I've gotten onto my anti-contest soapbox several times in this Forum, and I suspect some members are tired of what I have to say about the topic. But I do think it's worth considering.
The following is quoted from a post I made in 2006. Anybody who's already thoroughly sick of hearing what I have to say about it is welcome to stop reading here.
"I've sounded off before on this topic elsewhere in the Forum; those I've already put to sleep in that manner are welcome to stop reading here. I've become convinced over the past fifty years that competitions do at least as much harm to the hobby as they do good for it. I've entered my share of them, and made a thorough idiot of myself more than once. I've also served as a judge quite a few times, and I won't do it again.
"My last major contact with the world of model contests involved the International Scale Ship Model Competition (I think that's what they called it) at the Mariners' Museum. I got my job there shortly after the first contest (in 1980) and had the task of planning the one for 1985. Not knowing what I was getting into, I started by sending out a form to all the people who'd entered the 1980 event, asking them what they thought should be changed next time. Bad idea. Everybody agreed there weren't enough categories; that he/she had been beaten out by models that, for one reason or another, were unfair competitors. If I'd taken all those recommendations, some lucky entrant in the 1985 contest would have gotten a letter reading: 'Congratulations! You've won second place in the the category for semi-scratchbuilt, full-hull, unpainted, rigged models of sailing ships longer than 100' built to scales larger than 1/16"=1' out of wood with hand tools by amateurs - outside a bottle.' Great.
"I left the museum in 1983; in 1985 my former boss called me on the phone and asked if I'd serve as a judge. I said yes, but a month before the event I got laid up in the hospital with a bladder stone. (Fate works in mysterious, wondrous ways.) I did, however, serve as a judge in the 1990 event. It was a fascinating experience; the opportunity to examine so many superb models at close range was great. But it was also frustrating. The other two judges and I spent three days, 9-5, studying those models (there were over a hundred of them), and read the 'research notebooks' that accompanied them in the hotel at night. Three days were all we had; we were taking time off from our jobs, and the museum was footing the hotel bill. The winners we picked were some of the finest models I've ever seen. And as soon as we got done, the trouble started.
"Never in my life have I encountered such a collection of whiny, babyish, egotistical, thin-skinned so-called adults as in the aftermath of model competitions. They deluged that museum with complaints that the judges were biased, the judges were incompetent, the results were rigged, etc., etc. One guy kept writing letters for about six months, eventually announcing that was going to report the museum and the judges to the authorities. (He gave up when he found out that there aren't any such authorities.)
"Model contests seem to bring out the worst in people (including me), and I question how much good they actually do for anybody. I no longer enter them, judge them, or have anything to do with them.
"I get a great deal of pleasure from looking at the work of other modelers; rarely if ever do I see a model that doesn't teach me something. And I enjoy talking to other modelers. But I don't see why any sort of comparative evaluation has to be part of the experience. I hear other people describe themselves as 'naturally competitive'; I guess I'm not. I figure that a medal or ribbon in a contest merely means that those particular judges thought that particular model was better than the others that showed up on that particular day. If my model wins such an award, I know it did so because Donald McNarry, Harold Hahn, and various other folks didn't show up. So how much does it mean? I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anybody, and I don't need somebody to tell me my model isn't as good as some other model. I'm perfectly capable of figuring that out for myself.
"I am, however, a big believer in model exhibitions. The model club of which I'm currently a member (the Carolina Maritime Modeler's Society - meetings at the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort, 2:00 on the fourth Saturday of every month, September through May, new members and visitors always welcome) has been going strong for more than ten years now [make that almost fifteen, as of 20009], without ever holding a contest. I have, in fact, never heard a negative or discourteous word from anybody in the club. Every May, in conjunction with the Museum's annual Wooden Boat Show, we hold an exhibition in which all the members bring in their models and show them off to the public. The subjects range from Chesapeake Bay skipjacks to freighters to RC tugboats to aircraft carriers. Before the exhibition starts, we set up a photographic backdrop and lights, and I take pictures of the models; I make the pictures into prints and CDs, and hand them out the following month to anybody who's interested. The guys in the small craft shop prepare miniature fishing boat kits out of scrap wood, and we set up a booth where kids are invited to buy the little models and build them under our supervision. (Price: $3.00. Average construction time: 15 minutes. Typical reaction to the experience: sheer ecstasy. [Most enthusiastic participants in the past few years: Girl Scout troops.]) Everybody has a great time, everybody learns something, and nobody fights about anything. [Near exception: a couple of years ago some kid lifted the radar screen off a member's scratchbuilt Aegis cruiser and started running around the room with it. I came close to commiting homicide.] That's my notion of what model building - or any other hobby - is supposed to be about."
I'm not on a crusade to exterminate model contests. The character and effects of any contest depend heavily on the people organizing and taking part in it. Many contests undoubtedly are beneficial to individual modelers and to the hobby as a whole. About forty years of contest watching have convinced me, though, that as a whole they do at least as much damage to the hobby as they do good.
To each his/her own; anybody is certainly free to ignore any or all of the above. But please think about it.