IPMS Belgium Plastic & Steel 2019 Show Report

Well, as usual this was the finale to Stonehenge Modellers' show year and the now very familiar jump across the Channel on Friday early in the morning with a pretty easy drive up to Affligem to set up then off to Aalst to our hotel and a few well earned beers.

Saturday morning saw us at the show bright and early but not as bright and early as others because the car park was full. No issues there as plenty of parking could be found along the adjacent roads. We then had a bit of time before the doors opened to have a good look around and chat to some of the IPMS Belgium guys. As ever the show was busy with plenty of interest in our display and some interesting conversations with visitors. 

Paul Badman from Modellers' Haven Online forum again made the very long journey from Germany to the show with some models for the competition so became an Honorary Member for the weekend. Of course beers went down at 10am sharp as we decided to go completely continental for the weekend!

This year we again awarded a special prize for the Best Post War Vehicle in the competitions, again a hard task as there were so many superb models this year again. However we finally chose a superb scratch built example of an M44 Self Propelled Howitzer. The workmanship was absolutely stunning and as a bonus it was built as a Belgian Army vehicle too.

Sunday seemed even busier than Saturday and it was great to meet up again with Marc Mercier and discuss his tank in the form of the Leopard I built for the show. It was also great to say hello to other followers of the Blog, sorry I can't name you all it was a bit of a blur at times! Here are my pictures from the show.

Paul gained a silver award for his superb WW2 typhoon and also received a special award for the best aircraft model with D-day markings presented by IPMS Nederland. 

I also came away with an award! Very unexpected as I don't enter competitions but I won the best Chibi (egg plane/ toon model) at the show with my Sherman Firefly! This was presented by Retrokit and judged from all the egg plane & toon subjects throughout the show. I even received a 25 euro voucher which was really great. 

Stash additions now and a decent amount of new stuff went swiftly under our stand tables throughout the weekend, some of which will be started very soon!

So as ever a really brilliant show expertly run by Erwin and the crew from IPMS Belgium who work really hard to make everyone welcome. Topped by great company, great beer and great food the whole trip was a massive success and extremely inspirational and the perfect way to end our show year.