My local club on Cape Cod is very small, maybe only 8 or 9 regulars: there's me, a 1:72 German armour builder, a guy who does the most amazing scratchbuilt fire fighting vehicles, and the rest are cars or whatever takes their fancy! The only competition I attend annually is Valleycon in Chicopee, Massachusetts and there are only 3 or 4 regular WWI exhibitors including myself, but there is a special award for best WWI aircraft, which is nice. We also enter under "rigged and multi-wing" but there are very few, if any, in that class other than WWI aircraft.
I prefer the "elite" label myself: although we all know that rigging isn't as hard as it looks, that's what puts so many off, I think!
Ian