Intermodellbau 2025 Part 2

As we took more than 300 pictures of which over 100 made into the coverage on Intermodellbau 2025, we continue with part 2 here. We went through Halls 3 to 5, and now arrived with the big vehicles and trucks.

Hall 6 - Car model making & Large scale function model building

Once we entered hall 6, we saw an incredibly large display by IG Modellgiganten Stephan Grabs, where huge RC models in 1:8 scale were shown and a great highlight, especially for our youngest, was the chance to take a ride in one of these. A huge thank you to the hosts for this stunning exhibit.

More large scale displays, partially showing offroad tracks or logistics hubs, were exhibited by clubs like the Minitruckclub Recklinghausen or RMW Techno Scale Club.

And the Modellbaugruppe der Feuerwehr Gelsenkirchen (Model building club of the Gelsenkirchen Fire Department) even had some tabletop on display, and I was surprised to see Black Seas there.

Hall 7 - Railway model building & Building blocks

In hall 7 it was mostly traders for model trains and accessories, but offered a large workshop area for the visitors to join in and give it a try.

The brick exhibition was to be found there as well, but had a lot of empty space. Honestly, I expected a bit more from last years pictures, but the displays by BrickFabrik and Brickstar were nice and we used the chance, that you could take some pictures with the larger builds.

Hall 8 - Steam model building, Military model building, robots

The last hall, due to covering military models, was quite interesting for me. But the models were huge and you could get detail sets and crew, partially 3d printed, for your kits.

The RK Henstedt Ulzburg Militärmodellbau Nord had a large exhibit, of larger scale military vehicles, from armoured cars, half tracks to full on tanks, world war two and modern, partially driving around. Really well done and impressive weathering on some of these pieces. The Bergepanther still in progress was an amazing sight.

Another chance to have a ride, offered the Dampfmodellbau Freunde NRW (Steammodelbuilding Friends NRW), where you could ride a train!

Within this entertaining hall, there even was a Robo-Deathmatch hosted by the Roboteers. Next to the enclosed fighting area, were lots of desks setup to repair and maintain the robots inbetween rounds.

Cruising the show with their 1:1 scale builds, were the Droidbuilders Germany, who went with their R2 and other droids to other halls and interacted with the visitors. Real attention to detail with their props and builds.

And the last thing that I took pictures of at the show were the builds by Kosymo Sci-Fi Modellbau, of various space ships and movie scenes.

After three hours and lots of walking, the kids were done for the day and we headed back home. In case you missed it upfront, we put the parking lot pictures at the end. Parking is vast, I just would make sure to not have my visit collide with a home game of the football club.

Conclusion

I was not entirely sure what to expect, as I read a lot of different comments before the show and especially the model train community seemed a bit disgruntled. There were discussions about prices going up, and the show wouldn't be worth it anymore, due to smaller exhibits in some areas and not that attractive deals. And after my visit I can place some of these views somewhere.

First of all, the show has a lot - and I mean a lot - of clubs there, covering large areas, that are probably not paid by the clubs. From my experience with other shows, like when we did the RolePlayConvention in Cologne, those areas were subsidised by other exhibitors and trade stands (in our case the video game industrie, with a huge profit margin), but I can't really see the manufacturers of model trains in hall 4 and traders in hall 7 paying that much to carry the other areas, so the costs have to be covered somewhere. And it depends a bit on what do you expect from the 17 EURs for a full ticket. If you only go there for a single topic, and your only interests are covered in a hall or maybe two, that might not be the best deal. I see that, but in all of the six halls, you get a lot to see, you are well entertained and that for a longer time than for example the movies.

Regarding the deals on the show. That is tricky. First of all, it highly depends on the market. Some of the B-Stock and bargain bins had decent deals, but quite a few things were next to pointless (A model truck for 1.890 EUR discounted to 1.850 EUR is not really an offer ... I can get that if I pay cash instead of paypal etc.). In times of online shops and 2nd hand more available through internet, prices have become more transparent and you can easily get your 10-20% - without going to a trade show. So that shifts the expectations for those and their visitors. For example, one of the benefits in miniature wargaming is to not pay UK shipping, when you buy at Crisis and Tactica. But with a lot of model kits coming from within Europe, or in case of model trains, even Germany, I don't know how much of an USP this is. Probably more like a one-stop shop, with a broader range than your local model shop offers.

So was it worth it? We surely were entertained. A family ticket is 32 EUR, for the four of us. The kids had a blast, especially my son with all the RC-vehicles, but with the kids being 4 and 6 years, it was a long day for them and a lot of walking. So plan in pauses, make sure you have snacks with you and be patient with the aspect, that you might take longer at certain points if something really catches your kids eyes. For us it was well worth it, as the exhibits were broad and we saw a lot of different things. If you're only into one of them, a more specialised show might be for you. But in times, where even local model train shows charge 5 to 8 Euros, I think it is within reasonable ranges for their ticket prices.

Link: intermodellbau