National: Any Seller's perspectives?

[rand1com]

For many, many years the National has used the Priority Lottery system to sell booths.

Each year you have set up at the National counts as a year of Priority with 43 being the highest possible number since next year is National #43. There are 7 dealers who have that Priority.

Dealers select from the floor layout based on their number in the lottery when their priority comes up. The lottery is only within each priority year so if 20 dealers have a 25 number, those 20 cards are shuffled and called in order to pick and hence the term lottery is used.

There is no way under the current system to sub divide the floor into say vintage, memorabilia, or modern. When your turn comes up, you pick what you consider the best remaining available booth or booths based primarily on location to the front of the room.

Will the new management company change that process? Highly unlikely!

[Exhibitman]

Is there any real reason other than inertia why the show cannot be split into different areas in different rooms? Comicon takes the entire convention center and uses every bit of it. Why not put discrete activities, like autographs or breaks or livestream areas into ancillary conference rooms? The people who want that stuff are gonna go for it regardless and the people who don't care about it had a hard time finding dealers, from what I have heard.

Also, the National needs an all-inclusive app. If they want more corporate booths and more interactive stuff, they need a truly interactive map so people can find it all. That would also resolve the issue of putting specific elements in different areas: as long as they are on the app and you can find them, you will. All tickets and badges should be strictly phones, no more of these fucking lanyards or wristbands or waiting in lines for clerical types to fish out packets from a bucket. As for the autographs, I heard that was a real horror show for people and a real zoo atmosphere as a result. The National app could integrate a scheduling function like medical labs use. You check in with your phone and they ping you when your time comes up. Hell, that's how I order at Shake Shack: input at the kiosk and wait for a text instead of hovering around the pickup area. If a player is dragging his ass like Kareem Abdul Jabbar playing defense, no need to stand there for hours waiting.

And while I am in Mr. Helper mode, if the show really is growing past the size of the Rosemont facility, it needs to go to Las Vegas. The Sands Expo Center and the Las Vegas Convention Center each can provide over a million square feet of contiguous space. The former is part of the Venetian, which is a non-union facility. There are 20,000+ hotel rooms in walking distance in an area that is as safe at midnight as at noon, the airport is one of the world's busiest and largest, and there is interstate access literally to the front door of the venue. Oh, and did I mention all-night bars and world-class dining with everything from fast food to Michelin starred restaurants? Plus, lots of fun somewheres for the wife and kids to piss off to while daddy is at the show.

The ONLY reason Vegas is not in the rotation is that the venue owners are not desperate enough to throw bribes at the dealers and offer the show runners a free or nearly free space. If the criteria for show venues revolves around a free space, of course the options are limited to venues desperate for the business.

[Jewish-collector]

Any of these are all larger in exhibition space (contiguous ?) than the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center:


convention centers.JPG

[Lobo Aullando]

Here are the ones I thought would work. A rotation that includes the possibilities of Anaheim, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Orlando would get reasonable churn in material and local customers, and it would mostly be in highly accessible transport hubs.

Las Vegas
I'm only looking at the LVCC since I'm lazy.

There are two spaces around 600ksf, plus another that's basically two 450ksf spaces stacked one on top of another.







Orlando
The OCCC has the most straight-line space of any. Halls A and B are 640ksf, tack on Hall C for another 100ksf+, and if that's not enough then Hall D has another 150ksf+, as does the adjoining Hall E should what's listed so far be inadequate.





Atlanta
Please. Just please. Get it over with already.

Atlanta has the most contiguous space, if in a horseshoe shape. Hall B has a bit over 600ksf, Hall C has over 400ksf, and the B/C connector has enough ksf to push it past Orlando for the most space.





Dallas
The KBH has about 710ksf.





Anaheim
I'm throwing this one in for good measure.

Halls A-D make for 665ksf+, and Hall E is another 140ksf nearby that can be used.




Philadelphia and Houston are closer to 500ksf, which after experiencing the crush load in 2021, I have little desire to be in a facility where every table is 2-3 collectors deep.