S Friends, Let me relay some of my experiences of this past weekend.
As I've mentioned, I'm president of the largest model RR club in the
Houston area and our one single money raising effort is a show were
sponsoring this coming weekend. We usually made enough cash to keep our
dues at "0" and occasionally help in sponsoring a fan trip plus keeping
the show going for the next year.
After years of wrangling with time slots we finally determined that mid
February was fit into most folks schedules and avoided any competing
shows in the area. Well all this was broken when a national traveling
type show decided to have their event just a week before ours. I didn't
think this was an accident, but once venues are secured with
multi-thousand's in deposits it's hard to stop the ball rolling.
Therefore I came up with the idea of getting a free table in the name of
the NMRA/SanJac/Hals and any other group we could refer people looking
for an area club. Part of that effort was handing out leaflets with
coupons for a discount to our show coming up. We think it might work in
not cutting into our show's popularity. About half the people we talked
to said they knew about our show and were coming while the other half
were newbies and we encouraged to come. This particular was held in a
very large complex with $10 parking, $7 hot dogs, and $7 dollar admission.
My helpers and I pretty much in agreement that this show was poorly
attended and by mid afternoon the vendors equaled the number of
visitors/customers. The quality of vendors was also somewhat
questionable with several having more non-railroad Chinese made
children's toys. That being said there was more good quality AF there
than I had seen in awhile, but since I don't buy any of that stuff, it
was only worth a few glances.
One HO scale club from Corpus Christi, Texas did have a great layout
with a large container port complete with maybe 40' sidings, hundreds of
containers and a close-to-scale false front ship to hold them that would
have made Tom Hawley happy! Right next to that was a extremely well
done refinery with large storage tanks, tank-car racks and the cracking
towers lit to the extreme. Inside the area were very large wooden
containers indicating this group does more than throw a few modules in
their pickup truck and boogie down the road. A very professional setup.
Anyway that was my weekend--just meeting and greeting! Fingers crossed
for next Saturday as the Houston S Gaugers will be setting up about half
of our layout and hope to also rake in some $$ for our efforts. So if
you're anywhere near the area drop in to our show. Parking is "0",
entrance is $6 (with free kids) and the hot dogs are served by a high
school club for a lot less than $7. And to add to all the benefits of
our show, this little company called "Werre's Woods" will have their
custom made trees for sale at a very reasonable prices!
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
