News About Revell

[sfhess]

This was in my local newspaper Sunday morning.

[slusher]

Good news for models!

[OldNYJim]

I actually saw much the same story on a news channel recently - cool to see scale modelling on TV!  And great news for Revell, and presumably the other manufacturers too!

[Deuces ll]

I would love to see a car model show on Motor Trend TV every Sunday morning.... That be great!.... ???

I know.... It won't happen...?

[mikemodeler]

2 minutes ago, Deuces ll said:

I would love to see a car model show on Motor Trend TV every Sunday morning.... That be great!.... ???

I know.... It won't happen...?

To a certain degree, Stacy David has featured models on his show Gearz from time to time and has talked about how it fueled his interest in cars and played a role into his career. It would be cool to see a show that featured car guys and how models influenced them.

A weekly model show? Hmm, would be interesting to see it happen but I am guessing it would have all kinds of models-figures, vehicles, armor, aircraft- for it to get support from model companies. Maybe it could be on par with Dennis Gage's "My Classic Car" where he visits shows, aftermarket suppliers, builders, etc.? Airbrush, paint, aftermarket companies (resin, 3D, retailers, online sellers, etc) and model manufacturers could be showcased like they do for the 1:1 world.

[Deuces ll]

Time will tell I guess.... I just hope it happens..

[unclescott58]

Good news. ?

[Scott8950]

My local hobby lobby is picked clean lol

[DrKerry]

Sweet!!! That's kool!!

[slusher]

1 hour ago, Scott8950 said:

My local hobby lobby is picked clean lol

The last time I was at mine was all older kits. Anything new was gone. Now China and docks has to catch up..

[Casey]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-illinois-plastic-model-kit-revell-20200504-dlehia2b5bfbnbfws4kszy5jvy-story.html

[Tom Geiger]

We are seeing an influx of new and returning modelers on the boards and in Facebook model groups. 

We’ll have to see how many of them stick with it once the world opens back up. 

[niteowl7710]

The hobby tends to be very cyclical in inverse proportion to the actual economy. That being it tends to do well during and directly out of economic downturns when people don't have the money to go out much or work on more expensive hobbies. Consider the Great Recession and the follow out - Round2 was leasing and then bought all the AMT/MPC tooling, Hobbico (before it went utterly sideways) infused Revell with a life line you could argue led to many years of new tool kits. Moebius entered car models, you saw the slew of Asian manufacturers based in Hong Kong, Macau and China explode like Meng, Beemax/NuNu Hobby. A resurgence of Japanese manufacturers in Aoshima & Hasegawa, with Tamiya.

While I certainly wouldn't nominate a global pandemic and tens of millions of unemployed people as a catalyst, sales were at best trending sideways. As social distancing continues into the Summer and early Fall I would only expect sales to continue to be robust, and I'm very intrigued to see what the established companies (and perhaps newly created ones) do with this sudden combination of cash flow and "captive" audience. Barring flare ups so bad it requires shutting things completely down again, it's gonna to take another 6-8 months or longer (presuming there even is a vaccine) before people are going to want to congregate in large groups, and probably half a decade to untangle the mess of the economy to put it back to where it was when 2020 started.

As a side note, once we can actual have model contest/shows again in 2021 (maybe late 2020 in some spots) those entry tables are gonna be LIT. ?

Edited May 14, 2020 by niteowl7710

[Tom Geiger]

1 hour ago, niteowl7710 said:

The hobby tends to be very cyclical in inverse proportion to the actual economy. That being it tends to do well during and directly out of economic downturns when people don't have the money to go out much or work on more expensive hobbies. 

The year of 9-11 we worried that NNL East would suffer, but six months after the catastrophic event, we had the biggest attendance ever and the vendors all did very well.

In asking around, people did say that they knew they weren’t going to be going on a big vacation that year so they spent a bit more on their hobby to have something to do at home.

 

[Carmak]

The person to host a weekly model car show would be Steve Magnante. He mentions models every time I see him on TV. If he is half as knowledgeable about models as he is with cars he would do great.

Carmak

[Mike999]

Well, somebody has to be the cynical opportunist.  A few months from now, I predict our thrift stores and flea markets will be LOADED with cheap, partly built kits. Check those boxes carefully, guys 'n gals.  They might have a tube of glue and some bottles of paint in them!

As for economic downturns helping the hobby, I saw that go in the opposite direction and it was personally painful.  Some of you may have read the old "Scale Modeler" and "Military Modeler" magazines. (Both shut down in the 1990s.)  You might remember ads for a store called The Black Watch in Reseda, CA. If you painted figures or built 1/35 scale kits, you may have even ordered from it.

The Black Watch was owned by a really nice guy named Joe Janssen, and he ran it for over 30 years.  He did a lot of business in the early 2000's, selling those big 1/6 scale Dragon military figures ("Battle Barbies!")   I visited his store every Friday and it was always full of people buying those things.  And they were not cheap.  He even supported one customer's Side-Gig:  a retired US Navy veteran who took up sewing during long cruises started sewing custom uniforms for the 1/6 scale figures.  Along with the Battle Barbies, Joe also sold military model kits, the figures, and lots of books and magazines.

From 2005-2009 I was mostly working in Egypt.  When I came back to Los Angeles in 2009, after the big economic crash, The Black Watch was nearly dead. On Fridays, nobody came in anymore.  Joe managed to hang in until 2012, when a new landlord raised his rent. That finished off the store, since Joe couldn't make the rent with the little bit of business coming in.