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The 2024 IPMS/USA National Convention was held at the Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin. In my opinion, this was the best location for a Nats that I've attended: the vendor area was in one room, rather than being spread out among several rooms. The contest room was divided into two areas, though. The figures, pre-teen, teen and armor categories were in one room while the rest of the categories were in another large room. There was plenty of space in the aisles in all rooms such that folks didn't have to jostle each other (much) to get around. The conference center was also within easy walking distance of many great places to eat. It helped that the temperature and humidity were just about perfect for strolling about. The usual gang of space modelers took advantage of those factors for two nice evenings at the local establishments. Ben Guenther's seminar on the Surveyor program ran long, so we got kicked out before he could get into details on his model which ended up winning the first place in the Real Space category. Rob Schorry ran the Historical Space Modelers seminar and described how he built his very tiny model of the Mars Cube One (MarCO) satellite that was on display in the Tiger Team area. Mike Mackowski also announced that his latest Space in Miniature book on the Saturn V was now available. If you want have any interest in the Saturn V, you'll want to get a copy.
As I mentioned, the vendor room was large enough to contain all of the vendors, which made the "World's Largest Hobby Shop" even more overwhelming. I've got more kits than I'll ever build, but it's still fun looking. I managed to restrain myself and only got a few supplies.
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A really cool part of this year's convention was the Tiger Team display area. The displays were put on by various chapters and SIGs of IPMS. The newly formed Historical Space Modelers SIG had a table that showcased models of historical spacecraft. Mike Mackowski took the lead in having the table banners created which added a nice touch to our display.
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I've limited the number of thumbnail images per gallery to 100. The photos are in the order in which I shot them. I shot all of the Real Space and Real Space Hypothetical contest entries and then just wandered around the room, taking photos of those models that caught my eye. I didn't make it over to the room containing the armor, figure and teen entries, so I apologize for that. I'll try to to better next year.
You can access a photo through its thumbnail on each gallery page or you can page through the photos, since they're all chained together.
Next year's Nats will be in Hampton, Virginia, during the first week of August 2025. I'm planning on being there and at the 2026 convention which will be in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Start making those plans!
Sven Knudson