BreyerFest 2010 Wrapup

An unremarkable day at the flea market this Sunday: quite a few vintage Hartlands, a smattering of Breyer bodies, and some common H-R minis. All I really bought was some old paper - vintage craft magazines, and a huge stack of early NASA promotional brochures, ca. 1958-1964. Astronomy and early space flight are another minor interest of mine; I don’t go out of my way to collect any of that stuff per se, but I pick it up if I find it. The graphics tend to be quite beautiful, too, including this little gem:


Speaking of paper, I’m almost finished sorting out my BreyerFest ephemera finds - I sort of had to, considering that Evil has finally figured out how stairs work, and my office doesn’t have a door. ("No honey, Escondido is NOT a chew toy!") I’ll probably be posting a few things on MH$P soon, including a small number of late 1970s-early 1980s Dealer Catalogs. (Managed to do a little upgrading!)

Just a few more thoughts on this year’s BreyerFest, before I resume the straight up history-talking again.

There were some minor improvements - the Bag Check line and Store Special limits, for example - but overall, BreyerFest this year seemed more disorganized that average. Was it a change in personnel, a result of restrictions imposed by the park because of the WEG, or some unknown financial considerations that threw everything off kilter?

As always, I found the judging for the Custom Contest - the "Look-A-Like" Contest, this year - baffling. Looking at the entries left on the table, and comparing them to the winners, didn’t make much sense to me. I was relieved to overhear that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. Hey, I knew my entry was a bit of a long shot - a Classic Foal painted metallic black, mounted on a base with a PhotoShopped poster of "The Maltese Foalcon" - but all the ones I thought were legitimate contenders also went unplaced. (Lest you think it sour grapes, I found 2009’s winners equally mystifying, and I didn’t even manage to muster an entry that year.)


The Costume Contest could have been handled much, much better, too. Some of the chaos surrounding that event was due to the short notice, but there was no excuse making everyone wait … and wait … and wait around for judging to begin. And then making us parade around the ring, after telling us we’d have a "red carpet" to walk on. And then not announcing the winners until after the raffle, after most of the audience had left for dinner or the hotel. It takes a little of the excitement of winning away when most of your audience disappears. (Isn’t playing to the audience sort of the whole point of dressing up like a celebrity?)

The way food was handled this year was also an issue for me. There was no opening night reception at the HIN on Thursday, and only a smattering of snacks - cookies, lemonade, popcorn - Saturday night. Served on the floor of the Covered Arena. (Seriously?) I know there have been issues with the food in the past; I haven’t had many complaints about it, but I’m evidently not the gourmand everyone else in the hobby thinks they are.

(Lest you think I was raised with an unrefined palate, my Mother’s main creative outlet is gourmet cooking; she has as many - if not more - binders of clipped recipes as I have of reference materials. She knows how to use ‘em, too. On the menu today: Chicken Cacciatore!)

I had no significant condition issues with my Tent Ticket models, other than slightly bent legs on my Child Star/Stage Mom set. It would have been nice if we had had the opportunity to look at the selections Thursday night; that’s when I usually make my final selections. The uncertainty was unnerving.

I briefly considered going with the Color Change Huck Technicolor, but opted for my original second choice instead, which was the Red Carpet Royalty Goffert. His subtly dappled paint job would have won him greater acclaim - and better sales - if he had had a chance to show off the night before, I think.

I was not pleased at the number of people who were obviously buying the Giselle/Gilen set to customize. What, you can’t wait for a more reasonably priced, and less collectible version to come out in a few months? Yeesh. That sort of thing always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when the models being customized are already limited, and in high demand. It feels like a thumb in the nose of us mere OF collectors, y’know?

Loved the Volunteer Model this year, an iridescent red chestnut Missouri Fox Trotter. A favorite color, on a favorite mold? That one's gonna hurt for a while.

Next year’s reservation’s been made; I’m a little uncertain about next years theme of "Fairytails:" I’m in the minority when it comes to the frou-frou princess-y Unicorn and Pegasus thing. (Am I the only one in the world who wasn’t all that excited about the Dragon Horse Merlin Raffle a few years ago?)