Train Shows

[Anonymous]

The Titlle Town train show in Green Bay drew a crowd of less than 5000 people yet it re-energized my spirit. My only major gripe is WHERE WERE THE FACTORY REPS? Wholesaler Walthers showed up with two friendly young ladies as well as Kalmbach Publishing making an appearence, Are there other shows outside York? You would not know it by who shows up at local events. The toy train manufacturers claim to want feedback I say HIT THE ROAD! The reason we have 400 different Santa Fe F3's with crappy sounds on the market is nobody wants to send their people beyond York. MTH, Lionel, K-Line, Williams, Bachman, Marx, and who ever else is out there the next time the warehouse is full and the accounts are empty HIT THE ROAD! your customers are waiting for you.

[Anonymous]

Your from Wisconsin??? Aw darn, missed that show.[:(] Do you know of any shows coming up soon here?[:D]

[Anonymous]

Well there's a GATS show this weekend in Beaumont, TX. It's a first for this area. Considering I've met or heard of about 6 other model and toy railroaders in this area over the course of the last eight years I'm real interested in what the turn out is going to be. It may end up being the last in this this area. We're about 90 - 100 miles from Houston so there may be a draw from there. I would love to be able to find out the demographics of the attendees.

Based on the Houston GATS I really don't expect to see much in the way of Lionel, K-Line or MTH mostly my old scale HO with a growing presence of N, some G and a little Z thrown in. The shows I've been able to attend have had more Z & G than O.

Lost my train of thought and am starting to ramble.

Steve

[Anonymous]

We have that GATS (Great American train show) here every year and it's a snoozer. They should call it the Great American HOT WHEELS and HO show. What a boring time we had. Some of the local train societies were there, but I don't have anytime for them. I'm a rebel, a lone wolf...a man to himself.

[Anonymous]

We have some great train shows in the midwest. I am sure they are not as big as the east coast ones but you can find some great items. May 9 2004 in KC Mo. May 15 Springfield, Mo. June 26 Dewey OK are the next few coming up.[:D]

[Anonymous]

The Feb. GATS in Nashville, Tn was mostly a waste of time. Very little O ga, some HO and N ga, and tons of NASCAR t-shirts and model cars. Should be renamed Great American Hobby Show.

[Anonymous]

I was at the gats show in Nashville. Worst show I have done this year. When vendors loose money at a show its really hard to go back especially at todays gas prices. If you go tho Gats web site it is now called Great american train and Hobby Show.

[Buckeye Riveter]

My turn for my [2c]

Some to these so-called big name train shows are becoming a rip off for the vendors and the patrons. I have quit attending a large show in Cincinnati because they brought the computers into the room and tried to make it a combined show. The parking is not free and the admission is getting steep. (They had the show on a football Sunday with no parking in downtown Cincy.)

However, this year I attended an outstanding train show at the Clark County Fairgrounds near Springfield, Ohio. The local folks ran this show and it was great! Parking was free and the addmission was reasonable. There were a variety of items for sale in all scales. There were old and new items for sale. The table cost made it possible for individuals to sell their unwanted trains, parts, buildings, etc. The dealers were there too.

This forum can provide us a great tool for communicating the pluses and minuses of the national and local shows and I look forward to reading more posts about shows people attend.

I'll step down now so someone else can have a turn to put their [2c] into the pot.

[Anonymous]

One of the main reasons for the subtle demise of train shows is the lack of advertising by their promotors. Very few, if any shows are properly advertised in advance. Ok, I can see a little train show promoter not being able to afford a full page spread in both CTT & OGR but these publications also include free listings. And it doesn't take much effort on the part of a train show promoter to fire off well written press releases to the local newspapers and TV channels at least six weeks before their events, with a follow-up two weeks before their show. Trouble is many train show promoters are lazy.
Bill
www.modeltrainjournal.com