2016-2017 Upstate New York Train Show Season

I can chime in about attending shows in Canada. I've never had any issues with bringing a reasonable amount of purchases back from shows I have attended. Most recently I was at a small show in St. Catherines-- which, by the way, consistently has a higher percentage of N Scale than any of the usual shows in Western New York-- and returned with a box full of Official Railway Equipment Registers. I explained to the border agent what these were and why they were important and interesting and he confirmed that it was one of the more unusual items he's seen come back.

I attended the Toronto Railway Prototype Modelers meet last weekend and made my usual stop at a well known train store. If you're a US resident and have their loyalty card, you not only get the exchange rate (although offset by higher sticker prices) but a small extra discount for paying cash. I had no issues bringing things back. The border agent was more interested in what I'd bought at IKEA. (You really have to watch those Ikeans, you know.)

Another data point for US buyers coming back from Canada, although it's far less relevant than it used to be: if an item is made in the USA, and purchased in Canada, it doesn't count against the limit of what you can bring back. It's considered to me to be "repatriation."

US residents selling in Canada is an entirely different story, unfortunately. The NMRA learned that the hard way when the convention and the National Train Show (or whatever it was called) was held in Toronto. Talking to Canadian vendors, the story of going the other way is much the same.

I'm looking forward to at least hitting the Brantford show in October. It's worth the drive as I combine it with non-train interests in the Greater Toronto Area. I generally see things I don't see otherwise.

As I have commented before on this thread, attending shows has become more of a social event than a buying opportunity. If I have the opportunity to buy something I want, that's a bonus.

Batavia was about average, my sales roughly the same as Hamburg, but of course without the extra expenses to stay over. And I have about $500 worth of potential eBay material here. Crowd seemed normal, packed in the morning, room to ride a motorcycle up and down in the afternoon.

Probably wouldn't hurt them to back the show up half an hour to make it 9 to 3. They usually end up opening the doors a little early anyhow, and not much business goes on late. Which is the same pattern at every primarily dealer oriented show I go to.


I asked about eight people if they were going to the Greenberg show this weekend and the only ones who knew it was even happening were other vendors or club guys. Don't know if that's good or bad.

Greenberg was okay, they figured about 4,000 in two days. I sold a little better than last year and much better than RIT was. I do prefer this facility, I had about the easiest load in/out I've ever had. About the only big issue with it is there's not much on-site for food. I thought it was odd they weren't using the PA for any announcements for door prizes and the like, but found out later the venue wanted a steep additional charge to use it.

Upcoming this week is the Alco T&HS show in Amsterdam and the TTCS has a show in Buffalo.

I am tentatively planning to have a fire sale and dump some things I've been carrying for too long at Amsterdam.

lvrr325 wrote:I am tentatively planning to have a fire sale and dump some things I've been carrying for too long at Amsterdam.

What do you have? any chance u can post stuffs on FB or website for us to look at?

Gotta come to the show. I don't do anything with those facebook groups and I have tons of stuff on ebay right now.

Amsterdam was about what I expected. They said the crowd was down a little because the weather was so nice. And it was, didn't need a coat in the afternoon really. Made for a pleasant drive back down 5S, anyhow, where I will note I saw a whopping eight people using the rail trail on the old West Shore - and about four people using the shoulder of 5S instead. One each in the morning, the rest in the afternoon. There were a ton of people on the trail along the Mohawk close to Herkimer that was made from scratch.

Just a reminder the Ilion Funtrak show is this weekend, and the WNYRHS indoor garage and bake sale is Saturday at the Heritage Discovery Center.

If anyone goes to either, it would be great to hear about it.

One call for Lockport, this weekend. I won't be there.

No report from Ilion probably tells me what I wanted to know.

lvrr325 wrote:Gotta come to the show. I don't do anything with those facebook groups and I have tons of stuff on ebay right now.

Would LVRR325 be your ebay username? or what username/seller name would I be looking for in ebay?

thanks

The one report I have from Lockport is it wasn't anything great, just okay, so I presume It must have had the usual 800 or so people. I'm sure the local vendors did well enough, it's just too much expense for me to go set up from 150 miles away.


Meanwhile at the Fairgounds they had a one day garage sale event for people and I heard someone say the wait to get in was as much as three hours. I could tell it put a dent in the flea market the next day. Going to go set up there with summer stuff next year unless the price for a spot is crazy.

In any case, that's it for the season until September, I'm already collecting dates and I don't expect any surprises or changes for next season except to sort out what Easter does to Greenberg's show, as it falls on April 1st, my guess is it bumps them to the 7th-8th and may put it opposite Amsterdam. I expect WASPS will move their date again, too. But there's tons of time to sort that out.

I have one early 2018 announcement; Greenberg has released it's schedule and the Rochester show moves back to it's old traditional date on the first weekend in March, the 3rd-4th.

I wanted to get this out because it may cause a conflict for vendors who do the Elmira TCA show - a show I was considering adding, myself, because I suspect it may be fairly decent like Binghamton is. It also puts it against the Scranton show, but I think that's much less of an issue.