wonderfest

My report starts not with the marvels I saw at the show, but the horror of getting there! Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the first thing you find is that Louisville, KY is not an airline hub. So that means transfer points. Sometimes lots of transfer points. My WonderFest trips have consisted of a simple stop at Cincinnatti, or St. Louis, or even Houston. But this time around I flew to Phoenix, to Philedelphia, then Louisville. But because of the wonders of airtravel, I left Oakland, Ca at 8:00 a.m. Thursday and arrived in Louisville at 1:00 a.m. Friday! My luggage was safely locked up in the baggage claim office for the night(I could see them through the window), and I could only pray that my room reservation was okay. It was, and air conditioning and a shower helped me feel human again.

Later that morning, I had breakfast with Randy Neubert, creator of VOO DOO FX. Randy has mastered the art of adding light kits to bring life to any vehicle, and is now enhancing figure kits and dioramas. Check out his site! Then I saw the always gracious Bob and Kathy Burns, and some of the other WF regulars. It started to feel like a show!

I hooked up with Vinnie of RESIN CRYPT, and helped set up his table. Where was my friend, Danny Sorraco of Dimensional Designs? Having as good a travel experience as I did. On his way to San Francisco International, his cab got into an accident. MISSED FLIGHT. After getting an alternate, he reported late at the gate.MISSED FLIGHT. Faced with the choice of flying out later Thursday night or early Friday morning, he chose the a.m.. Good choice, because he had left hiw wallet and I.D. in the cab. When he reported for his morning flight, a glance at his watch told him he had plenty of time to check in. The problem? Unknown to Danny, his watch had stopped. MISSED FLIGHT! When it seemed that he would never make it, finally fate took pity and let him arrive just before 1:00 a.m. Saturday.

You might wonder, is the show worth this kind of torture? And the answer is usually yes. This time I could not honestly say that the show made me forget what it took to get there. There were some very awesome kits, dealers galore, and fantastic artists and modelers. Jeff Yaegher was very cool guy to talk to, and WonderFest could have been renamed The Jeff Yaegher Show! Not only did he sculpt the majority of XoFacto's kits, but he seemed to have sculpted at least one kit for every major kit producer. The man is a kit sculpting machine!

Steve Riojas, a staff writer for AFM, was keeping pace with Jeff as the builder/painter of most of the build ups scattered through the showroom.

As a modeler, the number of kits for sale was overwhelming. But instaed of grabbing everything I could, I thought of how to get it back home. Luckily, there was a shipping service set up on Sunday to solve that problem.

Do I recommend WonderFest? Absolutely! despite the travel, I would plan to be back next year. Maybe I can drive............