The Much Anticipated First Day for Non-TCA Members to Attend York has Arrived

OGR Webmaster posted:

Now that the meet is over, I think it's safe to say that the much-ballyhooed public attendance at this show was a total flop. It's painfully obvious that there was nowhere near enough publicity to get the word out about this.

109 people on Saturday? Really? Add two zeros to that number and we'd have something to talk about.

Will everyone who is surprised by this please raise their hands?

I hate to be cynical, but the lack of promotion makes it look like there wasn't a whole lot of interest in making it succeed.

Keep an eye on the TCA membership "thermometer". Maybe better, maybe worse.

It might not have helped that the meet was so late this time (I'm assuming due to holiday conflicts).  May starts on Monday! 

Weather was so nice the other days, it's easy to believe some people who might have considered coming out instead did spring time outdoor stuff.  (Members or public!)

As for today, the other side of that coin might not have helped in the morning with the rain, but at least it ended after an hour or so.

-Dave

I saw a man & woman come into to orange hall with a green stroller with a dog in it. What's with that?

eddie g posted:

I saw a man & woman come into to orange hall with a green stroller with a dog in it. What's with that?

The dog had a green band so he was good to go. 

Does anyone really know how much or how little advertising was done?  Facebook seemed pretty busy with the train folks talking about it. Although that's like preaching to the choir. 

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Saturday was DEAD...DEAD...DEAD!  We started packing about 3:15, and the public was a no-show! 

Shocker! 

Even if they broadcast with world wide advertising, how many non train people do you think are going throw down the money for a weekend trip to York, PA??? During the week!

Hey honey, lets pack up the kids and head to York Pa for a toy train show...I promise it's even better than Walley World.

I think they need to go back to the Friday opening. Make Friday a member only event and on Saturday open the dealer halls for the general public.  They are going to need to promote the event a whole lot better than they did for this meet.

Scott Smith

scott.smith posted:

I think they need to go back to the Friday opening. Make Friday a member only event and on Saturday open the dealer halls for the general public.  They are going to need to promote the event a whole lot better than they did for this meet.

Scott Smith

I like the Thursday noon opening. You'll never please everyone. Again how much or how little advertising did they do. I keep hearing they didn't do enough. Does anyone know all the avenues they tried?

If the show only generated 109 admissions from the general public (as reported above), I doubt the Eastern Division took in enough to break even on the dollars that were spent to advertise.

I think the show was very light. Thursday and Friday, not problems walking around. Hardly saw any of the green bands, sales and buying were ok from the folks I spoke too.

Hey, I got one of the 50 Lionel Cars, picked up a good number of Atlas O Steam Era cars, WiFi units for MTH and Lionel, and picked up my new TT from Mill House River Studios.

pdx1955 posted:

I wonder how much of the 109 were ex-TCA members versus being totally new?

We know of at least one former member who attended because he posted to this thread on Friday (look near the top of the first page). 

I would speculate that he wasn’t the only non-member in attendance as TCA dropouts are well aware of the York TCA meet so the lack of much advertising was not a factor to them.  I doubt if any of these dropouts will rejoin if this “experiment” becomes permanent so they can’t be counted as potential new members which was one of the Club’s objectives of opening to the public.

Regards,

Bill

MartyE posted:

scott.smith posted:

I think they need to go back to the Friday opening. Make Friday a member only event and on Saturday open the dealer halls for the general public.  They are going to need to promote the event a whole lot better than they did for this meet.

Scott Smith

I like the Thursday noon opening. You'll never please everyone. Again how much or how little advertising did they do. I keep hearing they didn't do enough. Does anyone know all the avenues they tried?

I like the Thursday opening as well. Noon is very nice for those of us who travel a long distance, it sure beats leaving at 4:00 AM.However we need to think about the cost to the manufacturers and to the dealers. The extra day means salary, hotel and meals for their employees. Sitting an extra day without financial benefit is enough to make dealers stay at home rather than sell at the show. There are several dealers that use to come to York that no longer attend. They didn't go out of business; they just couldn't justify the cost. Empty halls hours before closing is not going to make this any better.

Scott Smith

scott.smith posted:

MartyE posted:

scott.smith posted:

I think they need to go back to the Friday opening. Make Friday a member only event and on Saturday open the dealer halls for the general public.  They are going to need to promote the event a whole lot better than they did for this meet.

Scott Smith

I like the Thursday noon opening. You'll never please everyone. Again how much or how little advertising did they do. I keep hearing they didn't do enough. Does anyone know all the avenues they tried?

I like the Thursday opening as well. Noon is very nice for those of us who travel a long distance, it sure beats leaving at 4:00 AM.However we need to think about the cost to the manufacturers and to the dealers. The extra day means salary, hotel and meals for their employees. Sitting an extra day without financial benefit is enough to make dealers stay at home rather than sell at the show. There are several dealers that use to come to York that no longer attend. They didn't go out of business; they just couldn't justify the cost. Empty halls hours before closing is not going to make this any better.

Scott Smith

They could open Thursday at midnight...I'll still be there. I prefer Thursday but what ever they do I'll be there. 

Teapest in a tempot 

 The extra day means salary, hotel and meals for their employees. Sitting an extra day without financial benefit is enough to make dealers stay at home rather than sell at the show. There are several dealers that use to come to York that no longer attend. They didn't go out of business; they just couldn't justify the cost.

A couple of thoughts:

1 - Change the days and hours in the dealer halls to Friday and Saturday only. Leave Thursday for member halls only. Dealer setup (no selling) could be all day Thursday.

2 - Member table holders feel the same impact as the dealers. An extra day of food and lodging. An extra day of vacation time burnt. An extra day of not stepping up to family responsibilities.
The show lost a lot of table holders when it went to three days. I think the show tried to make up for the loss by allowing people to get multiple tables.
Long ago I suggested making some tables available for one or two days. The person on the show committee with whom I was communicating said they were considering this, but it never happened.

Regardless, how many TCA members made the trip, had a bad time, and are sorry they went? I'd guess there aren't many. I wish I had been able to attend.

I think I am going to look on facebook to see whether there are any comments from the public.

MartyE posted:

Does anyone really know how much or how little advertising was done?  Facebook seemed pretty busy with the train folks talking about it. Although that's like preaching to the choir. 

I live 25 miles north of Harrisburg and receive The Patriot News.  In the Weekend Section of the newspaper there was NO MENTION of the YORK MEET.  They usually put all the events of the area in this section of the paper and it was no where to be found.  TCA grade for getting the word out IMO=D+.  They did have the Local FOX 43 TV station there only on Thursday morning during their AM edition.  I saw two clips, one in the Orange Hall at the Atlas booth and the other in the Black Hall at the modular layout.  They need to put a coupon in the paper for the Public ala GUN SHOWs in Harrisburg for a dollar off admission or something like that.  Promote the hobby.

You know. After all the fuss on this forum about an open meet, it didn't change anything. We left York Saturday morning but as for Friday I saw very few armbands. Lot's of forum debate and un-noticable change.

This is the only train show I know of that is not a Sunday show.

If I were not a TCA member or on this forum I would never know about York.  And I am 30 minutes from the fairgrounds and 2 from the TCA museum.  Curious how to know how the folks with green bands heard about the meet.

clem k posted:

This is the only train show I know of that is not a Sunday show.

True, except for some one-day shows. I've sold at multiple day shows and Sunday is by far slower than Saturday. Early afternoon is the highest of the day, but nowhere as close as a Saturday.

Peter

FWIW: There was an ad in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

This is the only train show I know of that is not a Sunday show.

The local show in Albany, NY is held on Saturdays.
It is well attended.

Craignor posted:

FYI: The was an ad in Baltimore Sun Newspaper.

Well that is good to hear.  At least it is something.

WftTrains posted:

pdx1955 posted:

I wonder how much of the 109 were ex-TCA members versus being totally new?

We know of at least one former member who attended because he posted to this thread on Friday (look near the top of the first page). 

 

I would speculate that he wasn’t the only non-member in attendance as TCA dropouts are well aware of the York TCA meet so the lack of much advertising was not a factor to them.  I doubt if any of these dropouts will rejoin if this “experiment” becomes permanent so they can’t be counted as potential new members which was one of the Club’s objectives of opening to the public.

 

Regards,

Bill

Well, I'm not going to feel too bad about our chapter's public show if a locale in the middle of"O-Gauge heaven" can only break just over 100 members of the general public on a Saturday. I'm going to answer my own question as based on our meet surveys, about a third just know to show up and really can't be classified as "general" anyways. Some of these are ex-members or potential members/very interested parties. We do a lot of "pavement-pounding" with flyers, print advertisements, and social media. With advertising its a good day if you can get a 2% response rate. FB definitely mirrors that based on the results from our paid ads. Of that 2% that mark "going or interested" only about a quarter of those actually make it to the door. The sharing and "buzz" on FB doesn't necessarily translate to people at the door. It takes a lot of volunteer time and $$$ if you want a lot of folks to show up - its much harder than sending out a form in a TCA publication. Sometimes it doesn't do much based on weather, other events, economic conditions, etc. We had a member this year donate a lot of monies toward graphic print ads covering the west and central portions of the Portland metro area, and frankly it would have been cheaper to hand out $5 bills to anyone that showed up.

Peter

I did not see a single wristband for the 3 days I was there. Well, OK, late Thurs, all day Friday, and until 11:30 on Saturday (flew in, so constrained by flights).  But then again, I was looking at trains, not wrists.

WRT getting the word out, if you're at least a casual participant in our hobby, I know that CTT was talking about opening to the public in the months leading up to the meet, and I believe OGR did as well.  If you're a family guy with small kids who is contemplating trains as a hobby, then I agree with the post above about putting a coupon in the paper.  Oops; most young families don't read the paper, getting their news online.  Still, wouldn't hurt.

Advertising is math. There are only three major factors.

1) Reach-Are they reaching the intended people that would be interested in going to a great train event?

2)Frequency-How many times did the target group see or hear the message?

3)Message-Does the message itself make the consumer drop their can of bear and say I'm going to that?

If the ED is going to have a successful advertising campaign they must make sure that all factors are met. I doubt any of three factors were met...it was wasted money.

Scott Smith

I know the museum is a National TCA thing but you would think they would have a huge advertising display/booth there all year to promote the show to the general public.  The museum is one of the few places where the public (ok tourists) and toy trains collide.  I never understood why they don't promote the hell out of the show there.  It's like a hidden secret.  They should show pictures and video of the meet along with trains running from the displays.  Just ridiculous that they don't use it to promote it.  All I see is how the library is being updated with new technology and stuff but they don't bother to promote the one show that could really bring new blood to the TCA.  What am I missing here?  

The Greenberg Shows, and Great Model Train Shows both send out small post cards to me advertising the shows (which are at the Maryland State Fairgrounds which is only a few miles away) seems like one 6 weeks prior and another a week before. Those post cards I think are a good way to do it, because I might stick that card in my pending file on my desk, and see it every day, or if I wasn't interested I could hand it off to a friend that might be.

Carl Orton posted:

Oops; most young families don't read the paper, getting their news online.  Still, wouldn't hurt.

Think Facebook.

I saw a lot of wrist bands in the Orange hall  Friday.

You must have seen every one of them then, because there were only 109 total non-TCA people at the meet on friday!  I only saw a handful, but I believe one of them actually purchased something at our booth.

My advice to the Eastern Division decision makers is what it has always been. Stop listening to jealous hateful people. Period. To them you can add those who work in corporate greed. The secret handshake imaginers, the camera people, the cell phone anglers, and the public meet demanders all got their way and to what end? They sent the TCA and ED down one rabbit hole after another so they could get their jollies off of the anguish of others. Now the new demand is for more publicity. Let every corporate entity in the Orange Hall join together and create a fund to pay for the advertising. How they respond will show us what they really think it's worth.

There's an old saying, "You need to spend money in order to make money".

You must have seen every one of them then, because there were only 109 total non-TCA people at the meet on friday!  I only saw a handful, but I believe one of them actually purchased something at our booth.

Source?

Harry Henning went over to the registration desk and asked.  It's not like it's supposed to be a secret.

The Greenberg Shows, and Great Model Train Shows both send out small post cards to me advertising the shows (which are at the Maryland State Fairgrounds which is only a few miles away) seems like one 6 weeks prior and another a week before. Those post cards I think are a good way to do it, because I might stick that card in my pending file on my desk, and see it every day, or if I wasn't interested I could hand it off to a friend that might be

In order to send post cards, you need a mailing list.
One manufacturer sent out Emails on behalf of the show.
Where were the other dealers with mailing lists?

BIGRAIL,

Like almost every club or organization, who is going to do it?  The museum staff can barely keep up with the work they have now.  Not that your idea is not a good one.  But where do the extra funds come from to pay someone to do it?   How about a dues increase !!!

At my table in the Silver Hall there was a guy complaining to the meet chairman that should we  do this and we should do that.  Some of his ideas actually made sense.  But once again he was told he can't even find enough volunteers to enforce all the rules that we have now.  No extra money for someone to do the work, no volunteers.  What is one to do?? 

Paul Edgar

Like almost every club or organization, who is going to do it?  The museum staff can barely keep up with the work they have now.  Not that your idea is not a good one.  But where do the extra funds come from to pay someone to do it? 

I haven't been to the museum in a long time.
If it does not have a display about the TCA, then one should be created.
Now that the show is open to the public, there could also be a display about the York show.
Some folks might cry that it is unfair to favor one division. But does any other division have a similar show?

These displays should be able to get built the same way anything else gets done. Assign the work to staff. Let something else slip.

No extra money for someone to dothe work, no volunteers.  What is one to do??

There was a very successful show run by the local TTOS division in my area. It was always the same people doing all the work. Lots of people ready to tell those folks just how to do it, but unwilling to lift a finger themselves. When that core group got tired of the work, the show folded.