The Backyard – Support Your LHS This Holiday Season (and every season!)

Hello everyone and welcome to a special Monday edition of The Backyard.

After taking last week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, I figured it would be nice to double up this week, so The Backyard will run Friday as well.

In the spirit of Cubby and the looooooong running and mostly-retired Cub Report, today I wanted to talk about the state of the hobby and why if you haven’t spent any money yet over the holiday weekend, what-with seemingly EVERY hobby shop running crazy deals- you should!

The Covid pandemic saw an insane boon in the hobby industry. Whether it was plastic scale models, model railroads, or the r/c world….everyone had time (and money, apparently!) to either get in to the hobby, get back in to the hobby, or just get MORE into the hobby.

The industry experienced unprecedented growth and business was booming. I remember speaking to a friend of mine who manages a large on-line hobby shop, and he said something to the effect of “Every week, we are doing Christmas-time like business”.

Everyone knew that eventually the roller coaster would crest the hill and start going down for the cycle to complete itself….but boy, even knowing it was going to happen, 2024 was ROUGH on the industry. Everyone from the big OEM’s to your local hobby shop has felt the burn.

So hey, if you’ve got some kind of vehicle/kit/toolset you’ve wanted, and you’re able, you REALLY should go out there and snag it. There have been some crazy sales already this holiday season, and it looks like they are going to continue. The hobby is doing everything they can to entice consumers this year, so take advantage of it!

I know that your LHS would REALLY appreciate your patronage after a year like this! I mean, it’s always important to support your LHS, but this year in particular they could use it.

I know many folks in the industry are hoping for a killer holiday season to hopefully make for a positive end to what’s been a tumultuous year.

To end on a positive note, from what I’ve heard from insider folks, 2025 is forecasted to be a much better year for the hobby at large. That’s great news! Here’s to hoping things get back on track on a nice, steady growth curve. It’s good for us all!

So go on and get out there and support your LHS- help ’em end the year strong!

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!