Guys,For those of you living in Ohio and the surrounding states make a weekend trip to Hillard(Columbus area) and take in the N Scale weekend (May 14/15th)..You'll be glad you did.The wife and kids can enjoy COSI while you enjoy N Scale.Its a win/win.
As a manufacturer, I stopped going to any of Howard's shows as attendance had drastically fallen off. Five (including his new one) shows a year are just too much. Also, Howard's big Jan show follows the weekend after Springfield and is always held on Super Bowl weekend. That Sunday is ALWAYS a bust for the vendors. I only have so much money to spend on shows and I want bang for my buck. I agree, the show has never progressed from regional to national status where manufacturers will flock to attend. OTOH, Howard has not directly courted the "big" manufacturer to help take the show to the next level either. The GAMTS is in a deep ravine and is no longer a financial success for many vendors. I have seen many of the staple vendors just go elsewhere, as I have. It is a shame as I have been driving from South Florida up to B'more with another vendor, or by myself, for the last ten years.
Wow, You attend ONE show and you're put off all shows? If you weren't expecting a drive-in flea market, what were you expecting? Per Brokemoto, for some people, the whole purpose of being there is digging through junk boxes. Hear!, Hear! Also per Brokemoto, if I've been able to go through the layouts, it's money and time well spent for just that. Were you expecting fabulous bargains? That's in the eye of the beholder. You'll get vendors with the cheapest prices (with everything good gone the first hour). You'll get vendors willing to dicker. You'll get other vendors that are so overpriced and hardnosed you wonder if they ever sell anything. You can write Zane as much as you want, but that's not going to change the composition of the show. In this economy, I don't think he gets to pick and choose what vendors gets in. For other shows, I see that the vendors who like to cut out by noon Sunday (when closing is supposedly 5PM and there have been people who paid admission and parking to be there) are allowed to return again and again. You'd like to see the bums kept out, but again, in this economy, would you make the show organizer do that? Yeah, no show then; that'll show em! Superbowl day hobby shows are always made cheap for the organizer and cheap for the vendors. If a vendor has a dedicated following at the locale, it can be worthwhile. Otherwise, it's a heated place to watch the Superbowl on a dinky screen. For vendors always on the road, they gotta be somewhere. The caveat to the California shows (and others) is that most of the N stuff is older/used. You might have a few guys blowing out some items released 3-4 months ago, but there's very little new new stuff. If you want a sure thing, go to the N Scale Convention in Hershey PA. Manufacturers will be there, but don't expect a flood of new product saved up for the show. That doesn't happen anymore.
Heck if think N scalers are left out you ought to be a large scaler, in particular 1:20.3. That stuff is really tough to find if it isn't a large scale specific show. I'm just getting back into N scale after about 35 years as a sideline from 1:20.3. The Springfield show had quite a bit of N scale stuff and I'm still kicking myself for not buying more Roundlhouse well cars for $5 each!! While nothing seems to match the HO offerings even at local shows, its been fun poking around trying to find deals in N. I'm just amazed at how well things run now as compared to what was available in N 35 yrs ago. That's what drew me back to this scale now. Dave
If there is not enough N scale at your local train show why not build a layout to exhibit in it yourself, maybe there's not much N scale there because they don't get any. From what I read and from the one show I've had the opportunity to go to over there many American model train shows seem to be more like giant buy and sell meets.
I can't speak for Sunday but Saturday was pretty crowded and I heard the vendors commenting on it as well. Of course they complained that people weren't buying but that isn't the show's fault. If you have old Tyco with horn hook couplers to sell, I'm guessing there isn't a big market for that. I have never seen all three sections of the showbarn as filled as they were on Saturday with either vendors or display layouts. As for manufacturers, I think having them is a little overrated. Case in point, at one Trainfest in Milwaukee, I spoke with a very nice young lady from Athearn's marketing department about bringing back MDC's HOn3 steam locomotives who didn't have a clue. While she knew the current product line, she didn't know Athearn owned MDC tooling or what HOn3 was. I can sometimes see something new that a manufacturer is bringing out but usually I can see that on their website. As for five shows being too many, I came from the Chicago area and their monthly show drew almost as many vendors. For people in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area, think about the alternative if we didn't have these shows. Andy Tetsu Uma
I belong to a local area N-scale club and we always have a layout at the Timonium shows. I've been attending/participating for about nine years. In the past there was manufacturer participation. I specifically recall Digitrax one year. But as the economy has been in a slump, so has the show(s). The shows last year had very poor turnout, both vendors and buyers. This month's show was much better, and that's good. As the economy improves, I would expect the vendors, and perhaps manufacturers, to return. And despite the limited availability of N-scale products, it's still the best in the area by a wide margin. Let's hope thing continue to improve.
