That is the one thing I was discussing with my girlfriend during the hours we had to kill waiting today. It is obvious that the hobby is doing quite well to draw this kind of crowd to an event like this. Makes me glad in a way.
The day wasn't a total loss...we stopped at the KOP mall and went to a Lego Store for the first time. Those places are great
Sorry for your experience. Looking on the bright side, maybe the economy is turning around. Better yet, maybe interest in the hobby is picking up.
On the otherhand, maybe a chance to get out of the house on a winter weekend. I'd like to go in Nashville, but may have a conflict next weekend.
I took a drive down to the Philly area to check out the WGH show...mistake #1 today. I'm generally not a complainer...so I'll just relate my experience. I would love to hear from anyone else that was there today. The expo center this was held at is brand new, and was converted from some kind of manufacturing facility previously.
First, from the PA turnpike to the exit for the expo center is about 4 miles via route 422. The 4-lane highway was at a dead standstill for all 4 of those miles. I took a detour via GPS because I thought there was an accident. Well, I get to the road the Expo center is on and there's no accident...that traffic was ALL people waiting to get off the exit to get to the show, with a combination of through traffic on the highway caught up in the off ramp mess. Both directions of 422 (4 lanes total) were backed up at this exit. This was due to the 2-lane streets in the area not being designed to hold the traffic that this expo center has generated. Throw in some unsynchronized lights, very poor parking around the center and you have complete and total gridlock.
So I wait about 30 minutes in traffic to turn into the approach lane for the expo center. Get through that mess and wind up parking 1/4 mile down the road from the actual parking area for the expo center at a movie theatre. The parking area for the expo center should have been at least 4x larger to handle this volume of people. It was pure chaos trying to park.
So we make our way to the door, and get stuck in a line about 6 abreast outside the door and it is just not moving. 30 minutes later, we get inside the door and see nothing but pure chaos inside the door. Nothing is moving. The few people that were trying to leave were saying things like "there's just no room for all these people waiting to get inside this place" and "its a-hole to elbow everywhere in there, I'm outta here!". At this point, the show has been open for 3 hours...this is not the initial rush! There are so many people trying to get in that nobody was getting out. After waiting in line for a grand total of 45 minutes, we left.
So I spent about 5 hours today for a net gain of nothing. I cannot figure out why this venue was chosen for this event. Fort Washington expo center would have been far better, and it is relatively close to this location. Someone really dropped the ball there, or their advertising was just way too good. I thought about going tomorrow, but the thought of possibly getting stuck in that same mess makes me want to stick a dull #11 x-acto in my eye
So I guess I'll just stick to swap meets from now on.