The 2026 Nats are in the books! It has been a few days since the show ended and I am still recovering. My wallet was not as lucky and is in intensive care. Fortunately, Fort Wayne is a little more than an hour away so I was able to commute each day and sleep in my own bed, loyal sherpa and good friend Warren Dickenson also stayed at the house and was indispensable for drinking buddy and model transportation duties. We were able to entertain some weary travelers along the way and took a day to divert to the NMUSAF which was less than two hours from the house in the other direction. The big deal was seeing old friends and meeting others known only by reputation and internet or business connections.

The show saw 3,110 entries with over 1,000 additional models in the display-only Tiger Meet room upstairs. This was the best kept secret of the show as most of the modelers I spoke with weren’t aware of the Tiger Meet and both times we were there it was nearly empty. The display area was huge but still crowded due to the large number of entries, I tried to snap a photo without the crowd but was shut down by an over-enthusiastic hall monitor. Grand Wayne Convention Center is an outstanding facility, clean and spacious, there was ample space between the tables in both the vendors’ and display areas. The air conditioning kept up despite the crowd and the humid Hoosier summer, and the deafening roar of crowd noise was absent due to the excellent acoustics. Also, a big shout out to our fellow modelers for passing this year’s Modeling Hygiene Challenge! If you know, you know.

The vendors’ areas were deadly. A dozen kits, eleven books, and a small mountain of figures, bases, tools, decals, and miscellaneous supplies stowed away in my backpack before I escaped. Fortunately my feet gave out before my personal finances were completely decimated and so my marriage was saved.

By all accounts the show was a huge success, due in large part to the City of Fort Wayne financially incentivizing the venue selection in the interests of tourism. Perhaps the small city paradigm will be the path forward in the future! From the members’ perspective the easy accessibility, affordability of food & drink, minor league baseball, cheap parking, friendly people, great venue, and safe environment are tough to beat!

The poker chips and challenge coins were out in force, this is a really neat concept and I hope it catches on. These were left by individuals alongside the models they liked, a nice individual “attaboy” and a great way to spread out some recognition beyond the traditional GSB. In many respects the personal chips mean as much if not more than a formal award, I’m looking to order some myself to use at future shows.

The one thing I would like to see improved is the wrap-up. The banquet was dropped this year which was a huge improvement, but the awards slide show started three hours after the contest room closed and went long anyway. The sooner the festivities wrap up the sooner you can have drinks with your modeling buddies, and my memory is such I have to check the awards lists on the IPMS site anyway. One guy’s opinion.

Here is a small sampling of photos, I obviously didn’t capture all the models and there are always pictures I took which didn’t turn out well. If some of these are new to you, they are likely Tiger Meet displays. I’ll post others on the Plastic Model Mojo Facebook page and iModeler.

Inch High Guy

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