I have known Marco for about 15 years. He used to have a show in Richmond as well as in Chantilly, but dropped the one in Richmond to concentrate all his efforts for Chantilly.
A show has different purposes for the different types of collectors. Some collectors (like the guys on signingshotline.com) are mainly interested in the in-person autograph signings, so they don't care what dealers are setting up and what they are bringing to sell. There are, of course, the "shiny stuff" collectors, who don't care about the autograph signings nor vintage. The members of Net54 are, obviously, interested in vintage cards & memorabilia, so again it doesn't matter who is signing.
I think Marco has decided that the autograph signings are more important, so therefore a lot of the national dealers have stopped setting up because a lot of collectors of vintage cards were not attending. There may be other reasons, but that's a large part for it. If Marco truly wants a Net54 presence, he would have to put much less emphasis on the autograph signings to try to get the vintage dealers back. Perhaps he could partner with an auction house to have a live auction one evening during that weekend.
Alan
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