This weekend is Toronto’s annual train show. It’s at the International Center in Hall number 3. 12 bucks for adults, 10 bucks for the old dudes and 4 bucks for kids and FREE if your under 6.
I am thinking on going.
Any good vendors there?
Cheers,
CASO
I’m going to.rambo1…
Most of the big name guys are there this weekend. It’s not a bad show, everything is spaced out good.
send the wifes to a shoe sale and were good for the day !
big names ? like who , i must have missed them somehow
and it’s spaced out because there’s about a third of the exhibitors this year as there was about 5 years ago .
very sad to see how this show has gone downhill over the last few years
on the good side , there were some nice looking club layouts , and the number of historical societies may have even increased over the years
That was the case in Ottawa at Railfair this year too. Some of the regular vendors were not there, and others had tables but were not present either. Even with a couple of new vendors, it still seemed like something was missing. I estimated about 10% less on the vendor side. Even in a small space it was noticeable.
Attendance was up though. Which is good.
Everyone seemed to be talking about a new show in the spring, the Ottawa Train Expo. I got a flyer from them, and it seemed everyone else had one too. They tell me it will be the biggest train show in Eastern Canada.
Credit Valley, Otter Valley, Canadian Express Line just to name a few. TMR…Hobbyworx…Panther Hobbies… I could go on. Sorry, Walthers, Athearn and Kato couldn’t make it, lol.
There were a lot of guys selling junk too.
A lot of vendors don’t make much money at shows. With the price of table space going up, gas, hotels for 2 nights and food a lot of vendors just go to these shows just to advertise their hobby shop. After awhile it isn’t worth it for them. I’m starting to see that a lot more lately.
I know the the guy with the pictures (paintings may be a better term) wasn’t there, and he uses a big space, but I heard he has health issues right now.
Some vendors are retiring too, so that will become a problem.
But when you go out to shows, half of the reason to be there is to build awareness of your business and products. Even if it costs a couple of thousand dollars, that amount doesn’t go far in a magazine ad buy. People don’t buy from you if they don’t know you are there.
Railfair could draw more people too, considering the population of the National Capital Region, but it doesn’t, and the venue isn’t that accommodating of large crowds either. The admission price isn’t that high either.
Doesn’t help when the price of admission is going up, the cost of items inside are high etc etc etc.
I almost choked at the cost to get into the Bowmanville Show.
I’d rather save the $$$$ on admission & buy off of Kijiji, eBay or the LHS.
Local railway clubs don’t really interest me either as they usually have a narrowed vision as to what is allowed to be run on the layout…so why should I support them?
I’m going to wait for the Brampton or Kingston/Belleville shows to roll around & spend the time to drive there.
Gordon
Hi Gord, I got to agree with you on the admission prices. It seems they are going up but the quality of the show is dropping. That is one of the reasons why I left my club.
The days of being able to rent a school gymnasium for a few dollars to cover the cleaning are gone. Everywhere you go they want large coin, even though some of the facilities are publicly owned, such as schools.
It makes putting on a show by a small group almost impossible, as they don’t have the money. If the group putting on the show is in the business to make money, they have to turn a profit.
You don’t want to have a large admission fee, but at the same time, making the vendors pay through the nose means that some will forego that show. Vendors attract the modellers and the modellers attract the vendors…
I was told by someone who attended the Toronto show on Sunday that he was not impressed. There was a definite lack of everything, and the price of admission was steep.
Once upon a time it was a big show, but not anymore.
It was a great show 6 years ago but it is slowly getting smaller. It’s too bad. I think the biggest show around these days is Belleville’s. It’s coming up in a few weeks.
Cost to run these shows is going up and up. The cost for the hosts of the shows is going up - resulting in higher vendor fees and higher admission cost. These result in fewer attending on both sides of the table. Many of the shows held at schools this year were hit with massive rent increases - such as Bowmanville - but they got the notice of the increase AFTER they had sent out the vendor applications and printed their flyers - so they had no chance to increase the vendor rates a bit to offset the increase this year. I imagine the rates will go up next year for sure.
As part of the group that runs the Brampton show - we were lucky that our major costs didn’t go up this year - but who knows what will happen next year. We have alot of interest from the model train clubs and vendors to attend our show - but the attendance is no where near what it should be for a show in the GTA… $10 for an entire family and they can attend both days for that same $10. Where else can you take the family for a day out for $10 ??
Table costs at the Xmas train show is almost $250 per 10’ space. If you need hydro to run video players or computers - add another $80.
The Xmas show this year was even quieter than last year - very thin crowd. Wide aisles to fill the space. Few people checking out the layouts - we had few people around our layout most of the time to interact with. This makes for a long and boring day…
On the sales side, sales were slow. I don’t think anyone made a profit at all ( I didn’t ) when you have people wanting stuff for next to nothing. Items 10-20% off list and people want another 20-30% off and then don’t want ot pay the taxes as well. They must think we get this stuff for free. 2012 might be my last year at this.
And for those who come to these shows from out of town - the cost to stay overnight and meals cuts into the budget as well.
I bought 2 trainline caboose for cn great slave lake and ontario northand in the old paint for 20$ each good deal? rambo1…
Considering they were 40 a few years ago I would say you got a good deal. The ONR caboose isn’t that popular with ONR fans. The ONR never had one like that but that didn’t stop me from getting one.
is it old heritge theont norith land
The Belleville (Quinte) show is next weekend, (Dec 3/4) right?
Never been to that one, not sure if it is worth the time and expense to drive there.