So Cal Baseball and Sports Collector’s Expo

This event was held on January 11−12−13, 2013, so a Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
It was touted as a Sports Collector’s Expo
To it’s credit, it featured some big Hall of Fame sports names like Tony Gwynn, as well as local Dodgers, current players like Matt Kemp, as well as retired ones.
Of course, it’s a business, so these athletes charge for their autographs, but it’s an organized system and a much better option for die-​hard fans to acquire an authentic autograph that’s guaranteed both to be real (as opposed to rolling the dice buying on sites like eBay where a majority are forgeries and you never know what you’re looking at) as well as trying to hunt down these stars at the stadiums, hotels or randomly for an autograph not knowing if they’d agree or not. This ensures you get a clean carefully signed autograph, not a quick sloppy signature.
The show itself from a collector’s standpoint seemed somewhat one dimensional compared to most sports card shows.
I’ll say this, ‘tho, there are very few sports card conventions now-​a-​days since the internet, both online dealers and independent sellers on eBay have forced both, many retail stores, as well as a lot of conventions into near extinct status.
This was a good show if you collected vintage sports cards, mainly football and baseball from the 1970’s and before.
What this show lacked was dealers who sold:
1) Unopened Wax Boxes and Packs — both new and old material, but especially new current stuff that’s hot that everyone wants to buy and open
2) Modern Day Cards of Current Players
3) Non-​Sports Cards or brother hobby categories like comics, coins, toys, action figures (Starting Line Up or McFarlane) Sports) or other collectibles often found as crossover collectibles that are found at shows like this.
There were a few dealers who sold a few new cards, but for the most part, this was not just «your father’s» convention, but more, if you’re a teenage kid today, more like «your grandfather’s convention» unfortunately.
Currently, there’s a show called «Frank and Sons» in the City of Industry that is a weekly swap meet formatted marketplace whose dealers that vend there would have been perfect for this show.
Missing were dealers who offer those bargain boxes filled with jersey and autograph cards as well as set-​builder commons and star, semi-​star and hot rookie cards.
There was no energy to this show, and in fact on Sunday a lot of dealers packed up early or didn’t show up, so it was an even more lackluster event. A word of advice to the organizer, you should build in your contract that all dealers have to stay for the duration of the entire show, since it looks bad when dealers leave, and those who pay admission feel a bit deflated.
The cost of admission was $ 10 a day, not too bad if you knew what you were walking into. However, if you didn’t like, want or need vintage cards, then it would take you all but 10 minutes to walk around and find out you just wasted $ 20… since it also costs $ 10 to park at the Mariott Hotel, doubling your overhead expenses (on top of gas for travel).
I think this could be a great show, they just need to reach out to a greater more diverse range of dealers to exhibit and sell, which would build them a reputation and draw in a bigger crowd as well as possibly a younger crowd too that can continue supporting this show for years to come.
I’d recommend changing venues to a location that does not charge for parking if at all possible or figure out a deal to get parking waived and complimentary. The $ 10 each attendee paid for parking could easily go into the commerce of the show, with customers spending that cash with your dealers on top of whatever else they buy.
The publicity for this show was a bit lackluster, and the saving grace I hear was that Beckett Grading Services was in attendance, so they promoted the show and put the word out.
The website is one of the worst I’ve ever seen in my life, so that needs to be updated, and using eventbrite to sell tickets and take a visitor away from your site is a bit amateur, I’d say invest in selling tickets direct to consumer, then you don’t have to incur fees and maximize your profit revenue to reinvest into the show.
I think this show has good potential to become a great show to service a need that’s been missing in So Cal.