Question for Dealers/Show Vendors

[yanks87]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Oh, brother, are you in for some pain! I co-promoted three shows in Los Angeles several years ago. It is a ton of work and you are virtually guaranteed to lose money for the first few shows at least.

You have it all backwards. The table fee is the last thing to set. Get your back-end paperwork done first: contracts, business licenses and insurance, etc. if working with partners, draft a comprehensive venture agreement. Find your venue. A good venue will know and will be able to tell you exactly how many tables you can handle in the space. Evaluate parking and load-in/load-out conditions and requirements, whether the venue allows previous day set up, whether the venue supplies tables, cloths, etc., as part of the fee or extra, or whether you will have to purchase materials and/or contract with outside event furnishing vendor(s) to provide them. If the latter, research a vendor list and costs/terms. Decide whether to offer dealers incentives for multiple-table reservations. Determine whether you will need to comp tables to certain vendors, like a TPG, and if so try to negotiate co-promotion activities in return through their platforms. Cost out and then decide whether it makes sense to hold a multiple day event or a single day event. Decide whether you want to offer free admission (hint: for a new show, you do). Determine your marketing strategy and budget. Sit down and do a spreadsheet of all costs and decide how many shows to hold over the lifespan of some of the fixed costs (like insurance, which can be purchased per event or per time period). When you have all of the data then you can back into the table fees.

I would also strongly suggest not having guests. They are hugely expensive and do not really add anything to the admissions rate; people are already starved for card shows anyway.

I hear you, I have been in event design for 20 years now, and we are checking all blindspots on this one. It's been a while since I showed at a card show and I know table prices have changed since the 90's. I just wanted to get a gauge from some of the dealers/auction house guys on the board what the going table rate currently is. We are currently filling out those costing spreadsheets and figuring out where we need to be to not LOSE too much money, but if the concept plays, that might be a win too.