Admission to shows--RIPOFF

[JDgreen227]

Look at the good point...an entrance fee keeps all the riff-raff...like me, for example...out of these shows.

Look at the bad point, Roy...you are a riff-raff with MONEY although careful with a dollar. People who are careful with their dollars usually make good customers for merchants who are honest and sell quality wares.

 

[dusty3030]

Another way to look at it.
If you have to pay admission, will you stay just a bit longer and look just a bit harder? Maybe try to make a deal to offset the cost of admission?

I do say it should be $5 or less; however, it doesn't always hurt to charge something.

In my business we often charge for display racks for products we sell. If you give a customer a rack for free if they make a certain sized order for a promotion that is fine and dandy, if you make the rack let's say a $20 line item on the invoice as part of the promotion, the store owner will make darn sure his employees keep the rack out front and stocked since he had to "pay" for it. Rack itself may cost $100 or more, but you just put some kind of charge on it so the customer will use it / keep it displayed. Same for a show, if you pay a few bucks to get in you are more likely to go all through it to get your money's worth.

 

[Scooby074]

Dont like entry fees? Dont go.

Pretty simple really. It costs a BUNCH to run these shows. Large buildings, lots of staff, ELECTRICITY!!

Home show, fishing/RV show, Fall Fair, Ag show, Saltscapes.. They all have admissions of about $5-7, kids free. NS Ag show charges $2 parking too. We usually go to all of them. It's a pretty cheap day out, plus i learn a few things and see vendors i'd never know existed.

Im not going to begrudge them a little profit.

 

[MasseyWV]

If you have to pay admission, will you stay just a bit longer and look just a bit harder? Maybe try to make a deal to offset the cost of admission?

Paying an admission fee isn't going to make people look any harder because most people would only stay as long as there was something of interest to them. And the majority of people are going to try to get a deal regardless, especially in this tough economy.

 

[two_bit_score]

Today's news has a front page story about the annual Home and Garden show near East Lansing, Michigan. It says they will have about 300 exhibitors there, who will share ideas on how to spruce up your yard or home. Seems like a good idea to attend, until you read the information about the admission charge:

$8 per adult, $4 for kids ages 6 thru 14. WHAT A RIPOFF.

It ticks me off big time when "shows" which are basically nothing but a form of advertising, expect the attendees to pay to admission. The businesses that are at the shows hope to attract customers in order to do business, so why are the potential customers expected to pay to attend? When you go to a car dealership, do they ask you to pay them $8 for the opportunity to buy a new car? When you go to a local builder to get an estimate for new windows, do they ask you to pay $10 for an estimate? NO TO BOTH.

Charging admission to shows like the one I mentioned in the opening paragraph is a RIPOFF, pure and simple. The exhibitors are simply cutting their own throats by expecting to make money off potential customers.

The exhibitors don't get any of the entrance fee money. The concern who is running the show, rodeo, convention or whatever is getting it plus a hefty fee from each exhibitor for space, elect, etc.

That's why it costs $8 for a drink at the San Antonio Rodeo, or any type of gathering like that.

But your point s well taken about the admission charge. To me it seems like they'll be charging admission at the mall next. At least that's one I won't ave to pay, since I don't go to the mall.


.

 

[xtn]

As long as attendance remains high, they should charge for admittance.

No, I don't mean I like paying if I'm an attendee. I just mean that the law of supply and demand suggests that if they run almost at capacity WITH a cover charge, then there would be more people than they could handle without one.

It's no different than a nightclub. Unpopular ones have to let people in free and offer drink specials to get business. Whatever place is the "in" place needs to charge a big cover at the door just to keep the line from going around the block.

Okay sure it's different than a nightclub in most ways. But not with regard to the supply/demand effect. So it's a good analogy. Is too. Yeahhuh.

 

[two_bit_score]

Have never been to a car show, waste of time and money. The local university hosts an "Agricultural Expo" every year. Many events, including the chance to drive compact tractors and ATV's, and tractor pulls. FREE PARKING, FREE ADMISSION, the exhibitors pick up the entire cost of everything and that is the correct way to do it. In all my years of attending I have NEVER seen any homeless or bums there.

BTW, what are you referring to: "go after mooching the free stuff....?" Brochures, handouts, yardsticks, pens and pencils, etc?

If that "local university" is a state college or otherwise publicly supported you can bet that some f the cost of that "AG Expo" was from tax money.

Not that that is necessarily bad just that you should expect that those exhibitors probably did not pay the full cost of the whole thing.


.

 

[Western]

When is the last time a gun show had free admission:laughing:

Cost money to rent space, and for the minimal fee, as mentioned, worth the entertainment.

Look at it this way, how much would it cost you in gas to drive to all of the vendors if they weren't in one place at the same time? Probably more than the admission.

I will use the Internet, for me entertainment would be a "shooting' demonstration, not just "browsing " the isle.

 

[JDGREEN4ME]

My wife and I enjoy attending different shows. Just went to an RV show a couple of weeks ago and for $16 bucks we saw more stuff in a couple of hours than we could have seen in days to visit each dealer seperately. We both still work so the entrance fee for us is a "cheap date", maybe I will feel different when I get old and retire as I am only 56 now.

 

[Western]

My wife and I enjoy attending different shows. Just went to an RV show a couple of weeks ago and for $16 bucks we saw more stuff in a couple of hours than we could have seen in days to visit each dealer seperately. We both still work so the entrance fee for us is a "cheap date", maybe I will feel different when I get old and retire as I am only 56 now.

A cheap date for me these days is a Ribeye cooked on the back porch grill Bought 2 over 1" thick yesterday at a local slaughter house, almost $30!!

I do like trade shows BTW, some cost, some don't. The ones I have been to such as the Asphalt and Paving one held in Nashville, was very expensive factoring everything in, but also was a tax write off .