It would be interesting to compare the amount of vendor purchases to that of the attendees.
I doubt that dealer hall vendors buy much of anything at the show. Anything they buy for their business has to be resold at a significantly higher price, and most vendors & member table holders do not give anything away.
Same goes for the quasi-dealers in the member halls.
Regular members, the kind of folks I preferred to deal with, probably buy as much as they sell.
What difference does it make?
Without the vendors, there is no show.
Make the show unpleasant for them, and they will stop attending.
It's much easier for the vendors to sell via the internet.
