[vcf-midatlantic] Swap Meet feedback: How did it go?

Herb Johnson hjohnson at retrotechnology.info
Tue Mar 1 20:32:44 UTC 2022


I attended the swap meet, arriving "late" to avoid the presumed early 
crowd and rush (Covid) and because my needs are modest. I was happy to 
get a variety of vintage Mac items as parts and for repair. I saw some 
oldest-vintage items, which is good, but I did not need them. And I 
bought some 20th century PC stuff to build some for-application systems, 
so that was good. Other than missing what apparently was a massive 
for-free pile, I was satisfied. People were glad to see me, and I them.

So the base question on the event, is answered that it went well. 
Where's one room or another, where's the free stuff - I looked around 
and asked and found things. I'm glad things were not crowded; Covid. 
There was more variety than I expected; not enough really old computing 
but there was some. Radio? enh, there will be hamfests, but hamfests 
accommodate computing; computing should accommodate hams.

When to close? It's already said: a significant part of sales is at the 
"don't want to take this home" end of the day. Four hours for the event 
is reasonable; set a soft close so people can hunt a little harder for a 
little longer. I'm glad the event didn't start at 6AM.

A few people urged for free admissions for buyers. I'll be blunt - 
that's entirely expected and expresses self-interest. If buyers want 
fleamarkets to attend, it's in their interest to pay a few dollars to 
support the people who run them. Their payback is fun, community, and 
savings on purchased items. If you have questions, ask hams who run 
hamfests; ask people who ran events (or not) during the worst of Covid.

When I saw there was no admission fee for buyers (me), I bought a couple 
of $2 stickers from Jeff - just to support the event. Too much money? 
What? I spent more on gas, I spent more on food.

Regards Herb Johnson

-- 
Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing
email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com
or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net


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