Selling At Shows With High "Customer Overhead"
Sunday July 23, 2006
Once, in Birmingham, I overheard a customers who was browsing our booth state that they would love to buy something, but it cost them $24 in fees to get into the door, $12 to park and $26 for lunch. So they were "just looking" at this show to get some good ideas for Christmas. Angry? Yeah, I was fit to be tied since we had barely covered booth fees and this was the last day of the show!
Comments
I have worked shows with high entrance fees too. Also worked shows with only 20 visitors in attendance for a two-day show only to find out the show promoter decided “to save some money” and didn’t advertise the show anywhere. All this at the expense of the vendors. Perhaps when show promoters can no longer get vendors they will change these attitudes.
Bummer! But a word of advice: check out those admission costs first. They can really be a negative influence on buyers.
We worked one in the spring that cost us $250 and had a door fee of $6 per person. It was so slow, the promoters (who do LOTS of shows) gave us a 50% off any of their other shows! That was a first!