@BlueComet400 posted:Agreed, Marty. Any business whose principals/employees are there to promote its product and acquire customers, having only paid the entry fee and not committed to booth space, is simply taking advantage of the situation.
I believe my partner--the other Alan--clarified this in his post after the above-quoted one appeared. We (OGR) pay for booth space even if we do not actually use the booth. The TCA-ED is not being "taken advantage of" in any way, and I have, in the past, even registered and paid for meets that I will not be attending. I have been a devoted supporter of the York Meet and the TCA since I joined in 1992 after moving back to the mainland from Hawaii. I may harbor opinions about the meet or the organization that others may or may not agree with, but all are intended to be seen as constructive criticism, often based on experience from both my personal and business perspectives.
In my case, as editor of the magazine, my primary business-related reason for being at York is to meet with past, present, and future authors, and to get a feel for the state of the hobby through conversations with advertisers, dealers, and manufacturers. Can't really do that very well if required to stand or sit in a booth. The past several meets, where I circulated around pretty much from opening to close (admittedly mostly in the Orange Hall) led to a number of excellent prospects for editorial content for the magazine. Just a handful of those prospects garnered at any meet makes attending well worthwhile.
