Post by lvrr325 on Sept 3, 2020 13:57:59 GMT -8
I keep track of the shows here in NY and it's going to be a rough season this fall.
All the September shows, Buffalo Central Terminal, Clayton 1000 Islands and Massena are cancelled
A delayed Amsterdam show for October they gave up
The TTCS has cancelled all it's fall shows - Buffalo and Olean in October, Rochester in November and Buffalo again in December
The CNY NRHS big show at the state fairgrounds they cancelled. But a key chapter member isn't doing well plus it's a state facility so
The Albany Polish Center show, the center's not open so they threw in the towel
The WNYRHS made no attempt to try their show at the Erie County Fairgrounds, November
The Great Train Extravaganza held at the egg center in Albany, well, a state facility, so no surprise there. Usually first Sunday in December
As for the rest:
Kingston, NY and Scranton, PA have not updated their websites yet. The former in an event center probably the venue will kill it, the latter is in a hotel ball room and I don't know what PA's rules are for events that size.
Poughkeepsie still shows as on
The Oswego Valley Model RR group moved their shows to the Volney FD and they will have it unless weather kills it.
The GSME Batavia show also no update. It's at a college so I expect the college to say no dice.
Binghamton Regional Show is scheduled for Nov. 28th, but it's at a venue that has a liquor license, even though the bar is closed during the show. That brings in a whole new set of special rules from the King - he banned advertising of entertainment and most entertainment in these places - so that may put a halt on it.
A little show in Norwich is scheduled the same day, in a church. They see like 100 people through the door in a day so my guess is they should be able to hold it if they follow capacity rules.
The last show up here before Christmas is usually the RIT Model RR club show, but again it's held at a college facility so my guess is it won't happen.
The TCA has shows up here also but they are slow to update their website and keep up with. Last year they abandoned about half of them as failures that did not make any money, but some of them were dumb - they kept holding one in Syracuse the first Sunday in December, opposite GTE in Albany and a TTCS show in Buffalo. Consequently they never got more than about a dozen vendors as the big guys went either to GTE, or some went to Edison NJ last year, while the WNY vendors stuck close to home. All they had to do was move it back one day, to Saturday, to get more vendors, but for whatever reason they didn't. They, or people related to them, had a show in Elmira the same day as Binghamton, too - and again it was a bust.
Greenberg has a tentative fall-winter schedule up, including a return to Rochester, NY for 2021, but nothing is set in stone and they won't book an event until they're sure it will happen. I'm actually going to price out going to some of their other shows, if other states allow them before NY, I may as well go give it a shot. Timonium, Edison and the ones near Philadelphia may be do-able.
To put it in perspective, I normally go to Syracuse, Batavia, Hamburg, Binghamton, Albany and RIT. Fulton I stopped doing because I got in at Batavia and they're usually opposite each other, and when they started doing Binghamton it was that Saturday, I was selling more and finding more re-sale stuff between the two.
This year, Fulton may be the only show I end up being able to do. Initially I didn't plan on it but I did their spring show, which ended up being a June show, and it was good considering it was barely advertised to slip it in under the radar. I got thinking about it and decided to get a spot for the fall one on the odds Batavia gets cancelled with everything else.
I don't blame the guys in state facilities and so forth, with the large shows. You run the risk of being cancelled at the last minute. BCT I sent money in and then the county told them no a month ahead. Greenberg had a Pittsburgh area show cancelled the Monday before.
But I've also suggested to several of them that they work within the rules and assume this could be the new normal for a while. With Sears, K-mart, Bon-Ton, etc. all closing stores left and right you have tons of vacant spaces that could be a temporary venue. Because they're a department store they can be open, even before the malls were allowed to open. Flea markets are also allowed, so if you call your event a train flea market - which most of them are anyways - that should square it up with the rules too.
Just one example, the WNYRHS usually uses a room at the Erie County Fairgrounds that's around 75,000 square feet. 5 minutes away there is a Sears that closed in February that is twice the size; I happened to see photos someone took last week and the mall has kept the lights on and the HVAC going in there so it should be clean enough. It would be easy to have the same dealers, all spaced out from each other, use one door as entry and one door as exit, and if you have a capacity limit someone just has to count and stop entry at capacity until some people leave. Don't even use the mall gate. A Sears has it's own bathrooms so that's covered, the only thing you don't have is an event food service and there either you just tell people sorry no food because Covid, use the places nearby, or maybe you bring in a food truck or two. This particular mall has three empty anchors and the 4th is in bankruptcy, so I would think they'd be happy for even a couple grand extra income to use a space for a couple days. Even if you're allowed just 25% capacity, 25% of 150,000 square feet would allow for a decent number of people at any one time.
All the September shows, Buffalo Central Terminal, Clayton 1000 Islands and Massena are cancelled
A delayed Amsterdam show for October they gave up
The TTCS has cancelled all it's fall shows - Buffalo and Olean in October, Rochester in November and Buffalo again in December
The CNY NRHS big show at the state fairgrounds they cancelled. But a key chapter member isn't doing well plus it's a state facility so
The Albany Polish Center show, the center's not open so they threw in the towel
The WNYRHS made no attempt to try their show at the Erie County Fairgrounds, November
The Great Train Extravaganza held at the egg center in Albany, well, a state facility, so no surprise there. Usually first Sunday in December
As for the rest:
Kingston, NY and Scranton, PA have not updated their websites yet. The former in an event center probably the venue will kill it, the latter is in a hotel ball room and I don't know what PA's rules are for events that size.
Poughkeepsie still shows as on
The Oswego Valley Model RR group moved their shows to the Volney FD and they will have it unless weather kills it.
The GSME Batavia show also no update. It's at a college so I expect the college to say no dice.
Binghamton Regional Show is scheduled for Nov. 28th, but it's at a venue that has a liquor license, even though the bar is closed during the show. That brings in a whole new set of special rules from the King - he banned advertising of entertainment and most entertainment in these places - so that may put a halt on it.
A little show in Norwich is scheduled the same day, in a church. They see like 100 people through the door in a day so my guess is they should be able to hold it if they follow capacity rules.
The last show up here before Christmas is usually the RIT Model RR club show, but again it's held at a college facility so my guess is it won't happen.
The TCA has shows up here also but they are slow to update their website and keep up with. Last year they abandoned about half of them as failures that did not make any money, but some of them were dumb - they kept holding one in Syracuse the first Sunday in December, opposite GTE in Albany and a TTCS show in Buffalo. Consequently they never got more than about a dozen vendors as the big guys went either to GTE, or some went to Edison NJ last year, while the WNY vendors stuck close to home. All they had to do was move it back one day, to Saturday, to get more vendors, but for whatever reason they didn't. They, or people related to them, had a show in Elmira the same day as Binghamton, too - and again it was a bust.
Greenberg has a tentative fall-winter schedule up, including a return to Rochester, NY for 2021, but nothing is set in stone and they won't book an event until they're sure it will happen. I'm actually going to price out going to some of their other shows, if other states allow them before NY, I may as well go give it a shot. Timonium, Edison and the ones near Philadelphia may be do-able.
To put it in perspective, I normally go to Syracuse, Batavia, Hamburg, Binghamton, Albany and RIT. Fulton I stopped doing because I got in at Batavia and they're usually opposite each other, and when they started doing Binghamton it was that Saturday, I was selling more and finding more re-sale stuff between the two.
This year, Fulton may be the only show I end up being able to do. Initially I didn't plan on it but I did their spring show, which ended up being a June show, and it was good considering it was barely advertised to slip it in under the radar. I got thinking about it and decided to get a spot for the fall one on the odds Batavia gets cancelled with everything else.
I don't blame the guys in state facilities and so forth, with the large shows. You run the risk of being cancelled at the last minute. BCT I sent money in and then the county told them no a month ahead. Greenberg had a Pittsburgh area show cancelled the Monday before.
But I've also suggested to several of them that they work within the rules and assume this could be the new normal for a while. With Sears, K-mart, Bon-Ton, etc. all closing stores left and right you have tons of vacant spaces that could be a temporary venue. Because they're a department store they can be open, even before the malls were allowed to open. Flea markets are also allowed, so if you call your event a train flea market - which most of them are anyways - that should square it up with the rules too.
Just one example, the WNYRHS usually uses a room at the Erie County Fairgrounds that's around 75,000 square feet. 5 minutes away there is a Sears that closed in February that is twice the size; I happened to see photos someone took last week and the mall has kept the lights on and the HVAC going in there so it should be clean enough. It would be easy to have the same dealers, all spaced out from each other, use one door as entry and one door as exit, and if you have a capacity limit someone just has to count and stop entry at capacity until some people leave. Don't even use the mall gate. A Sears has it's own bathrooms so that's covered, the only thing you don't have is an event food service and there either you just tell people sorry no food because Covid, use the places nearby, or maybe you bring in a food truck or two. This particular mall has three empty anchors and the 4th is in bankruptcy, so I would think they'd be happy for even a couple grand extra income to use a space for a couple days. Even if you're allowed just 25% capacity, 25% of 150,000 square feet would allow for a decent number of people at any one time.
