Over the years, in discussions about York, other train shows and meets have often been brought up in comparison to York. Having been to some of them, I was curious as to how they stacked up in comparison to York, as well as a few other shows I regularly attend. For this comparison, I am including the “Big E”, the First Frost / Spring Thaw shows in Allentown, the GSMTS shows in Timonium, the Mount Hope show in Ohio, and my local Greenberg show in Monroeville, PA. The “Big E” is the only show I have never attended because it always coincides with a local show I do with my club.
For this comparison, I will be only looking at the venues and the number of vendor/dealer/manufacturer tables.My data comes from the venue web sites, show web sites, and the most recent published floor plans (where available).
First up are the venues in descending order of size:
- Big E – 350,000 sq. ft. -- This is by far the largest show in terms of show space, and has the most layouts.
- York – 184,730 sq. ft. -- Broken down: Orange 74,000; Blue 29,264; Silver 28,202; Purple 22,816; Red 17,248; White 13,200. I did not include Black, as it is sometimes not used and sometimes only partially occupied.
- Timonium – 158,400 sq. ft. -- This show also has a large number of layouts.
- Mt. Hope – 61,000 sq. ft.
- Allentown – 60,000 sq. ft.
- Monroeville Greenberg – 43,181 sq. ft.
Next is the vendor/dealer/manufacturer tables. For this, I am not including tables being used by layouts. For most of these venues, it was pretty easy to tally the tables based on their most recent published floor plan charts. The only challenge came from trying to estimate the number of tables in the booth area of Orange Hall at York. To come up with a number, I approximated the booth size for each vendor and used the EDTCA’s table guidelines for booths, and as I don’t think all vendors would use the maximum number of tables available to them, I am figuring about 75% usage (although I personally think it is higher):
- York – 2,436 tables – This is the Spring ‘23 number of occupied tables. 2,700 would be an approximate maximum if all tables were occupied and booths used all tables available. The breakdown is as follows: Orange 1,063 (729 booth, 285 tables in table rows); Blue 526; Silver 440; Red 292; White 164.
- Big E – 1,223 tables + 5,262 sq. ft. (mostly manufacturers) – using York's table allotment for booth space, this would translate to about another 150 tables (at 100% usage) for an estimated total of 1373 tables.
- Allentown – 627 tables.
- Timonium – 605 tables + some booth space. This number is based on the April ‘23 show, which is the “slowest” of their 3 shows per year.
- Mount Hope – 600+ tables. This number is per their advertising, as no floor maps are currently available. Also, the event center where this takes place is undergoing an expansion, so this event may grow in the future.
- Monroeville Greenberg – 457 tables. This number is per their August 2023 show.
Each of these shows has a lot to offer. The Big E, Timonium, and to a much lesser extent Greenberg have a lot of layouts making them a great place for families with kids attending for the entertainment value. All of them have something to offer the beginners and those curious or considering getting into the hobby, and while pretty much every scale of model trains from G on down can be found at all these shows, York remains the king for O and Standard gauges and perhaps S gauge as well.
Andy