TV ads for modeling because TV advertising is insanely expensive, and the costs would have to be passed on to the the model buyers...making the cost of new kits even farther out of reach for many.

Look at what you DO see TV advertising for...prescription drugs that will be paid for by insurance usually, OTC drugs that have MASSIVE markets, foods, beer and cleaning products that likewise have markets that cut across all demographic boundaries...just think about it.

Revell, for one, HAS made it's moving-media presence more visible by sponsoring enthusiast productions like the Stacey David thing, the Foose tie-ins, etc. But these all ADD to the cost that has to be paid by the consumer, and the numbers have to work.

TV advertising is a dying form anyway, what with DVRs and streaming...

[Harry P.]

TV advertising is a dying form anyway, what with DVRs and streaming...

Maybe so, but it's still a multi-billion dollar business. Conventional advertiser sponsored TV programming isn't going away quite yet. There is still a huge chunk of the population that prefers watching conventional TV over alternative options.

[grayghost]

I see the point about price.

But if they do not invest in the long run

will the hobby last at all?

Even a small run of advertising

could help.

[Art Anderson]

Maybe so (and I would debate that dollar figure) "passive" car modelers outnumber "active" car modelers by a factor I'd conservatively estimate of at least 50 to 1.

Brett,

I'd suggest that you are far more right than wrong in your assessment. Rather than use the terms "passive" and active--I submit that the terms introverted and extroverted model builders probably best describes both sorts. Over the years, both directly in some aspect or another of the hobby business, I've heard more than my share of model car kit buyers simply stating that their's is a "closet" pastime--due to an at least perceived ridicule from friends or associates about their continuning to "play" with children's toys--something I can remember being teased about by more friends, relatives and acquaintances than I care to remember about. For other "introverted" or "closet" modelers, theirs' is a hobby they prefer to enjoy in complete privacy--truly a bit of an escape from the cares and stresses of everyday life (probably most of us do that too, but some people take it to a more extreme level, it seems).

Art

[slusher]

Maybe so, but it's still a multi-billion dollar business. Conventional advertiser sponsored TV programming isn't going away quite yet. There is still a huge chunk of the population that prefers watching conventional TV over alternative options.

Was there ever a TV ad for model cars? l have not ever seen one if there was. l do agree with Bill, Revell did get alot of advertising with Stacey David and the model contest.

[Agent G]

No one yet has brought up "profit margin" as a deciding factor. Does anyone have figures? Do manufacturers profit and if so how much?

G

[Daddyfink]

I do remember some 80's commercials from Revell with the Robotech line, but no cars. Revell Germany makes new commercials for their market.

I think the opportunity to get new builders was missed during the dark days of the late 80's and early 90's. When some model companies died off and luckily came back, somewhat, as part of other companies.

Honestly, I am tired of trying to get people to build models, especially when I am not building! I almost feel like someone handing out literature at the airport! If you are my age or older, you will know what that means. LOL!