layouts at trainshows

For the folks that take their layouts to shows are you compensated in some fashion?
It's got to be a lot of work to get everything and everyone together to do a show so I wonder if you see any free stuff or monies for yourself or your club.

Or is it more for the joy of being at and participating in a show. Maybe find a new club member or two?

Was just at a show and it got me a thinkin' how it all works.

 

I am not sure about other clubs but for our club it is more or less to give us room to bring all of our modules to run on so we can run super long trains and we also can advertise our club for free and get members and donations.We do not get paid by money but we get paid by the enjoyment of watching kids ooh and ahh over our trains.If we got paid to do it I would quit my job and do train shows every weekend.

 

Most commercial organizations that run train shows pay a little something to the club participants. It helps defray expenses.

 

I belonged to a club once that got paid fairly handsomely for its involvement in the local shows, including a decent size quasi-N-trak setup at the show, an open house at the permanent club layout open during show hours, and covering overnight security duty one night of the show. The two local show operate(d) on a share system so each club got one or two shares that gauged how they were compensated...I don't know the details and the exact amount depended on the success of the shows.

I seem to recall some of the GATS shows offering some compensation for those bringing a layout...I'm sure it wasn't much but maybe a little gas/food money.

I get the impression that general N-trak setups (i.e. bringing your own modules for the big loop) don't pay, is that correct? Kinda always thought they did but a discussion recently on another board makes me think otherwise.

 

In the past we have accepted honorariums for the commercial shows like GATS and Greenberg, WGH, etc. We declined any offer of honorariums from NMRA sponsored events or local shows put on by volunteer fire depts. churches, Model RR clubs, etc. For the latter we would only ask that the honorarium be donated as a contribution to whatever organization was holding the event. We are currently rethinking that as our costs have gone up. Yet we also realize that we are not a "for profit" organization and don't want to cross the line where we say no to some organization because of money. Obviously we would prefer a two day event over a one day show and would defer to the two day show if there was any conflict.

 

i have taken my own or helped my dad out with his at atleast one show a year for over 13 years now. For me what keeps me takeing layouts to shows is the kids. In my area the kids know me as the military guy because i am the only one who does military scenes. I like the kids ooh and ahh for the scenes i create. I bet i am one of the most popular layouts in a kids mind at the shows i got to.

 

My wife and I have displayed our small N-Scale layout at numerous GTE (Great Train Expo) shows (formerly GATS – Great American Train Show), WGH shows (World's Greatest Hobby on Tour), and several NMRA National Convention Train Shows.

There is a lot of history about the GTE/GATS shows. In general, the for profit shows (GTE, WGH) provide some reimbursement for appearing at their shows. The amount depends various factors, and the GTE shows pay a small amount for clinic presenters. If you have to travel and stay overnight (Friday set-up, and Saturday) that pretty much eats up any reimbursement monies.

The NMRA does not provide compensation that I know of.

If you're looking to participating in train shows as a moneymaking proposition, it is not. If you're looking to display your modeling skills, meet and talk to some very nice people about trains and layouts, train shows are for you. We live in So. Calif. and have been displaying our layout since 1996 and have been as far as Florida, Michigan, Washington, and all points in between. We have met some of the nicest people you could ever want to meet (and some of the other kinds too, but very few).

For more information about the GATS/GTE story, see http://www.trolleyville.com/trolleyville.shtml, at the bottom of the page, click on "Trollyville Times", then click on "Back Issues". See the issues for Nov. 05, Jan 06, Feb 06, and Jun 06 for information

 

As you've already seen, the commercial shows pay a small amount to layouts to get people in the door. The vast majority of shows are unpaid, but places will provide you space, power, and at many events some food coupons or something.

If you're looking for new members, sometimes you have to pay to set up. I know of several clubs that pay a small amount to malls just to set up in them once a year and get the foot traffic. The malls typically greatly discount their normal rates, but still charge. However, getting out in front of the general public really reaches a different audience than a train show, which is good on many different levels.

 

Our club is a recognized (official??) Non-profit organization......if we make over $200 we lose the designation, so we don't do it for money, we do it for the fun. We are a fairly new club, so we haven't had a lot of setups, but our first one was for the grand re-opening of our local HobbyTown at the local mall and HobbyTown "sponsered" us. The Mall owners happened to be in town and were very impressed......so we now have an open invitation to set up any time it doesn't conflict with other mall activities. Not exactly payment, but it's free and gets the club a lot of exposure.....last time, we got on the front page of the local paper, and also a short piece on the local TV news. For us, it's also about a place to set up a large layout.We don't have a building/meeting place of our own, and time doesn't allow us to set up in the church basement where we hold meetings....by the time we could get set up, it would be time to tear down.

 

It is about the same here in Europe, I think. I understand that the large German exhibitions pay for your travel, hotel and food. Dutch exhibitions also give you a compensation, but there are not very strict rules I think. We claim at least our fuel expenses. The large, commercial events draw a lot of people, modellers of course but also a lot of visitors that do not have anything with trains. We hope that we can persuade the last category to start with model trains, especially USA trains ;-) And amongst the modellers, we will maybe find some new members?

The small events are mostly non-profit and are held in schools or small railway museums: they do not have a lot of money, but they give us a nice opportunity to set up our oNetrak layout, to play with our trains, and have fun. Sometimes they pay us for our fuel expenses, or provide us with lunch.

Some of the money we recieve, we put on a bankaccount to use it for general expenses, like insurance.

 

Properly run a non-profit can do a lot, and can take in a lot more than $200 in revenue. One thing to look at is having the club purchase club owned equipment with the funds, things like DC radio throttles or DCC command stations. Clubs can also purchase trailers and insure them.

The limits are also quite different depending on what kind of non-profit you chose, which can be switched later (see a tax accountant). At least one club participates heavily in Operation Lifesaver, setting up displays and handing out literature at every club event. This counts as educating the public; provided you keep enough people trained in OLI and set up the displays and such.

Did you know the largest non-profit in the world is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation with over 60 Billion in assets!

I strongly urge you to take the first $200 your club has free and pay a knowledgeable tax accountant to sit down for an hour with your club leaders where they can explain what you do and he can tell you how to structure the non-profit to give you maximum flexibility. There are a lot of options! It might pave the way to a much larger club in your future.

 

We have three seperate clubs set up and run their layouts at our show.We always make sure to give them a small stipend to offset their transportation costs.I agree the ooohs and ahhs are nice,but they won't fill the tank.

 

Our club gets $100 from a few shows that we do, if we set up at least six modules (four four footers and two turnarounds). Other shows we're allowed to put out a bucket for donations and often will get a couple of hundred. The club buys throttles, electrical connectors, etc. with the proceeds as we continually upgrade the quality of our hardware. In addition we have liability insurance. All of us donate our time and mileage. Seems to work out real well for our 21 members.

We just finished a two weekend show at a local mall. They give us a complete store and we fill it up. It's great being able to leave things up for two weeks and we do this show for free. It takes us about 6 hours to set up that kind of layout (36 modules) and about 2 hrs. to tear down. The week in between we have a "work day" where we often upgrade someone's module who may not have the resources or time to do it. We have a lot of fun and new members learn new skills from the veterans.

 

Leo......our treasurer IS a tax accountant, and he set the whole non-profit thing up. I believe it is set up under some sort of "educational" thing as you mentioned. I think I was wrong on the $200 thing.......that's the cut-off to maintain a tax exempt status for the club, not the non-profit status. I think reimbursement for expenses would be OK regardless of amount, as long as the club isn't making money. Any "profit" would need to immediately be rolled into supplies/equipment that the club would then use in the capacity of "educating" the public . Anyway....it's more headache than our small club wants to deal with. And chances are our club will never get to a "large club" level. After multiple shows, we've only recuited 2 new members despite pretty good media coverage and handing out lots of club business cards and talking to lots of people. Sadly the towns in Montana are too small, and too far apart to support large clubs. On the 27th our NTRAK club is joining the Helena "club" at the Helena Train Fair for a setup. Helena is the state capital, and the "club" consists of 1 member who in the past has done a layout on his own. Our only reimbursment will be a. We don't have to pay for our setup area and b. we don't have to pay the admission fee to get in.

 

I'm "retired" from my ambassadorship on behalf of the World's Greatest Hobby. My exhibit included my "Starter Layout," some basics about the hobby and some free collaterals courtesy of WGH, Atlas and Micro-Trains (and door prizes from the latter two).

I wasn't compensated monetarily, and I wouldn't expect to be, but certainly the smiles from the attendees of all ages were more than enough compensation...

 

We live in a very urbanized country with short distances. But recruiting new members is difficult. We meet interested modellers during trainshows, and on our own forum. But usually they do not take the step to building modules and joining the club. Of course, N scale is not so big in Europe, and American trains are far less popular than European trains. That makes it more difficult to find fellow modellers.

 

Our club goes to 3 or 4 regular shows a year for many years now, all the shows we attend provide meals for the exhibitors but we don't ask for any reimbursement if they offer it because we're there to have fun, running our trains, showing them off to the public getting together with other modellers and also because the organisers of the shows we attend are just clubs like us. When the clubs that organise the other shows come to the annual show at the railway museum where our club is located we return the hospitality and provide use of our facilities and dinner on the Saturday night. In short model railroading is fun, we're not in it to make money.