With Thursday no longer being offered by the Eastern Division, (starting in 2020) , do you see the Bandit meets gaining some traction here and possibly returning to their old glory days?
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I think that if more people show up at the bandit meets more vendors will start coming. Based on one non TCA members posts they have everything that should draw huge crowds, cell phone use, camera use stroller use, no membership fee and no admission. So York meet will disappear and bandit meets will thrive.
No. According to many I spoke to weather was also a contributing factor.
The weather is a very important Factor at the Wyndham. The bandit meets are not going to take away from the ED meet. But then I have only been going to York for 45 years. The ED meet in York will always be the greatest COLLECTOR meet in the country.
What Eddie said. Plus, don't forget that the tax man had something to do with the demise of the bandit meets also.
When you sell at York in the member halls, no tax number is needed. But the bandit meets require registering with the PA tax people. That wasn't always the case back in the hey day of the bandit meets.
Jim
The demographics of the hobby (contributing to the York Meet's decline from it's peak) would apply equally to the Bandit meets, no? If not, why not?
I guess we all can be proven wrong, but I just don't think there are as many people in the hobby as there used to be, for obvious (normal life) reasons. (In addition to the other reasons noted above)
-Dave
Roger TEB posted:So York meet will disappear and bandit meets will thrive.
Not even the most remote chance of that happening.
Several factors apply. Aging and shrinking population=fewer with train interest. Little or nothing actually new from fewer mfrs. provides little incentive to make trip to see "what's new?". One off-grounds sale hall is now 99% Flyer..another is "blue hall", (same stuff every meet)., third, " Billy Budd", shrunk way down (taxes?), another is gone, this leaves Wyndham. All of the meets are eroding because of shrinking number of train fans. Have no idea how to reverse that.
Based on what I saw last April, you could put everyone from the two fire halls and Billy Budd in the Wyndham and it still would not come close to what the Wyndham was 5 years ago just by itself.
Pete
L.I.TRAIN posted:With Thursday no longer being offered by the Eastern Division, (starting in 2020) , do you see the Bandit meets gaining some traction here and possibly returning to their old glory days?
Is this a done deal Steve (no more Thursdays) or still just a consideration by ED?
I don't think the Billy Budd will ever again have a circus tent with vendors on the grassy knoll and a sold out parking lot full of vendors.
I don't think the Sheraton will ever have 3/4 of their parking lot full of vendors with customers parking at the mall.
So, no it is not even a remote possibility.
Just enjoy what you have while it is here
Here are the FutureYork Meet dates i just copies from the TCA Ed website; So to answer John's question it is so starting in 2020 Fri/Sat
Future Meet Dates
October 17 - 19, 2019
April 24, 25, 2020
October 23, 24, 2020
April 23, 24, 2021
October 22, 23, 2021
April 29, 30, 2022
October 21, 22, 2022
April 21, 22, 2023
October 20, 21, 2023
You made me double check myself, but the latest TCA magazine I just got shows Thursday April 23 for 2020. I was planning on getting an answer at York.
It seems really unfortunate that they rushed to change all the dates on the web site so quickly rather than just April 2020. Several people have commented on other threads that when they inquired, they were told (via email) that the 2 day experiment is only a firm decision for April 2020 so far.
It would have been good to inform the web-master for the site not to change all the other dates yet since many people are still looking at it and thinking it's already a firm conclusion that it's only 2 days from April 2020 until eternity (or at least all the dates shown).
I have a lot of respect/gratitude for the EDTCA and those who put in all the thankless hours to run the York meet, but from the original poorly worded survey to the quick change of all the dates on the website (when the change may only be for April 2020) to the responses being provided in email (that conflict with the website as shown above), this should have all been done more slowly and much more methodically.
It's not helping itself right now.
-Dave
