Plano II Card Show Ready for Action

The date of our Plano II show is this Sunday and since we really explained in an series earlier this year about the genesis of a show, I figured a couple of days before the second volume was as good as a time as any for a follow-up and preview. We even received a call from the Dallas Morning News who said they would attempt to feature us with a significant article in their guide section, hopefully by the time you’re reading this. Free publicity from a major metropolitan media outlet is a huge boost and if you’re promoting a show, it’s worth reaching out with a good angle you can ‘sell’ to your local media in hopes of coverage.

At least going into the show, the Plano II experience (and we will limit the shows to a maximum of two per year for the Adat Chaverim’s brotherhood) is already shaping up to be a success. We even have a waiting list of seven dealers who wished to set up. In fact, one of them was referred to us by James of Awesome Card Shows and we are thankful he thought of us in helping to place his dealers.

We are honored to have Beckett Auction Services as a presence again and they have been coming up with some nice items for their auctions. The next auction will include five Old Judge cards including Smiling Mickey Welch (a HOF pitcher) and Steve Behel (the first Jewish player to appear on a card).

We also have three rounds of door prizes with 12 in total as well as approximately 50 silent auction items. The door prizes include autographs from the likes of Tom Glavine and Dale Murphy (complete with TriStar COAs) and several unopened boxed courtesy of Panini.

As always I’m happy to say although I do much of the work for the show, the Brotherhood team does yeoman work in helping to set up the social hall. They will be preparing refreshments all day and manning the front table as well as the silent auction tables. We would like to thank our “corporate” partners who have contributed items including Nick’s Sportscards, Panini, The NSCC, and Topps also sent us a big box of cards which we will use at the next show, We are thankful to everyone who has helped us again with this process.

We also wish to thank Panini for their generous donation of several hundred NFL HOF 2014 sets featuring this year’s inductees. Players in that set include Andre Reed and Michael Strahan, whose gap toothed smile seems to be ubiquitous. We are so grateful we can provide all of this for our suggested donation of $1 but we will never turn down people wishing to donate more money at the door. We still have other packs left from our first show as well and again we want to ensure our guests go away with something.

Next year, we will be raising our table prices slightly as we believe in measured growth for our ventures. However, the added cost will be no more than $5 for any dealer and we will continue at these shows to limit the dealers to two tables per person. We even have our first dealer signed up for next March.

I mention the slow growth in table prices because I saw a note on Net54 that several hobby friends, who are working on promoting a cool show in the Los Angeles area, are not going to have another show until at least February. All of these promoters provided great advice to us and we are thankful for that but one aspect which always struck me as interesting was their $95 cost for a dealer table for one day. I know it was stated that price was aimed at making it affordable for the weekend warrior dealer but to me that is more in line with a two-day show unless you are renting out a very expensive venue. $95 per table is quite a jolt for a one-day show for any vendor. While we just have one day shows which, by their nature, keep some dealers from setting up, we also believe in ensuring the dealers have a fighting chance before they set up in the room.

We will have a recap of the show next week and hopefully we can build on the positive momentum we already have. So far, the funniest aspect was when I tweeted about “freebies” we were giving away, those words were picked up by a Twitter account that sends out nothing but messages about freebies and they retweeted us. Maybe they have tons of collectors who follow them in the Dallas Fort Worth area. We can only hope!

Hope to see you on Sunday (hours are 9-4) and hope you’ve enjoyed learning about our experiences in promoting our local show.