I feel I need to write about this because it seems every year the situation gets worse. Year after year shows and events are stacking their events on the same day as other events that would compete for their vendors and their attendance.
What I have noticed is that larger shows seem to think they are above that of local shows and thus do not care if their dates collide, but this is where the effort is most needed. I have many clients who are vendors (body shops, performance shops, part sales, media coverage etc) who focus on automotive events, and every year I get asked “How do we choose which ones to go to?’
The simple answer is pick the one that will yield the best possible outcome for your business. In most of these cases the one that will provide the best return on investment is going to be the local event. This is generally because that local event will have people who look forward to it every year. The people who attend the local events both as spectators and entrants are for the most part local so everyone you see at the show is a potential customer.
With the larger shows, although they do pull just as many people these are more of a mix of locals and people who come from well outside of your target market to attend the event. This means that fewer of the people attending those shows are likely to be a possible customer of yours. At the same time you are likely to spend 25-40% more for the vendor space. In the end if you have to make a choice almost every time the local event will be the one to choose.
A great example of this is OC Car Show, not a huge series but a very very well known set of events that occur every year. The OC Show is looked forward to by people form MD, DC, VA, DE, NJ, NY, OH, and NC, now they have three large shows riding on the same weekend Carlisle All Ford Nationals in Carlisle PA, Formula Drift/ JTuned Car Gallery in NJ, and Hot Import Nights in Scranton PA.
So for a vendor, if you are looking for a show to go to I would recommend putting your dollars to their best use and see about getting booth space in this instance at the OC Car Show in Ocean City Maryland, if you just want to be at a show it is really your choice. OC Car Show also falls on Senior Week a huge time for Ocean City as it is one of their largest visitors time of the year and everyone there is local to area within a few hours drive.