Originally Posted by cbcalhoun

Great comment. Drive the vendors to be there if you want to see them.

There is one key thing for Vendors to come. Sure, you may want them to attend, but if it is not profitable for them to go, they won't go.

Profitable means dollars generated from the show and that really doesn't exist anymore.

Let me explain before I get absolutely flamed.

To attend the show, besides the cost to the Weak Signals to purchase a booth, there is the cost of shipping the booth, hotels, flights, salaries for people working the booth, per diem, rental cars, and other expenses.

This can easily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars for medium size companies (not even considering larger ones such as Horizon).

For attending to be worthwhile they have to recoup this expense through sales, unlikely to happen at this show. Why? Simple

In the old days (pre-internet) a company developing a new product definitely wanted to attend these show. It got the product into the marketplace, to the potential buying public, and orders were generated. To advertise in the magazine would take a 3 month lead from time the ad was purchased until it appeared. Think about it this way, if a company was ready to introduce a new product in December, by the time it reached the magazines, it would be March, just prior to the Toledo Show

For us older guys, remember the Pre Toledo buzz in the magazines (RCM, Model Airplane, etc) and could hardly wait to the show to see it!!

Fast forward to today and social media. Products are no longer constrained by the 3 month magazine lead time. Rather, through Facebook, Instagram, and others, they can introduce the product on DAY ONE, and have a far reaching audience. Meaning from time of announcement to sales returns is very short. Add on to this the substantially lower costs of marketing, and it is a sure win for the manufacturer.

So while we may not like it, the days of trade shows and vendors supporting them is waning. When the companies can reduce the time from marketing to sales, reduce the costs of marketing, and increase profitability, there is no turning back.

In many ways, we have become our own worst enemies. The buyer wants high quality and low price. The manufacturer has to then figure out how to cut costs and remain profitable. The first thing to change is to maximize marketing and reduce costs. First thing to go are trade shows.

Look right on the Home Page of sites like this. Do companies wait and announce products at the shows? Nope they post it right up here. So by the time the shows come around, why do they really need to attend because between the hundreds (or thousands of posts generated), and YouTube videos, they have more coverage than they would ever get attending a trade show at substantially less cost.

Even trade only shows like the RCHTA are disappearing because the Brick & Mortar stores are going away for online sales. How many manufacturers sell direct to the public? Why? It increases profitability and eliminates the sharing of profits with the middleman (the store owner).

So I hate to be the mirror shining in the face of reality but that is where we are today and it is not going to turn back. At the end it is all about profits

Rocket, you are spot on with your analysis. This is exactly why grand days of trade shows has across all types of interests are slowly disappearing.
I have been attending the Toledo Show since the mid 80's and working the show for the last 27 years. Gone are the days when you could hardly walk down the aisles and hobbyist had a pocket full of money itching to be spent on big ticket items.

It's sad, but you can't put the internet back in its bottle....

Tom

Toledo needs to be in May or june and outside