Venders at Major Shows

So I go to the Indy Mopar Swap Meet, Mopar Nationals and carlisle pretty much every year. Until last year I hadn't missed a mopar national in over 20 years. I emailed Vans Auto to ask if they were coming to the Indy swap meet and the response was short and sweet.

we no longer attend car show, so no we will not be at Indy

my response Mopar Nationals?

their response, no shows, none


So I guess with the price of fuel, lodging and swap spaces it just isn't worth their hassle, i Get it you need to make a buck.

I would rather buy at big shows and IF there is a show discount great if not OK, but I mainly like to pay cash and not use my credit card. Yes I pay it off every month, but just want to pay cash.


So is it the decline of venders do to being overcharged at venues or just the bottom line?


I know some businesses make more off of their website then swap meets, don't have to deal with people face to face

Unfortunately the more vendors stop going the more it will hurt the hobby. IMO, the handwriting is on the walls.

It's a combination of things, but mainly that the trip doesn't pencil out, BUT the big picture is that people will see a vendor at a show and perhaps buy from them later instead of from somebody else.

Than again, has Year One or Classic Industries ever been to a show as a vendor like that? It's all advertising...

I'm sure the expenses are considerable, and it's likely that most folks buy via internet & credit card.
But I like seeing the part in person and talking with the vendors.
That said, it's been a while since I've been to a Mopar show.
So I can understand the toll it takes on time & travel expenses for multiple staffing, especially if most attendees are shopping vs buying.
I've yet to talk to anyone at Classic who knows Mopars; a couple of times I've called to inform them of incorrect parts or applications.

Having been in there shoes, I can relate.
Costs add up quickly and can be A LOT.

As an example Carlisle for me was a days drive each way. several tanks of fuel. each cost approx $100 . thats $300 each way in fuel alone.
Hotels gouging drives costs up, I got there Wednesday afternoon, Spent Saturday nite on the road headed back home. So figure $500 - $600 if your lucky
Spaces were $85 ea, I had 4.

Now, add in inventory costs . I figured I had to do $3000-3500 to just break even. For me getting ready for the shows started weeks in advance.
Once home from Carlisle I had to basically start all over a few days later to get ready for the Nats a month later

Now, toss in everyone wants a show special or wants to haggle. Or saying they can get it on ebay for cheaper, And there are ebay sellers selling for barely over costs ,,,just to sell.makes it tough on the ones trying to make a living at it
You can see these big shows ARE NOT CHEAP . Now multiply this factor by about 10 shows a year.
Costs are only one of the reasons ( but are a main one Im sure ) vendors have gone to online sales only or maybe just the bigger shows if at all ,

I enjoyed doing them as I liked the face to face interaction with customers. But after a while it took its toll and I decided to call it quits several years back

The way I see it the venues should be making their money at the gate, not from vendor spaces. The vendors are the attraction - without them there is no event. This applies to virtually any type of event - train shows, swap meets, toy shows, craft shows ... the vendors are the draw. There's a big problem when your entire profits are handed over to pay for your space !!

I don't sell anything, but do bring a substantial setup when we go to shows. Just to give an idea of a break down for our biggest event, Carlisle:

Booth space plus tent rental and power: 8-10k depending on how big we go

Hotel: We arrive on Wednesday and leave Sunday. That's 4 nights per hotel room with up to 8 hotel rooms, 32 nights. Luckily I travel a lot and use reward points to cover this, but a hotel bill could easily reach 5-6k.

Food: 4 nights of feeding my team. We cook a lot, but will still be 1k

Fuel: 800 miles round trip will be 300 gallons of diesel between 2 rigs 1k, throw in another 100 per car we drive up so 4-500. 1500 in total fuel

For me to do Carlisle is a minimum 15-20k and that assumes nothing stupid happens. If I was a vendor, I'd need to move through at least 30-40k in widgets to break even. Granted, I go for larger spots, I bring quite a few people, but it gives you an idea of what goes into a larger event. Not counting that all of this is time off from doing my real job which actually pays the bills. I could see vendors wanting to skip or shrink their presence for a show. Would be shocked to see 10x10 type setups where they take orders for you and ship direct vs having stuff there.

I started to see the decline when Mancini decided to stop going. It was always nice to pick up purchases at Carlisle and save on shipping. Unfortunately it's not going to get any better if Vans and other larger vendors don't go. I hate to say this but 10 years from now it's going to be all modern mopar stuff and the geezers will be mumbling about how all of these young whipper snappers have taken over.

Do you think the pandemic has anything to do with it? Not sure about other parts of the county but last years E-town meet was canceled due to it. It's questionable if it will happen this year also.
https://etownracewaypark.com/swap-meets/
Seems Carlisle is a go but they do have this...
https://carlisleevents.com/covid19
I wonder what kind of turn out this coming season will be like. I'm sure the #'s will be down because of the pandemic. If i was a vender i would take this into consideration.

Over the past couple of years, you have seen a decline of the larger vendors attending the events. I know in our case, the Covid impact has given us some insight into attending the shows and the actual cost vs staying home and filling orders. With that said, talking to a variety of the vendors of various sizes, all of them are seeing that the cost of the shows vs the profit margin no longer supports a full blown effort to attend the shows. I know that with Carlisle this 2020 year, we down sized at least 50% knowing that the attendance would not support our usual display.

For a larger show like Carlisle our cost breaks down as:
20 spots at $90.00 each = $1800.00
50 x 60 tent to cover and protect the product: $2600
Fuel for truck and support vehicles: $735
Truck and trailer expense: $690
Compensation for helpers and staff: $1250
Lodging Expense for a couple of the guys: $495
Food: $275

So that totals $7845 which is pretty typical for the past couple of years. Those cost are basically incurred before you ever leave the drive. We try to be as frugal as possible as the profit margin is quickly eaten up.

For the past couple of years, fuel has been relatively cheap, but I am afraid that we could be seeing an additional 40% increase this year in the cost of fuel. We stay on the grounds at Carlisle and have to stay off sight at The Nats. Still at Carlisle, we will have close to a $500 lodging expense and for Columbus, that cost is closer to $1400. For Carlisle we fix sandwiches and bring food to eat, so I allocate $275 for Carlisle and since we are at hotels for Columbus, the food expense approaches $450 even with bringing snack food from home for lunch and breakfast.

The real cost of doing these shows is the time to prep, load out , set up, break it down, load it back up, get home and unload it and put it back in place or to inventory for the next show. It is very difficult to put a cost to this time, but one person can easily spend two weeks just bagging, sorting, pricing and prepping for the Carlisle or Nats show. Then, the travel time is basically 14 hours one way for Carlisle, 9 hours for Columbus. The time between getting back home from Carlisle to get ready for Columbus leaves you with may be one week to get in or build more inventory.

Over the past couple of years, we seem to always loose a couple hundreds of dollars of inventory that seems to walk away without anyone knowing about it. In 2019, the freak storm that hit us at the Nats cost us approximately $23,000.

With that said, as Bill and Mike spoke of, the cost of doing the venues are extremely expensive and cost continues to increase. I have the feeling that the shows in five years will see a major change for the swap meet / vendor support.

At this point, we are still on the fence for the Indy show in a couple of weeks. If we do attend, it will be 20% of our usual display. Hopefully Carlisle and The Nats will go on as planned, but I am sure that we will be cutting back as we see how things flow. The Bowling Green event is the closest show to us and the least expensive for overall cost, so we will be bringing a down sized Carlisle setup for that event.

The shows are important in that it gives us the opportunity to put faces to a name and to allow people to actually see and touch the product. But times are changing and we all have to make the decision as to what is best for ourselves and the business.

Seriously !?!? Seems to me most "car guys" think its all a farce and aren't taking it seriously. And even those who do have the attitude that "its outdoors" so the guidelines are senseless - not realizing that its not at the show taht they're at risk but at the restaurants, hotels, etc.. The only people NOT attending the shows are the foreigners who can't travel internationally. The sooner the U.S. get's its sh!t together to eradicate this thing on their own turf the sooner we can all get back to normal.

It doesn't matter what the general public thinks one way or the other.

Its the local bureaucrats and politicians , etc etc that call the shots . But , Yes I think its all a farce . But my opinion is moot point as its all up to the organizers and local city planners to decide

In MY personal opinion I think we are AT LEAST a year away from anything close to normal for the vintage car world

It's even worse at large trade shows, where you are not even allowed to sell things off the floor....just show your wares. Some of the suppliers showing at the annual event people in my industry attend were paying up to $800K for (admittedly large) display booths prior to COVID shutting everything down. Costs add up quickly: HUGE booth rental fees, shipping across the country, union labour in the venue that costs more to move your goods from the dock to the display space than the shipping cost, internal labour costs, hotels, meals, etc, etc.....

Time will tell if when these events return post-covid, the venues come back hungrier....or greedier......

A show like Carlisle would probably do well when this sh!t blows over if they were to offer (quietly) free vendor spaces to people or companies who had a history of attending - like Mancini's. Then advertise it big time to make sure it draws the crowds. Make the money off the gate. They are going to have to get the ball rolling again because without something like that in another year we'll all have the mindset that the shows are no longer worth going to.

I went up to Vans place in Wisconsin late last year and they had already sold their toter home and were using the trailer as a storage container. Their sales are so strong online that they no longer need the expense and time needed to go to the shows, which is a good thing!