In article ,
"Jon Endres, PE" t
wrote:

The show my club puts on in Saratoga, NY every March/April is in 25,000 sf
of space, and has probably 80 vendors. Even with a modest admission fee,
you cannot MOVE in there unless you show up really early or really late.
Too many people. Imagine if there were no admission prices, and you wound
up with another thousand or so rubberneckers, gawkers and marginally
interested wanderers who were only there to clog the aisles and steal
things.

No thanks. I'll pay my admission price. Look at it this way. Do you want
to spend ten bucks for a bad movie and a small popcorn and stick to the
seats in the local theater, or spend all day enjoying the smell of sawdust,
drooling over the latest and greatest machines and hand tools, and seeing
the gallery work? I look at it as a form of cheap entertainment.

How does that (the NWA show, which I've gone to) compare to the rather
obviously for-profit travelling shows, such as the one coming up at the
Big E (which I've never cared to spend the hour and a bit each way
driving to enough to go check out)? Since it's not a club show I don't
expect to see a lot of exhibits of work by "real people", which is one
of the best aspects of the NWA show. I guess they are trying to attract
some of that with a contest this year - never been obvious in prior
years.

If you're buying stuff, supposedly you can recoup admission in show
discounts, and the price of admission is really not an issue anyway - If
I lived closer or loved the dreary drag down south more, I'd happily pay
$10 to attend all the demos I could fit in and hang out. It costs me
more in gasoline to get there than it does to get in the door.

--
Cats, Coffee, Chocolate...vices to live by