Featured Hobby Shops: Model Land

Our next hobby shop interviewee is Garett Willington, proprietor of Model Land.  Regular TV viewers might recognize Garett as the (in)famous Model Man.  All-right!

RMMC: Most modellers have fond memories of buying kits with their pocket money as children.  How did you get started in the hobby?

GW: I was born and raised in a small town, about two hours outside of Calgary.  We didn’t have any hobby shops around, so I had no idea what a model kit was and no exposure to the hobby.  The first kit I ever got was from my Grandmother.  She had moved here from England, and brought me back an Airfix kit after one of her trips back home.  I think it might have been the Fairey Rotodyne.  I’m not sure why she bought me a model; maybe one of my cousins in England told her how popular they were.  The box got crumpled in her suitcase, and the tube of glue had exploded and melted a few of the pieces, but I loved it.  Every trip, she’d bring back more models for me, and I’d get them as presents over the year.  The boxes were usually battered from the trip, and the tubes of glue had usually burst, but I still loved them.

I got hooked on aircraft when I was a little older.  It was a Wen Mac Aircobra control line aircraft that started my love of R/C.  I had a friend who was a few years older and had turned his house in a modeller’s paradise – a room for sanding, a room for building, and plans all over the walls – and we’d watch the modelling corner segments on the old Buck Shot show.  It sounds really nerdy now, but we thought it was great.  He could drive into Calgary to buy stuff from the hobby shops, so he’d often give me his old equipment.  I’d build over the winter, and then fly in the summer.  I probably went through six or seven planes before I could really fly them; I’d love to get my hands on the first few transmitters I used – I bet they flat out didn’t work!

RMMC: What led you from small town enthusiast to opening your own hobby shop?

GW: I guess you could say it was an early mid-life crisis.  I was a mechanic in my home town, sort of a jack-of-all-trades, but wanted a change.  The hobby is what I enjoyed and what I’d think about while I was at work.  If I needed to head into Calgary, I’d plan my trip around the hobby shops: what time they were open, that sort of thing.  So it seemed like an ideal choice. 

B&B Hobbies had originally been in the Bow Trail Texaco station.  The owner was interested in stocking control line planes, and brought them up from the US.  Their business expanded, they moved a couple of times, and eventually they were running both a retail hobby shop and a successful wholesale business.  One day I asked him if he had ever thought about selling the shop.  It turns out he’d been wanting to focus on the wholesale side, so it worked out for both of us – B&B became a wholesaler and I bought the store, changed the name to Model Land, and have been running it ever since.

RMMC: Since this is something of a dream job for you, what is the best thing about owning your own hobby shop?

GW: There are a lot of things.  I’ve made a lot of good friends over the years.  A lot of our customers are regulars, and it’s fun to hear what they’re doing.  We also learn a lot from our customers and their input makes us better.  It’s also fun to see kids coming in with their parents to buy their first model.  It’s a throwback to that first, crumpled Rotodyne, and it means a new generation will continue the hobby.

RMMC: Are there any downsides?

GW: Well in terms of being a brick and mortar store, the internet has had its pros and cons.  It’s fantastic as a global information exchange – I mean, if I want to learn about something, the first thing I do is Google it – but that information isn’t always accurate.  There’s a lot of misinformation out there.  Sometimes that means we’ve got to set our customers straight.  They might read in a chat room that this kit is good or that kit is bad, this item is readily available, or that company is out of business, and it’s not always the case.

RMMC: What’s the biggest misconception modellers have about owning a shop?

GW: That they’ll make millions doing it!  And thinking that it gives me the chance to build lots of models.  If you have enough spare time to build models when you own a hobby shop, either you’re doing something wrong, or else everything is going right.  When I first set up Model Land, I had a little room in the back to build planes.  I think I finished one in the first six months and since then, it’s been too busy.

RMMC: In a crowded hobby world, what sets your store apart from the other shops in town and online?

GW: We’ve got a lot of kits in stock.  We bring in lots of new stuff, but we’ve also got a great selection of older, hard to find kits.  I think we’re known for our selection.  Our goal is to have what the customers want on hand, not have to order a kit or have them go home empty handed.  I guess it comes from my small town experience: when I’d drive two hours to go to a hobby shop, I wanted to be sure they had whatever it was I wanted to buy.  And I think it’s important to be able to touch and feel the kit you want, before you buy it.  You can’t do that on-line

RMMC: Are there any upcoming releases that have you particularly excited?

GW: For me it would be the two new AVGP kits that Trumpeter have announced and Sea Vixen from Airfix. There is a rumour of 1/350 scale kit of the tribal Class Destroyer too, which would be neat. And lets not forget that Trumpeter have announced a 1/25 scale Ford Falcon.

Many thanks to Garett for sharing his time with us.  After you’ve clicked through our virtual tour of the store, you can visit Model Land on-line or stop in to peruse the aisles in person (don’t forget to check out the basement for more hidden gems).  And you can always see what’s new and in stock with their handy on-line cagalogue.