A train show that was run locally has closed. I have access to some large buildings and thought that adding a train show/toy show would be a good addition to our events at our fairgrounds. I’ve been to Wheaton, Schaumburg, Peoria and a few other shows but I would like some input on what “shoppers” like to see. I hope you can give me some advice.
Or also if you are a vendor, what advice would you give me?
One day or two day show?
If we did it on Saturday, would Friday night give you enough time to set up?
Are kids usually admitted free (under 12)?
How do you get people with layouts to come? What is the usual rate that they are paid?
Since I have three huge buildings I thought I would put a toy show (farm toys and cars) with it to help bring in the crowd. Good idea or bad?
We’re looking at Nov 22 as a date. Is this too close to the holidays?
People love to get something for nothing. See if you can get a vendor to donate (or barter) a prize. The more valuable the better. Display it prominently in your ads and at the entrance to the show along with an ad for the donor. Make people submit name address e-mail and phone number to be eligible. Give that list to all your paid vendors. Take a photo of the winner, with the donor and the show promoter. Display a LARGE print of that picture at future shows, and in ads for future shows. Send those people a notice of the next show.
ADVERTIZE … ADVERTIZE … ADVERTIZE
Pipe and drape the show. That makes it look less like a flea market or yard sale.
Pick a venue with free parking if possible.
In addition to the usual huge club layout, encourage someone to display a small layout that any child can aspire to.
Don’t forget the children. In addition to the usual stuff, be sure to include Thomas the Tank Engine. Encourage a toy vendor to give something cheap to all the youngsters. Perhaps a one sheet coloring project of a train.
Think about a guy in coveralls with a banjo playing railroad songs at the entrance.
See if Model Railroader would be interested in letting you play their DVDs continuously on a large screen TV somewhere in the show.
See if the local club would like to hold instructional seminars.
You would need to check with the vendors and make sure there isn’t some other large, established show that weekend that they all go to. (no vendors, no train show) If you don’t make your vendors happy on the first one, there won’t be a second…
In my experience 99% of Train shows are 2 day events. Vendors can usually set up in under 2 hours, same goes for most club layouts. My club can have our 10x20 layout setup in under 1/2 an hour but we always seem to putter around and have it up in less then an hour. We have NEVER been paid to setup and display our layout. Provide a nice lunch for vendors and displayers. Kids under 16 or usually admitted at a reduced rate while kids under 6 are admitted free.
As was said ADVERTIZE like crazt in the newspapwe on the cable TV bullitin board on the radio and in the model railroad magazines. Most ot the model railroad magazines have a section to list events. Flyers in the local hobby shops and model railroad clubs.
You will need to attend some shows and get contact information from the vendors and layouts.
You will need this in order to have them at your show. A lead time of at least six months is a good idea as some vendors go from one show to another and would need time to schedule your show.
Ample parking preferably free or at nominal cost is a must as are washrooms.
Food service can be provided either by your organization or others. Keep the cost reasonable.
Never have had anything to do with setting one up, but as one who attends, I like to see:
Varity of dealers & scales, with a full range of products.
Operating layouts with people to talk to.
I like to attend clinics, repeat two or three times during the day, or have someone doing a continuous demonstration of a techinique at one booth. (Making trees, a small diarama, doesn’t need to be complicated, something to show the inexperienced an easy way to get started.) One show I attend start with a piece of 2" foam or two stacked, carved to a hill shape, make a rock casting (have a cured one on hand), attach the casting, paint it the whole thing, sprinkle on the ground foam, make a couple simple trees. Half to three quarters of an hour, very interesting even when I’ve seen it before and sometimes there is a new techinique or product demonstrated.
Door prizes are nice, don’t need to be fancy, blue box car, couple bags of scenery material, a $10 gift certificate to a specific dealer or show gift certicates good at any dealer. If you have a valuable door prize(s) you could have a raffle. 50/50 raffles are also common, either by the sponsoring orranization or the organization providing the food booth.
Food table, a local organization (scouts, school or sports group). I tend to be a little hungrier than if it is a commercial vendor. They tend to have more reasonable prices also.
An easy to find site with ample, preferable free parking, easily accessable to show.
Something for little ones to do, a train to run, something to touch.
Admission at most around here is $3-5 for adults, some have a lower price for school age (age varies with show), all have little ones free (if they don’t have a school age price 12-16 is the usual top for free age). A couple have a family pri
Most of the large train shows out here have gone bust and someone else has taken over because they can’t keep a steady clientele, they start catering to the bigger vendors and the little guy, who the more experienced shopper looks for (trying to get a bargain) is left in the dust so the long time hobbyist stops going, add to that, a lot do the fairgrounds thing and charge for parking and so it gets to be over $20.00 bucks for you and a buddy to get in (closer to $25). They also use the fairgrounds food setup so a coke goes for $2.00 or more. Now if you can find a way to attract the big vendors and still have a place for the small, that would be great. Tables out here in California go for $65.00 or more!!! Less vendors less people etc. Now one way to help the small guy would be to have a white elephant area with show people watching the area and getting like 20% of the stuff they sell as a lot of people want to get rid of a few items, small tables for rent, not just the big ones, you get the idea.
Great suggestions. I am lucky to have free access to three huge heated exhibit halls with free parking all along the outside at our fairgrounds. My next question is - since I have lots of room (the buildings are 100 feet long by 60 feet wide or more) I was thinking about doing one room of farm toys/racing toys. We are in a rural area in north central IL and the farm toy shows are pretty big. I thought it might be a nice tie in and a good way to get a variety of people to come to the show.
Kathy, The first thing to do is make sure your show is not on the same weekend as another show in the area. I belong to the Pekin club, which, along with the Peoria club, sponsors the show at ICC in E. Peoria. Our show is on the third Sunday of Feb. and Nov. Bloomington has thiers in either Oct. or Nov. for one day. Decatur has thiers in Aug. usually, for two days. Decaturs show became almost non-existant. A couple of years back they decided to double the table rent for vendors. They recieved such little vendor commitment that they ended up cancelling the show that year. The next year, the local club there took it over and lowered the price some but not enough for me. I used to sell real good there but now I can’t afford the tables and gas for two days. I still go for one day though as a shopper. If you set the price of your tables too high, you’ll lose your vendors and then there’ll be no show. You’re on the right track (pun intended) about one thing, free parking is almost a must. High table prices, high admission prices and high parking prices are what killed the Peoria GATS show. Where will this show be held by the way? If it’s within 50 miles, I will definately come and may even rent tables. Thanks
I have attended many a show in the last 8 years, We as club set up our layouts for free,what we get is into the show for nothing s long as we are considered a " Display " now if we are a Vendor we pay between $15.00 to $ 20.00 per table and we usually get 4 or 6 tables,that cost for the Vendors helps you offset your costs a bit,we usually pre register about 3 months before the event and if we do we get $5.00 of per table,that helps you with the area you will need for " Display and for" Vendor", As a rule most shows put the Vendors along the walls and the Displays in the middle,Try to have it so your Entrance is not your Exit, this helps not over loading the door with people trying to get in with those trying to get out,and it also makes the public walk threw the entire event and see each Vendor and each Display, A Ticket handed out at the door for Door prizes is always welcomed by all, Be Visable to the Vendors and Display folks, see how they are doing and what you can do to make next years show better,have an open mind.
On the one-day vs. two-day question, my advice is to start out as a one-day show, based on what I’ve seen as an occasional seller and from my involvement in running my club’s show.
It’s harder to get dealers to commit to a two-day show, especially a new one which hasn’t yet established itself as enough of a draw to carry the momentum needed to make being there a second day worthwhile.
One of my buddies bought an established show in Ohio that had been slowly dying off. He has turned it around, but in the process has found that he has far less trouble filling the hall with vendors for the two one-day shows he runs each year than the two-day show he also holds. The two-day show is a much harder sell to the vendors.
Vendors who come from more than about two hours away will have to figure in the cost of food and lodging into the decision whether to come. This can cost a show vendors.
From what I saw when another popular local show went to a two-day format, the already dwindling number of individuals who buy tables at shows to clear out the surplus from their collections was reduced further since many either did not want to commit the time for a second day or felt that the extra expense was too great for what they were going to make back. When you go to a two-day format, it tends to weed out casual vendors and skew it more to the “pros”. Whether that is a negative or a positive is something to consider when developing your idea of what the show should be like.
I am effectively an occasional, casual vendor. I run the tables my club buys at two shows each year for members to sell their surplus stuff. I have no trouble getting enough volunteers from my club to staff our tables for a one-day show, but organizing and coordinating enough people to cover two days is considerably more difficult. When the aforementioned show went to a two-day format, having those tables went from something that we started to do because it was an easy and fun way I could offer an adde
Get in touch with all the local hobby shops (LHS’s) in your area. Several of the larger vendors at our shows here in the Northeast also run brick-and-mortar shops. The successful ones have got it down to a science. I like them because they have a large inventory with them, particularly detail parts and things like figure sets.
Even if they don’t come to the show as vendors, many LHS’s will be happy to let you leave a pile of fliers announcing your show on their counters. I find out about a lot of shows that way. Print up a batch for each shop, preferably on some colored paper so they stand out.
My point of view is purely as a show-goer. I’d agree with the statements about parking. If it’s not free, I’m probably not going to go. The restrooms at most of these venues are really shabby. I wish somebody would pay more attention to that kind of detail, but it’s certainly not going to be a deal-breaker with me.
I work as a volunteer at Milwaukee’s Trainfest and I can tell you that the planning for that event by John Tews is virtually year round. The most important thing is to absolutely nail down exactly what the building owner is going to do for you for the money. For example, can only union employees plug electrical things into outlets? Do all vendors and exhibitors have enough outlets? And if someone breaks that rule about plugging stuff in (I am NOT making this up) will the union pull its staff off the floor and shut you down, or what? Who provides security? Who can sell food? Licenses? Just when will lights, heat be on, doors unlocked, bathrooms unlocked and stocked with supplies, etc.? One issue that comes up year after year is, vendors with credit card equipment that needs wireless connection but the steel building makes it difficult to receive and there are no phone lines. Whose job is it to make sure that commercial vendors have sales tax licenses from the state? Now is the time to nail that down.
Security is a huge issue. So are communications. You need people working a desk to handle all the questions. If your records are on computer, who works the computer.
Registration needs staff. How many are expected for each group. How do you control the number of free passes? How do people get in if their passes are inside the show? Who mans the doors? Can people drive cars and trucks onto the floor to set up layouts and vendors? Who directs traffic? Registration staff cannot be expected to be ready to go at the same moment that the first vendors or exhibitors are standing at the table.
Floor plan. If people are paying for space, are you sure your floor plan is accurate to the foot? Chairs, tables, who provides, how many are needed, who pays? Aisle space – will the local fire marshall shut you down for inadequat
I go to a number of local shows, near Toronto. As stated by others free parking is a must. I have never been to a show that starts on Fri. Most people are working not retired like me. Few shows around here are Sat. and Sun. events. Some vendors only do shows parttime so they are available on weekends. You might start out with a one day show to test the waters.
Admission seems to be $5 or $6 for adults, some have seniors discounts kids under 6 or so are free.
Several years ago our model railroad club decided to take over for a local show when the person who had previously produced the show decided to quit doing it. The show had always been held in a local community center. When we inquired about renting the community center we were informed that we must have a certificate of liability insurance for the show for at least one million dollars and name the city (owner of the community center) as one of the insured under this policy. If I remember correctly the insurance certificate for the two day show was close to $300. Our club was a modular club that did several free shows a year in local shopping centers. Our club was incorporated as a 501c3, not-for-profit. Many of the shopping centers began to require libility insurance as well. The club was forced to purchase a one million dollar libility insurance policy just to do free layout only shows. We had our club policy at the time we decided to do the show in the community center and were still required to purchase the extra insurance.
Like Jim mentioned - Liability Insurace has become a very big issue. Even if your club is an incorporated ‘not for profit’ organization, the club officers may be liable for amounts over the insurance you buy.
Kathy, I am currently in the convention business, but not in trains. I truely am a train enthusiast too! LOL My advise is simple, I understand that your love for trains is close to your heart, but remember, you need to run this as a business! In order for any convention/show to work, it comes down to letting as many people know that your event exists. That cost $$$! Additionally, you must remember that there will be electrical usage, possible fire department permits, city licenses, police permits, and many other hidden costs. You have loading and unloading issues, and with many, many conventions you will have exhibitors trying to leave early which will give a bad taste in the mouth of the late attendee arrivers, who with then try to ask for a refund. You need to consider over night security, and theft issues, liability insurances are also an issue if somone damages the building. Simply, be very careful what your getting yourself into! Additionally, you can generate some $$ via the free parking you get, by charging for it!
"For example, can only union employees plug electrical things into outlets? Do all vendors and exhibitors have enough outlets? And if someone breaks that rule about plugging stuff in (I am NOT making this up) will the union pull its staff off the floor and shut you down, or what? "
That is one of the reasons why the World’s Greatest Hobby Show pointedly uses non-union sites and advertises that to vendors. It’s hard enough setting up without worrying about that kind of BS.
From a vendors standpoint, there are several key factors in attending a show, especially a new one. Location is a primary one. Large metropolitan areas where advertising will ensure a good turnout are far more attractive than a smaller city or large town.
Ease of load-in and load out are important. Venues with small doors, steps, etc are a royal pain. Large vendors want to be able to drive into a venue and unload. At the very least, multiple doors with room for parking nearby are a big plus. Co-ordination of load in/load out traffic is essential for a larger show. Most vendors try to cooperate with each other but there’s always some idiot who thinks he’s more important and blocks an exit or door so no-one else can use it.
Good lighting and heat in the winter and A/C in the summer is a must. If it’s too hot or too cold, customers hurry through and don’t spend time shopping. Not good.
Many smaller club shows also provide a personal touch, like assistance in loading, coffee and donuts, having someone come by and say hi and make sure everything is OK, etc. Sometimes it’s the small touches that make you want to come back, even if the show isn’t a big moneymaker.
2 hours is the absolute minimum needed for show morning set-up. 3 is better. And if you really want to impress, have long hours (Noon - 8:00 pm or so) to set up the night before. Make it easy on the vendors and they’re m