Several hundred AMPS members, contestants, vendors, and visitors once again descended on Havre de Grace, Maryland in April to take part in AMPS 2007. After a few weeks of cold, wet weather in the northeast, the skies cleared and the thermometer went way up so we could really enjoy the weekend. The show was held on April 19th-21st and was a very successful event. It followed the example of the previous year's show in Hubbard, Ohio by opening on Thursday night. Judging by the number of people in the hall that night, this should become a standard practice for all AMPS Nationals. But even better, the hall was full the entire weekend, right through the awards ceremony. In total, there were 337 models entered by 130 contestants. We had 350 walk-ins come through the doors. Perhaps even more impressive was the dozens of new members who joined or rejoined and took advantage of the special rate combos on admission and AMPS membership dues at the show. Another very nice part of the show was the tremendous quantity and quality of raffle donations we received this year. The table was full of goodies, including a complete set of Stackpole Book's Military History Series, and dozens of new releases from both DML and AFV Club. A bonus from AFV Club was the test shot sprues and first kit build up of their soon to be released Stryker. It looks like a very nice kit!

The number of models at the show was down from previous years, but the number of people in the model display and vendor areas seemed to be larger. Perhaps we have not been building as much lately? (I know I had that problem this year...) Although the number of models was down, the quality was definitely not. There were simply fantastic models on the display tables, and we were very happy to see many of them were built for the show theme, "Fish Tanks". The winners of the Best Of categories were:

Anubis Creations Best T-34 Award - Downtime by Stephen Nichols
Armorama.com Best WW2 Sherman Award - The Hard Way by Jim Wechsler

Andy Smith Best Shot Award – Georg Eyerman
Best US – GMC CCKW by Tony Fradkin
Best German – LSSAH Panther by Rick Minichiello
Best Russian – Zis 42 with Maxium MG's by Tony Zadro
Best Commonwealth – Sherman V by Steve Guthrie
Best Small Army – IDF M2 by Mark Hazzard
Best Figure – Der Instructor by Tony Zadro
Best Diorama – Wrong Turn by Kurt Figard
Theme Award – M4A3 Sherman by Jim Wechsler
Best of Show People’s Choice – Saviors in Saipan by David Vickers
Best of Show Judges’ Choice – IDF M2 By Mark Hazzard

The vendor area is always a great place at an AMPS show and this year was no different. There were 34 vendors spread out over 80 tables at the show. They brought tons of great items and were once again the reason many people at AMPS went home with empty wallets! Many newly released items were available, lots of great books and magazines, hard-to-find detail and accessory sets, and supplies of all types were on sale. We were also treated to free copies of the inaugural issue of a great new magazine, ModelX, and to free medallions created with 3-D prototyping equipment from Printapart. The medallions featured the Printapart logo on one side and the AMPS logo on the other - very cool, just like the technology used to create them!

Information sharing was once again an important part of the show. Seven formal seminars were held, and all were well attended; 195 people in total attended the seminars. The presenters were Steve Guthrie, Nick Cortese, Danny Egan, Chuck Rothman, Tom Gannon, Steve Zaloga, and Tom Jentz. Our thanks to all of them for supporting the show!

This year, after hearing rumors of its existence for the past few years, I had an opportunity to visit the Braille Scale Meeting held in the food tent just before lunch on Saturday morning. I was very impressed by the discussion of small-scale modeling that took place amongst the 16 guys who attended. It really hit home for me that this kind of easy-going gathering where guys can talk about their hobby and share information with each other in a very friendly, relaxed atmosphere is one of the real reasons AMPS is so valuable to our hobby. I hope to be able to attend more of these meetings at future AMPS shows, and I encourage others to create small gatherings like this one.

So to wrap-up this wrap-up, I would like to thank all the guys and gals who helped put together another successful AMPS Nationals. It certainly takes a lot of time and effort to get this organized, but the Show Committee was up to the task of preparing things prior to the show. A huge relief to me was the flood of volunteers that helped enormously throughout the weekend in all aspects of the show. Hall setup, judging, running models to the display tables, registration, security, helping the vendors in and out, organizing the raffle table, and a few hundred more tasks it takes to put on a show of this size and complexity were completed when required. My thanks to all who helped with the show!

Onward to AMPS 2008 at the Victory Museum in Auburn, Indiana!

Dave Potter
AMPS 2007 Show Chairman