The way that I see it is this Mil Mod is now owned by MyHobbyStore, they have taken on the magazine to try and get it selling again, people have tried in the past. But it wont sell if you limit the amount of articles that interest everybody. I must admit if there is an AFV article I skip it, Mil Mod tries to cover all aspects of the hobby, but it cant print stuff that is not sent to it.
We all started out buying this magazine and not many of us like the overrunning of mainly AFV stuff in there, but what are you gonna do about it. Ken would gladly put in, more on figures and conversions, but he doesn’t unfortunately, get them sent to him. So looses the following of the figure modellers. Euro Militaire comes along with the magazine and is not as independent as it should be. So because of lower sales of the magazine, so more has to be paid for by the man through the door at Euro and the traders, unfortunately business is business. Another thing that people do forget is that Euro is not a club show, no matter how big it is, they have more overheads on this than say the IMSS, the AMSS, these clubs are glad to make very little profit or even a slight loss. But Euro needs to make a profit to survive, if that means they sell the photo’s, thats what they need to do. But I have some reservations as to how many of the other magazines will buy them after the Mil Mod has already shown them.
I do believe this has not been thought out very well, free advertising is good advertising. If anything, a better method would to have decided which images out of the 2000+ that were taken, Mil Mod were going to print and then let the other Mags have the rest to print, regardless of when, because only Mil Mod do a special on Euro now, and this would mean that they would be showing different photo’s in each of the magazines anyway. At the end of the day, Mil Mod only own them images, they don’t own the models. I think that this could be put down to a little bit of inexperience of the hobby.
So in my mind, not buying the magazine is not the answer. What do you guys want to see in the magazine, its all well and good telling people on the forums what you would like to see, but you should tell Ken. If you want to see a particular item, why not write it yourself and send it in. You want to see pictures of your local show with a write up, then do it and send it in. You go on a visit to a foreign museum, take some pics and do a write up and send it to Ken. He can only say yes or no. There seems to be plenty of people to bash Mil Mod as soon as something goes slightly wrong. But people forget if it wasn’t for Mil Mod there wouldn’t be a Euro Militaire at all now. Support for them both is what is needed. People at the magazine will know you don’t like it if you let them know, they are too busy compiling the magazine to read all the forums for all the comments.
This year saw a massive increase in new judges at Euro and it was a fresh experience from all aspects for me and a welcome change. There always seems to be a problem with the judging no matter what show you go to, but I am not to sure if its all down to the judges really or is it partly down to the recipient of the award. Its a very grey area, as they have to deal with the problem of finding a judge who is competent enough to judge a particular class, but who is willing not to enter that class, so where do you get these judges from, how do you get around this problem, you have more than one judge to cover the class, and at euro most classes will have two-three with people who finish early floating around helping others judge. This being possibly the fairest way to sort this problem out, yes there are some funny decisions made sometimes, but all in all, most of the people on here and other forums, would be happy to receive any award from Euro, but if you have a problem with an award then say so, it will be looked at by the chief judge. I you are not happy with the result you have then ask the judge who judged it, he will gladly explain the results to you. That is what they are there for.
I for one will be buying the Euro special as its a magazine I have been collecting for a long time.
I hope this has not unleashed to much of a can of worms with many of you guys, I for one want to see Euro back on top as a exhibition and competition that is looked upon as one of the great shows that happen every year. Not a benchmark as one of the worst shows to go to. .
Dave
