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First of all a heartfelt thank you to the organisation committee under Florian Österreicher. They did an outstanding job for all of us in attendance and also for great communication before the event.

Our north American presence in Kassel this year was only 2 collectors: Kevin Stewart and myself.
The attendance this year was the highest since covid. I have been to every Kassel since 2009. There were a lot of new faces this year.
As you can see on my photos above, all the sales tables in both the big/producers room and the second hand rooms were fully booked.
The dinner on Friday evening was attended by 100 people.
Because of some wrong information from the Waldhotel Schäferberg, the organizers had to find a new hotel for all out of town guests. They found a hotel near the centrum of Kasse3l, 2.5 miles from the train station Kassel Wilhelmshöhe: La Strada. This hotel specializes in large events. It has nice large rooms, all with 2 queen size double beds. The organizers had arranged a deal of EUR 98 + EUR 22 for a plentiful breakfast buffet. A very good deal.

After the mistake of the Schäferberg was discovered, some readers of the MR expressed a desire to book there instead of the LaStrada. Despite pleas of the organizers, not to create a competing event, many old time regulars decided to book the Schäferberg. Unfortunately, this way we were split into 2 groups, about 25 minutes by car. To me, this was disrepectful to all the efforts that the organizing committee had undertaken.
For me, one of the most important aspects of the Kassel meeting was the informal get together both on Friday afternoon and then Saturday evening. But that was lost this year.

As we all have observed over the last few years, the European trend in 1250 models is heavily leaning towards the colored models of ferries, passenger liners etc. In the US, our main interest is still in the grey warship models. This year, there were only a few new grey ships, perhaps as few as 3 or 4.

In conclusion, if you are interested in color models, Kassel is excellent for you.
For me, this will most likely be my last Kassel.