Skip to main content

Sal V. posted:

Maybe hold a York type show in N.Y.C. I am also new to the hobby & don`t want to drive 3 hours- If they would do the same type show in the Javits convention center I`m shure more people would show up & get interested...Also when was the last time anyone saw a television commercial? -You would think Lionel, MTH, & other O guage manufacturers would run a spot pre holiday season- .......

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's a lot more expensive to rent the Javits Convention Center than the York County Fairgrounds.  Is there similar free parking (question in jest - I am sure there is not!)?

Driving 3 hours is a really small trip compared to what many do.  I drive 2 hours and consider myself a (relative) local.

TV commercials are an absolute huge cost with no guaranteed benefit.

Walter Anderson posted:
L.I.TRAIN posted:

 One consideration would be to raise the non member admission to $25 for full access.

Just my thoughts.

Steve

 

 

maybe 2 or 3 $'s, not 5/

Full general public access can't happen for tax reasons for member (non-business) sellers.  See my description here.

Never happening, unless you want to chase away half of those sellers.

Last edited by Dave45681

Maybe hold a York type show in N.Y.C. I am also new to the hobby & don`t want to drive 3 hours- If they would do the same type show in the Javits convention center I`m shure more people would show up & get interested...Also when was the last time anyone saw a television commercial? -You would think Lionel, MTH, & other O guage manufacturers would run a spot pre holiday season- .......

I think the folks in the Orange Hall, like Lionel, MTH, and all those others who earn their living from our hobby, should band together and put on a show like this. The TCA does not need to be in the business of drumming up new customers for businesses.

palallin posted:

To reply to the Original Question:

1)  Promote it to whom? Retiree looking for a hobby? 

Success is mostly Management of Expectations.

I think this would be helpful, possibly with a article or ad in magazines like AARP. I came back into the hobby big time since I retired in 1995. The kids had finished collage, and I had spare cash (wife was still working). Although I've always had hobbies and interests, a lot of guys are clueless about what to do after their "work" life.

I agree that expectations are a key issue. Given the fact that "playing with trains as a kid" is not the factor it used to be, and that people are less interested in "collecting", and that eBay and on-line has become a major place to buy and sell, and that fewer kids today want any form of hobby.....

Maybe a few very dedicated "train nuts" could get together in a barn twice a year to talk, trade, and sell trains to each other...but not make the mistake of calling it an "association".

Mallard4468 posted:

Thanks for starting the thread in a thoughtful manner.

I'm not sure how the tax issue can be communicated more clearly, but it IS an issue, and opening the entire meet to the public is a non-starter.  (Covered very well by Dave45861's post above).

Since we can now buy trains anywhere and anytime, 

MartyE posted:
 The only reason we are having this discussion is that the York meet became bigger than I suspect they ever intended. 

Respectively MartyE, I would like this discussions purpose be increasing the numbers of Hobbyist/Customers. Size of shows not an issue. Number of people involved in the Hobby. Hence, manufacturers having a decent bottom line to keep producing(stay in business) many products. JMHO

C W Burfle posted:

 

I think the folks in the Orange Hall, like Lionel, MTH, and all those others who earn their living from our hobby, should band together and put on a show like this. The TCA does not need to be in the business of drumming up new customers for businesses.

If the fun and pleasure in this Hobby is not shared far and wide, it will die.   The TCA absolutely needs to HELP drum up customers/Hobbyist!

If the fun and pleasure in this Hobby is not shared far and wide, it will die.   The TCA absolutely needs to HELP drum up customers/Hobbyist!

As someone who has been in the hobby since about 1969, I feel confident saying that no, train collecting and operating will not die as a hobby. There were some fairly lean years in 1969 and the early 1970's. 
There will always be a group of people who are interested.  The number of manufacturers may shrink significantly, but there is plenty of merchandise already out there. There may be a return to small "basement companies" making the stuff we need to keep our trains going.

The TCA never was, and never should be a manufacturer's support organization. It's the manufacturers who should be supporting the TCA, not the other way around.

The way I see it, by operating mainly a closed meet and doing the public a "favor" by opening two halls to everyone for two days is a severe limitation, not the formula for long term success.  You can't really advertise it to the public as the restrictions would not be clearly understood.  How would you word this on a billboard "come to the York train meet, 7 halls of trains but only two open to the public" . It would be waste of money. Since no other show in Pennsylvania (automotive, firearm, computer, antique) operates like the ED/TCA they are in a unique position.

The meet still draws around 10,000. I believe that is sufficient to pay the bills and perhaps turn a small profit for the time being. What is working against growth is the changing demographics of those that purchase the trains and attracting the same stale audience.  The ED has a challenge on its hands. Sellers, (the table holders) go to the meet to make money If you don't get new people in, there will eventually be no sellers and no meet. If there will be a York a few years from now, shrinking the meet or opening everything to the public (and making it family friendly) will be the only option.

The WGHOT show draws up to 20,000 on a weekend with one 100,000 sq ft  hall . The Allentown Train Meet with two halls and only 50,000 sq ft of floor space draws 5,000 (half of York) . York has like 170,000 sq ft of floor space and draws 10,000.  Just do the math.

 

The problem with many of the ideas, if you will, is the agreement that the EDTCA has with the state taxman.  This limits the public access to the show.  If you want the public everywhere that goes away and so does the majority of the folks selling at the member level.  Believe or not without them, York would go away faster than now. The vendors could do better at a location that wasn't originally intended to be for a member only, local show. Any solution has to keep this deal in place.  

The EDTCA has done a good job at pushing this as far as they can go.  The member halls cannot be open to the public.  I also suspect the public have very little interest in what's in those halls as they are geared more towards the collector anyways.  It's always so easy looking from the outside in to come up with ideas but without knowing all the inner workings something that seems so obvious and a good idea is often not.

 

Last edited by MartyE

How would you word this on a billboard "come to the York train meet, 7 halls of trains but only two open to the public" . It would be waste of money.

The answer is: You wouldn't.
Not that I am in favor of billboards, but you would list the positive.
Something like:
"500 dealers" or "200 tables" or whatever the number in the dealer halls might be..
No need to mention the private part at all.

Listing the number of halls would be meaningless anyway.
How many dealers in each hall? - 20, 50, 100, 1,000?

C W Burfle posted:

How would you word this on a billboard "come to the York train meet, 7 halls of trains but only two open to the public" . It would be waste of money.

The answer is: You wouldn't.
Not that I am in favor of billboards, but you would list the positive.
Something like:
"500 dealers" or "200 tables" or whatever the number in the dealer halls might be..
No need to mention the private part at all.

Listing the number of halls would be meaningless anyway.
How many dealers in each hall? - 20, 50, 100, 1,000?

Billboard rates in York are $1500-$5000 per month for a standard billboard, $2500-$8000 per month for a digital billboard.  One month minimum.  https://www.billboardsin.com/pennsylvania/york.html

One can Google "billboard rates in York Pennsylvania" for other rates if so desired.

I think that's for the billboard space only and doesn't include the cost of media.

Rusty

Traindiesel posted:

As with any suggestions of change, remember that those who organize and operate the York Meet are volunteers who donate their time to produce a great toy train event.  They are not paid to do this.  Anyone want to devote some time to advertise, set up a train ride for kids, organize outside groups to attend, etc.?  The members could care less, they just want a venue to buy, trade and sell their trains.  It wasn't created to entertain the masses or vendors or importers.  It's not meant to get more people involved with trains.  The Worlds Greatest Hobby Shows does that.  The York Meet is the result of what the WGH shows do.

Speaking as someone who has been a volunteer in setting up and producing a train show (not on the scale of York, if course), I think this paragraph is perhaps the most important one in the whole discussion.

As long as the ED members work this way and feel this way, York will not become all the things that everyone else wants it to be.

I am NOT being critical:  I applaud.  Until we have the proverbial skin in the game--and travelling to York as a buyer or even as a manufacturer does not qualify--we have no say in how they do it.  If York reverted to its beginnings, the ED folks might well be much happier.  It is, after all, their playground, not ours.

Personally, I think the TCA Eastern York meet is dong just fine, as is, from the observation as an attendee.  Attendance may have been down this spring, due to various reasons, especially the weather.   This meet has been ongoing for years for TCA members as TCA members to attend, one of the benefits to being a TCA member.  If the meet is opened to the public in all halls, all days, why would anyone pay annual dues to belong to TCA?  

Seems to me this subject comes up after every York.  I believe the Eastern Division does a great job, and should be thanked for a job well done.  I believe they evaluate each York, and listen to suggestions to improve, etc.    One change that might help attendance, lessen expense for vendors may be to go back to only Friday and Saturday. 

Per conversations after last week’s York, several vendors in the Orange hall indicated attendance was down, but their sales were the best of any York they’ve attended.  

Personally I have looked forward to attending the York TCA over the past 28 years and like it just the way it is.    If changes need to be made to continue the great job Eastern Division does, I will support them.    

 

My thanks to Peter for attempting to elicit serious responses which could benefit all parties.

Here are my thoughts and suggestions:

The Eastern Division and table holders need to form a bi-partison committee to develop proposals which create marketing pressure for the meet.  Face it, the majority of members who hold tables are at York to make money or advertise their business.  They attend York to promote sales.  A working definition of a sales promotion is “media and non-media marketing pressure applied for a predetermined, limited period of time in order to stimulate trial, increase consumer demand, or improve product quality." While this definition covers the broad details of sales promotion, the truth is that sales promotion is all about incentives. In essence, sales promotion gives potential customers an additional reason (or reasons) to consider doing business with you.

The idea behind this is that once customers are willing to take that first leap of faith and try your product or services they’ll be satisfied enough with the results to be willing to be a return customer or recommend you to people they know.   I see many examples table holder pricing being completely out of sync with what the market will bear.

To effectively motivate customers into doing business with your business or organization,  the  promotion strategy should include five elements:

1) Identifying your target audience. Over the course of a lifetime, loyal customers spend upwards of 10 times the amount spent by average customers. The difficulty of any marketing effort lies in locating individuals who will eventually develop into brand advocates. Many marketers believe that by casting a large enough net, they’ll be able to locate those individuals simply by virtue of percentages. After all, if enough prospects are contacted, a percentage of those prospects is bound to journey through the sales funnel and become paying customers, and a smaller percentage of those customers will become loyal customers. 

The problem with this mentality is that it’s remarkably inefficient, with only a small fraction of prospects and leads “paying off” to offset the initial investment. By predetermining a target audience, businesses can put their own finite marketing resources to better use. Through this process, businesses can target those most likely to become loyal customers without wasting any resources on those who aren’t.

 The same can be said for sales promotion campaigns. In order to understand the best target audience for your promotion, you first need to understand more about the customers you already have. Send out a simple survey or questionnaire (or have one built directly into your site) that allows customers to share demographic data. Offer an incentive up front in order to get customers to take the time to share personal information. 

Once you’ve a clearer idea of what kinds of people use your product or service, identify exactly what kinds of problems your product or service is designed to solve. With these two factors in mind, you should focus your sales promotion toward those who are most likely to be genuinely interested.

At a minimum, all businesses should send out direct email blasts to their customers letting them know about the York Meet.  Facebook postings are not enough and rely on the customer going to you.  Businesses should be proactive and reach out themselves.

 2) Determine and strive to achieve measurable goals. There’s no denying the importance of setting goals. In fact, in a study performed by the Harvard MBA program, those who made and recorded clear goals went on to earn on average 10 times the amount of those who didn’t. When designing a sales promotion campaign, your goals need to be more specific than ‘increasing sales.’ 

So, what's your strategy? Ask yourself what the most important objective of your promotion should be. Are you hoping to draw in new customers, or are you more inclined to focus on customer retention? Do you want your customers to purchase more frequently, or would you like for them to increase the average amount that they spend on a purchase? Are you attempting to increase the business that your organization gets during slower seasons or times of the day? Are you interested in regaining the attention of former customers who have taken their business elsewhere? 

Determine exactly what you would like to accomplish with the meet, and when possible, translate that goal into a specific number. This will allow you to chart your failure or success as the campaign progresses, and to identify aspects of your campaign that need to be amended or further developed.

3) Limited Availability.   Behavioral psychologists have found that human beings tend to assign greater value to things they perceive as being scarce. In a classic study performed in 1975, researchers had participants assign perceived value to identical cookies located in two identical jars. The only difference between the two jars was that one held 10 cookies, while the other held only two. The study discovered that while there was no apparent difference between the cookies or the jars, participants assigned greater value to the jar of two cookies.

 When something seems limited, we naturally assign it greater value. We tend to want things we can’t have or that we fear that we won’t be able to have in the near future. At base, we’re animals that have a keen sense of regret, and we hate missed opportunities. Call FOMO – the fear of missing out. The best marketers have learned how to take advantage of this very human phenomenon by offering limited-time deals. A sales promotion—such as lower prices —may seem like an attractive incentive for motivating sales, but unless that promotion is only available for a limited time or in limited quantities, then a large majority of customers will not be interested. On the other hand, if those customers are faced with the possibility of missing the promotion if they don’t act quickly, they’ll be far more likely to commit. 

Some ideas here are blowout pricing which is below your best advertised sale price during other sales or a one time coupon for select savings on a future purchase.

Anyone remember the stampede last year for the Lionel limited edition York boxcar?

  4) Sufficient promotion.  The promotion is an effort to draw customer attention to the table holders who are selling.  But what about drawing attention to the promotion itself? In order for a promotion to be effective, it needs to be seen and understood by the same target audience identified back in point number-one. The question becomes, how does one promote a promotion?

I believe they can be promoted much like any other product or service. In-store signage, employee word-of-mouth, social media, your business’ website, email contact, flyers, paper mailers, articles in local publications, press releases, commercials and telephone contact may all be effective in letting your customers and prospective customers know about your sales promotion. Visibility is key but it may be most beneficial to focus promotional strategies on less-expensive—though still tightly focused—channels. For example, emails to interested parties have a very high rate of return, with 44% of email recipients making at least one annual purchase based on a promotional email. 

While Rich said you have to spend money to make money, I don't believe this is entirely accurate.  What you really are trying to do is reach your targeted audience – and yes, sometimes that takes money.

 5)  Creating Value.  When all is said and done, the customer is interested in just one thing: value. If your promotion doesn’t offer your customers real value, then all of the limited-time offers and targeted marketing in the world isn’t going to make your promotion a success. 

Ask yourself what kind of offer your potential customers will find most interesting, and then determine whether or not you can afford to give it to them. If you can, then you may have found the perfect sales promotion. If you can’t, then scale it back until you come to a compromise that will be interesting to your target audience, while still remaining cost effective for your organization.  

A successful promotional campaign is one in which everyone benefits. If either you or your customers are coming away from the experience feeling unsatisfied, then you need to revisit and reevaluate your promotional strategy.

 

The fact is there are certain realities which will not change (dealing with the tax man) so access to all halls without being a TCA member is a non-starter.  But at its core this hobby is about PEOPLE.  We all have countless stories of PEOPLE in our hobby stepping up to help out other PEOPLE both inside and outside the hobby.  Surely, those with the expertise could very well advise on how to get started if that is their wish.

The time for complaining is over. The time for working together is here.

In closing, my sincere thanks to all the VOLUNTEERS who work tirelessly and mostly in anonymity year round to make the York meet the single best place to gather for the hobby!

-Greg

Aem7s4lyfe posted:

Is it possible to host the meet in a big city like Philadelphia?  Other than the railroad museums, there really isn't any tourist things to do in York, PA.  There's the Great Expo Center in Oaks, PA that is about 30-45 mins from Philadelphia.  People can visit the city of brotherly love while attending the show.

I live just outside of Philadelphia. I've also been to the Expo Center in Oaks many times (Greenberg, WGHS, and gun shows, and a 30 minute drive for me). It would take 2-3 Expo Centers to hold York. The parking, as is, is not adequate for a "full house" event (for the huge gun show, I arrive 45 minutes before the Friday opening). Actually Greenberg  backed out of setting up in Oaks for a while due to high rates. I'm not sure about the hotel situation near Oaks, but it would not be any cheaper than York. I know that the Greenburg and gun shows do not require many motel rooms because they have a lot of "local" venues (so no need to travel long distances). Of course, hotels in the city are $$$$. BTW, there is no public transportation from Phila to Oaks. 

For train lovers, Strasburg is only 45 minutes from York with the steam RR plus the PRR Museum. Also not very far away is the Gettysburg battlefield.  Strasburg is also "Amish country" with tours, lectures, and places to eat. 

Certainly some points to ponder:

Target audience. Well, we know the FORMER target audience is now the target audience of nursing homes and undertakers. We'll have to find a new one. BTW, I'm one of the former.

Determine goals. Well, do we want 15 or 20 or 25,000 showing up? I don't even want to imagine parking or aisle congestion.

Limited availability. That BS worked great in the 1980s. How many of you fell for that one? Now your stuff is worth much less than you paid for those "limited editions" and "rare" items. Thank you Greenberg Publishing Co. for your "guides".

Maybe I'm saying this in jest....or not. 

Add Reply

Post

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×