I have a brand new scared stiff playfield to sell that is beautiful... let’s make a deal!
(Topic ID: 242230)
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Quoted from grantopia:This is an honest question so hopefully it doesn't read sarcastic - if you don't want emails, aren't willing to hold the games, or even say what prices you have in mind, why even bother posting them?
It’s the same thing year after year. You can count on it like the cycles of the moon...
3 weeks later
Quoted from cait001:ah OK well it's at least good to hear people are still bringing out there machines and not keeping them at home. We had a show in Ottawa recently and it definitely felt like there was a drop in the home collectors pulling machines out, but hopefully that was just an anomaly.
Big hall or smaller hall, either way I really hope to make it there next year.
You're not wrong.
Look at where all the growth is in the hobby... in the NIB and modern games. The same crowds that fear their precious getting damaged. At the same time, many classics are getting restored... and again, people are fearful of having their precious damaged because looks are everything to them.
With more people out there... people are less motivated to make the extra effort it takes to bring games together.
The era of regional fix/flip vendors has shrunk dramatically due to limited inventory.
Since the days of the firehouse... York has been about the EMs at the core.. and many vendors would bring their SS/DMD stuff they were trying to sell. I remember when all the sys11 beaters would be like weeds... or premier stinkers like Mario Andretti were always a given to be there in numbers. Because many were games brought by people to put in freeplay to sell. That market is basically gone now.. killed by low inventory, higher demand, and the ease of inspecting remotely in the era of photos and videos online.
It all adds up...
York has never been the same as allentown IMO. Allentown's location has always drawn the NY and north crowd better... and always drew more of the key vendors (IPB, PBR, etc). Now Allentown is 'the show' in the NE for game exchanges. You kinda hit a saturation point.. you're not going to get those long distance haulers multiple times a year. Canada, Georgia, Illinois, etc.. they'll pick one. That means the gap will continue to get larger and larger between the shows as critical mass kicks in.
To travel to shows people want to see the latest and greatest games... they want the vendors selling the latest toys... they want it at a discount. That's a tough bill for a promoter to fill.. as they rely so much on the vendors like Cointaker, PinballStar, Marco, etc to be those cornerstones.
With those cornerstones comes volume.. with volume (and the right timing) the buyers/seller will bubble up too. Right now that mass is centered around allentown.
1 week later
Quoted from rmarket:I've put a lot of thought into the auction idea over the years, and can't see it working from a logistics standpoint. The auction would need to be "free admission". What happens to the show if the public can go next door and play all day for free? What would be the incentive to go into the show? When would it happen? Being a two day show, it would have to either happen on what is a setup day for some or the day that everyone is going to be tearing down. How would that work with the traffic from the show? Maybe run it on Sunday after the show but the rent from the fairgrounds is too high to make the auction profitable. There is no multi day discount (or any other discount) when dealing with the fairgrounds.
Also it was already tried at the York show years back and it didn't really work out well. Some of the Maryland Auctions tried a hybrid show auction thing for a couple of events and I don't think it went over really well.
Its just ashame that so many deals happen around the event... and both you and pinside lose out on the action because the idea of 'connecting buyers and sellers' has moved completely to the self-service forum contact.
It's tough to find some materially significant incentive you could hold back from a free-play game owner to hold the game till the end of the day that wouldn't bankrupt you... or simply be draconian against the game owners that would just run them off. Need to find something people would desire... that isn't just '1 is enough' and doesn't crush you. No ideas from me yet.. just the problem is interesting to ponder. Without the show, this clustering of people wouldn't happen.. its just how to get it 'in the show' and not just surrounding it.
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