[vcf-midatlantic] The Swap Meet was great!

[Jeffrey Brace]

Oh I forgot one very important person: Tony! He has been tirelessly going
through the warehouse to find, sort and prepare a lot of the inventory
surplus.

Sorry about that Tony. I'm sure I forgot to thank another person, you know,
what's his name ...

=========================================
Jeff Brace
Vice President & Board Member
Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner
Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity
http://www.vcfed.org/
jeffrey at vcfed.org




On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 9:59 AM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey at vcfed.org> wrote:

>
> The swap meet went wonderfully well. It was a lot of work for us to plan
> and prepare and on the day of. We had a great turnout in terms of both
> vendors and buyers. The weather was great so that was a plus. I personally
> scheduled the good weather with the National Weather Service. It was less
> expensive that you might think. I got a lot of positive feedback from many
> people. It was a mini reunion of sorts because we haven't seen many people
> due to Covid times so it was great to see those we haven't seen for over a
> year, in one case 2 years, another case it was 4 years. We had added ham
> radio, tv, antique radios to this swap meet which was different than the
> last one. That helped to increase turnout. A member of CDL (Makerspace at
> InfoAge) named Martin is helpful to our cause and is a member of ARRL. So
> he posted to their site our event. So we started to get Ham Radio guys as
> well as general electronic parts guys coming to the event. We want to
> continue getting these cross interest groups coming to our event and
> advertising to their websites.
> I will have to look at the numbers, but it seems to be 3 times the number
> of our first swap meet in terms of vendors and people. It's impossible to
> determine how many general public buyers came, but definitely a lot more.
> There were spurts  of people coming in the front entrance and the back
> entrance. I was focused on keeping the front gate organized taking money
> from vendors, from selling our surplus and selling our swag. We were happy
> to have sold a lot of our surplus inventory helping it find a good home.
> Dr. Manhattan took care of making sure everyone wore a mask and keeping the
> giant squid away from our event.
> We also had the benefit of there being a furniture sale by Selective
> Seconds (http://www.monmouthresourcenet.org/search/selective-seconds/)
> right across from us. So there were a lot of people parking in the dirt
> parking lot directly across from InfoAge, but a little down the road from
> our parking lot event, then seeing us, walking over to us on the grass
> field, etc. We are hoping to get in touch with the organizers of that event
> to do it at the same time.
> We made a lot of good decisions about the organization of the event that
> worked out much better than the first time including traffic flow and
> volunteer coordination. So I will think about and ask for feedback to
> further improve. In a lot of cases there were people that weren't sure of
> who we were and if we would have a successful event. This happened with our
> first swap meet, so many of the skeptics came this time. So in other words
> each successful event will help spread the word and have a lot of repeat
> vendors and buyers come as they see how successful it is all-around. There
> were some new skeptics, but I think they are convinced now.
> The follow up event, the repair workshop after the swap meet went very
> well. Most of the usual suspects and some new ones came. They greatly
> enjoyed working their recent purchases right away instead of putting them
> away until they had time. We did the usual go out to dinner Saturday night.
> Sunday another day of repair workshop, bagel, donuts and coffee, WaWa for
> lunch. Lots of people doing stuff for repairs, also in the museum and
> warehouse. Plus lots of conversations with people about different things.
> Also lots of visitors in the museum Saturday (too many for Dylan to count)
> and a dozen or more on Sunday because I had put a mention of visiting our
> museum after the swap meet in the advertising. I had done a lot more
> extensive and different advertising than the first time, so there was a lot
> of interest. Also I got interviewed by The Coast Star which is a local
> paper.
>
> Thank you everyone who volunteered especially Bill Inderrieden (putting up
> signs, directing vendors, buyers, packing up, many many other things), Alex
> Jacocks (great idea about getting the trailer and lots of help with hauling
> and selling), Jonathan Sturges (also help with hauling and selling), Ben
> (help at the front desk and gate), Corey (helpful in many ways), Laura help
> at the front desk and packing up), Dylan (many hours filtering people at
> the gate), Adam (help with the surplus pile), Andy, Dean for labeling and
> sorting the surplus. There are more that I forgot to mention, but it's when
> it becomes a team effort that everything goes smoothly and we are
> successful.
>
> We aren't sure when the next swap meet will be. We are thinking about what
> will work best with our schedule.
>
> VCF East is October 8, 9, 10 and the website will be updated within the
> next two weeks and ready for registration, etc.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 6:37 PM Bob Applegate via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
>> I was only there for a few hours, but it was so nice seeing people in
>> person again!  I wasn’t a big buyer but did snag a couple things that I had
>> not expected to find, and found homes for some items I brought with me, so
>> I came home quite happy.
>>
>> The weather was perfect, of course.  There were enough vendors so the
>> buyers could spend time looking for treasures, and I heard from multiple
>> vendors that they were happy with their sales.
>>
>> An excellent day, indeed!
>>
>> Thanks to everyone who volunteered and worked so hard to make it a
>> success!
>>
>> Bob
>>
>>