At 08:57 26-05-05, Ron Notarius wrote:
(1) Attendance cost continues to climb. 12 years ago, the discrepancy
between tickets bought in advance and at the door was $2. Now it's $5. So
those who decide on short notice to go (and this includes those who weren't
sure until the last minute if they COULD go) get socked. Now add in daily
parking of $7 - $10 (when it used to be $4 or $5). Park at the Salem Mall?
Sure, it's free parking, but the bus ride (once free) is now an $8 ticket.
And if there's any other public transit to the HARA Arena, I'm not aware of
it. Point is, when you add all this up, it can cost around $45 or more just
to walk in the door. That's a lot of shekels to spend.
Solution: Somehow, DARA has to find a way to drop ticket prices. Whether
or not they can get the parking vendor(s) to cut their prices too is
arguable, but they can at least try.
One of my other hobbies is literary science fiction, and my wife and I try
to get to about 3 or 4 conventions a year. These are typically gatherings
of fans and authors, mostly low-key but with great parties, a decent
dealer's room and much frivolity. These are typically held in
hotel/convention centres.
Regional conventions typically cost about $50 a weekend at the door and
about $40 or so if you pre-register. Hotels are always better in quality
and all cost about $100 or so a night, often with paid parking.
The equivalent to Hamvention is called Worldcon (the World Science Fiction
convention), and is hosted in a different city every year. At the door
memberships are close to $200 or more (these are 5-day extravaganzas,
usually held over the Labour Day weekend in the US but always in the
summer). Add in airfare, hotels, etc and it's a $1500 weekend easily.
Worldcons typically average about 4000 attendees.
To get to Dayton costs me $190 in airfare, $300 in hotels, $70 for a rental
car and finally a paltry $28 for the show itself with bus transfers
included plus 3 meals a day. If I drove from NYC it would be three
tankfulls of petrol (about $90) instead of airfare+car. For the opportunity
to immerse myself in my favourite hobby, learn about many new products and
services that impact my enjoyment, get to participate if forums, attend
banquets and hospitality suites with 20,000 of my fellow hams is WELL worth
the money spent.
(2) Exhibitors are dropping like flies. Most cited reason: Too
expensive. DARA adopted a policy some years ago to charge more for multiple
flea market spaces, this back in the days when the flea market sold out well
in advance and there was a waiting list. Cutting a break to your huge
vendors is almost a given these days
This is a dumb policy, especially in light of eBay and E-Ham's popularity.
I, too expected to see more spaces filled in the flea market given
Saturday's (unusually) perfect weather. They have to do something to change
this trend, absolutely.
we've all heard by now about Mendolsen's (sp?) dropping out because they
didn't get a break. How much
did that hurt?
Didn't affect me personally. I've gone through their tent in the past and
found much of it to be junque. Good for power cords and muffin fans, perhaps.
What were some of the vendors thinking? The "Hamsexy.com" goofballs were
handing out toothbrushes. (What does being the "anti QRZ.COM" mean,
anyway?).
Hang out on Hamsexy.com for a while and you'll see why. QRZ.com will banish
any member who even makes reference to Hamsexy in one of their forums, etc.
Hamsexy itself is a movement by hams who are tired of the bad reputation
given to practitioners of our fair hobby by the smelly, unkempt anti-social
and otherwise slovenly members. You know, the ones that make you have, what
I call, a "divide-by-zero error," or like strangled sound the Aflac duck
makes when encountering a Yogi Berra comment. Or hams who will try to
squeeze a penny so hard that they goose Abe and create copper wire in the
process.
Personally, I'm glad they came out and hope their message gets around more.
Yaesu was hading out breath mints.
I've done trade shows of all kinds in the past. It's a move towards
self-preservation. Trust me. I ran into one ham last weekend who sure could
have used some, lemme tell you!
ICOM had those young girls
running around in pink fuzzy robes & slippers, wearing PJ's & T-Shirts
underneath, handing out "personal hygiene" kits.
That was a little tacky. OK, a lot tacky. And the US Towers girls weren't
too far behind. If you're going to hire Sweet Young Things to help sell
your product, at least get some YLs who are old enough to vote and legally
purchase alcohol. Better still, leave the YLs to car makers, football
stadia and breweries and let your products speak for themselves.
- pjd
W2IRT
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