Thank you to Leon and supporters: Jim Thorpe Show TOMORROW

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

It's not all about making a huge profit, we fully expected to take a loss the first time out the door. It's just that the size loss that we took is way bigger than we can handle. That being said if we had eliminated the autographs we would have been somewhere around break even which would have been fine.

My motives were threefold.

One, to fix the problems that I consistently see at shows. basically to promote a show the way I feel it should be promoted and correct the practices I see that, as a dealer at a show, make me less than thrilled.

Two, to give back. We were hooked up with the Jim Thorpe Area Sports Hall of Fame. The non profit that cares for the Jim Thorpe Memorial Park and Mausoleum. They are working on adding a third life-sized statue to the park and I wanted to be a part of that.

Three, hey who wouldn't like to make a buck? But again we didn't expect to make anything this time out.

As for the admission, I do another one day show at a location that has a lot of built in foot traffic. They pack the place, and each subsequent show there have been more people and less sales. I wanted to do a show for actual collectors, not bystanders and onlookers. As a way of paying them back we did drawings and contests for over $100 in "Dealer Bucks."

Never did I think of this as a get rich quick scheme. If that was my attitude I wouldn't have worked so hard and certainly wouldn't have spent so much. I want to build something for the future, and with the right tweaks I don't think, despite the huge losses, that it's out of the question.

[Rich Klein]

Scott;

More than you realize I get it:

1) I also begin running shows in DFW (I began with the Adat Chaverim show) as a way to give back to the community and run the shows the way I would want them run as a dealer.

That's why at that show, we GIVE you cards and an extra surprise in our bags with your suggested donation. That's correct for $1 -- you get over 100 cards plus an extra goodie for coming in the door. We were doing door prizes, but Texas State laws for non profits caused us to change what we do on that part of the show. I should also menti8on that when I began the non-profit show at Adat, I spent probably 2 hours total with good friend Mark Macrae on the phone who gave me great advice based on his 30+ years worth of experience on how to run a non-profit show.

2) That led to the monthly show I run. I want to run the show as a relaxed day for the dealers and for the customers and try to do something a little special each time. Even if it is something as simple as giving free cards to kids, free admission for kids and significant others and reduced table prices for vets/active service personnel or $90 in door prize scrip (We did all 3 of these last Saturday)
If we have a guest, I do become a bit stretched in terms of my time and attention but overall I hope the guest comes close to paying for himself (Unless his autograph is free with admission) and then with some items we get a low price point for items for sale. I can live with a small loss to get items signed. I.E. $100 loss on a show for 100 signed items is perfectly fine by me.

3) $5 admission cost. Now THAT is a pet peeve of mine. You yourself said you did the $5 admission to "intended the $5 admission insured that those who came, came to buy" That is why I asked about the venue cost. IMHO, if you want to limit your dealers and your collectors that is fine, but I get really frustrated here in DFW when there is a $5 or more (GTSM at $10) entry fee. For that price, you should be giving the customers something for just coming in the door. We have a promoter who does 4 shows in the DFW area each year and he has many issues. One of those issues is that he charges $5 for "early bird" and then $3 for the rest of the day. He calls that pre qualifies the customer. There was actually something last week who almost hauled off and hit him for having the gall to ask for $5 and he turned around and walked out. If the place costs you a lot of money, I get it, but if they worked with you on the price to help their cause, I would have been cheaper on both dealer tables and especially admission price.

As a person who has now run shows in DFW for nearly 3 full years now, all of this are things I feel very strongly about in terms of what I want to do for dealers and collectors

Rich

[Leon]

Rich is much more coherent behind a keyboard than in person.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by Leon

Rich is much more coherent behind a keyboard than in person.

Leon:

Those show days are really long for me. I'm just happy to say $1 please on those days

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

venue cost us over $2500 if you like that explanation better.

[Snapolit1]

My two cents, and not having done this even once, would be to drop the autograph part unless you have reason to believe you are tapping into something really special. If you are running a show in a Boston suburb and can get a Red Sox star from the 70s or 80s, that's cool. Getting a hockey player -- relatively few people are into hockey -- is not going to pack a line. Just my 2 cents.

Scott, I'm sorry that it didn't meet your expectations. I don't envy you trying to figure this out.

[Rich Klein]

Scott:

Trust me, I get the whole idea of room costs. I was just curious because if you drew 100 people at $5 each, would you have done as well to draw 200 people at $3 each. I know you say you do a show with great foot traffic but not a lot of serious collector traffic.

That helps, and if you want to PM me your details, we can discuss and figure out whether the $5 admission made sense. NOW, I will also say, if $1-2 of the admission went to the Jim Thorpe project, then to me that *IS* giving something back with the admission cost.

Just my MOO

Rich