I know Ed Keetz had one or two in the Albany area and I think there was one other place in the Boston/Baltimore megalopolis where that was done. It was fun to attend as a customer and not have to see happy shiny cards. Not that there is anything wrong with happy shiny cards, but just seeing everyone's best material on display was really cool.

The pre-1980 show was sometime in the 1990's. Perhaps don has the exact date (s)

Rich

Dennis Purdy
 

Dennis purdy also ran one ( a pre 1976 show)in the San Francisco area in the late 1990s.

I set up at the Ed Keetz pre 1976 shows--they were great and he was a outstanding promoter---the Boston show was also like 30 years ago--those were the days---I really think this National in Chicago has well over 300 dealers, if you go on the National site, there is a listing of all the dealers---also regarding getting a booth, my friend is # 2 on the list, and no luck yet as far as somebody dropping out---cant wait for the National.

Agree

National
 

I recently found a program from the 1992 Atlanta National held in the spacious World Congress Center. This was a time when the National was at it's peak as far as attendance and many more dealers setup up.

While grilling this afternoon I quickly analyzed the floor plan from 1992 and 2017. I may be off by a small amount but this fairly close.

In 1992 there were around 878 booths. Around 542 were interior booths with 8 feet of space exposed to the public and 336 end cap booths with 16 feet of customer exposure.

According to the floor plan on the NSCC website in 2017 there are 508 booths. 196 10 X 10 booths with 16 feet of public exposure and 312 10 X 15 booths with 22 feet of public exposure. All booths are corner booths in a quadrant as in 1992 you had some endcaps but alot of interior booths with one side exposed to the public.

1992: 542 interior booths X 8 ft = 4,336 ft
336 endcap booths X 16 ft = 5,376 ft

total 9,712 feet

2017: 196 10 X 10 booths X 16 ft = 3,136 ft
312 10 X 15 booths X 22 ft = 6,864 ft

total 10,000 ft

I am willing to bet most people would think in 1992 there would have been much more exhibit space than 2017. There were some corporate table/booths in 1992 and much more in 2017. The booth numbers above do not include any corporate tables/booths.

Make what you want out of these numbers but I found it interesting.

Also keep in mind in 2017 and dealer may pick up to four booths. In 1992 you could pick up to two booths. Today you may see a dealer listed have multiple booths in his name but more than one dealer is setting up in this block. There are some instances where a dealer has two or three booths in his name and two or three dealers are setup in the dealer's booth space.

On the website they list 296 dealers but with multiple dealers setting up with each other there should be over 400 different dealers.

Rhys-Any update on your situation?