pennsy484 posted:Dave45681 posted:jd-train posted:I would disagree that it should be a totally closed meet.
If the public sales help make is worthwhile for the dealers to go to York, I see this as a win for everyone!
Jim
But that point is under debate, to the best of my knowledge.
For years, the cry from dealers was to let the public in, so they could experience the meet. That has now happened for the dealer halls over the last few meets, but this is the meet where several importers and magazine companies decided to not attend, so apparently the public did not enhance their bottom line enough to balance the decline due to other factors.
So whether it helped is debatable. As J611 mentioned, the demographic remains the same. That factor cannot be altered much by admitting the public, it would seem.
The (sad, but true) joke among me and my dealer and some other colleagues that socialize at York is that "20 years ago, when I joined (shortly after graduating college and having a real job), I was one of the youngest members of the TCA. It's now 20+ years later, and I am still one of the youngest members of the TCA."
-Dave
Ditto that.
I honestly don't understand what there is to debate on my original comment.
The dealers don't care if their sales were made to TCA members, TCA guests, or the general public. They look at the bottom line to see if sales justify their costs to attend.
Worse case scenario would be zero additional sales to a dealer from the general public. Any sales to the general public would be sales above those of TCA members and guests. If total sales from all TCA members, guests, and the public do not meet their expectations, they may opt to not attend future Meets.
I wouldn't sit back and wait for factual numbers from the dealers on sales to the general public. When I purchased items from three different dealers all they did was record the item number and sales price.
Jim
