Quote:
Originally Posted by prewarsports
I have never heard one collector tell me they are excited to spend a ton of money, take a week off of work and fly out to the National so they can see the stuff the auction houses have on display in their 5000 square foot carpeted booths with couches and free pens, taking up half the show floor.
The biggest problem with the National is it used to be a HUGE show without really any limits on exhibitor space and very few corporate entities. It would take you a full day just to walk the floor in a hurry. Now, it is extremely limited and most of the booths are corporate. You can now see the whole show, without even being quick, stopping at every actual dealer table with inventory for sale in one day easy. It went from 1000-2000 dealers to now MAYBE 300-400 dealers once you eliminate the auction houses. It has shifted from a show designed for the collector to one centered around the corporate entity which has killed it for most people. It is insane that they can sell out dealer space within an hour a year in advance and teall dealers "sorry we are full". If there are hundreds of dealers wanting to do the show and can't, which there are, make the show bigger. I know it is not a venue issue because the same shows used to be twice the size in the same venues (Rosemont and Cleveland).
If they would go back to a collector centered event and not limit dealer space to make it "elite" and try to be like comic-con, it would have a huge following like it used to. It is sad to see something so loved by so many people basically become a corporate "look what we have coming up for you" event. It can easily be fixed, but their entire focus has shifted.
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Awesome post.... absolutely on-point, and completely agree. It's so sad that they "sell out", thereby excluding actual Collector-friendly Booths. As usual, the "Mom & Pops" get screwed (along with west coast collectors).
This current crop won't change it back or make the necessary adjustments, so I suppose we just need to hope another management group will take the plunge.