My first Cabin Fever

Aw shucks. Thanks you Carl for the kind words.

Errol Groff

Sorry you had that bad experience. I myself was thinking of going this year (also for the first time) but the compination of the weather and my daughter getting over her virus kind of ruled it out. But next year I'll look for you, and we can lump up the malefactors together!

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Carl Byrns wrote

Carl, Glad to hear you attended. Too bad you didn't stop by and introduce yourself (I was the guy with the "overpriced" $925 Atlas shaper with original paint, original vise, original stand, etc.) ;^) Anyway, Just so you know: The "Staff" basically consists of 3 people: Gary Schoenly, His son Jared, and his wife Joan. The rest gets done more or less by friends (myself included) and family who volunteer their time. Hope you were impressed enough with the show to realize what a monumental undertaking it is. I'm sure anyone who has attended can understand that the "staff" might get a little frazzled at times. This year, for the first time, Gary hired a few of the fairground's security personell. This was in an effort to reduce the number of folks who enter through the various fire exits without paying. I suspect your difficulties stemmed from a lack of communication between these new hirees and the staff. Hopefully it will get ironed out for the next show, I'll be sure to bring it up.

I, for one, appreciate the many benefits of having basically one person (Gary) in charge of everything. While it may spread that person a bit thin, at least it doesn't take a committee of eleven to determine wether or not you can have an extra table in your booth (like at the NAMES show).

Which V twin was it? chuck

Don't know where here is, but shapers in the chicago area don't sell that cheap. I regularly attend NAMES and there were more than 4 shapers there last year, all were priced way above 250 and all of them got sold. The going price is whatever the market will bear.

Last year, 2003, I went to cabin fever. On saturday, gary made all the exibitors wait outside and only let in the vendors early. Got no clue what that was about, but it REALLY pissed me off!

Gary runs these shows not to promote the hobby, but only to make a buck. In my opinion, he has too many shows. I have talked to some vendors that specialize in the hobby and they state that they cannot attend 5 shows a years. Some have to travel long distance and are working on a shoe string budget. They cannot sell enough kits to pay for their trip, much less make a profit. Also exibitors like myself cannot attend all the shows and without good exibitor turnout, the public will not disappointed and eventually stop coming. So I think to many shows is worst than too few.

chuck

It was air cooled with one fan per jug. The fans looked like they were originally used for 486 processors. Real nice sheetmetal shrouds.

-Carl

snipped-for-privacy@w-sherwood.ih.lucent.com (Charles A. Sherwood) wrote

Nobody is holding a gun to anyones head and forcing them to travel to a show they can't afford to attend. I can't afford to go to all of them either. It's real simple, I stay home for most of them. I gave NAMES a try last year. I made less money all weekend than I made on Friday (set up day) at Cabin Fever. Guess what, I'm not going back. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have the show, it just means you won't see my smilin' face there anytime soon. I wish them the best of luck nonetheless. FYI, Gary holds a vendor/ exhibitor meeting Saturday evening at the show where you would be welcome to bring up any questions, complaints, or suggestions and get an answer on the spot. Many good suggestions have been raised at the meetings and have been acted upon.

Regards, Dave

That's the one.

-Carl

Hi Dave, We have significantly different perspective about model shows. I feel that model shows are there to show the public what we do and to help other model builders and even encourage other people to join our hobby. I feel that too many shows will reduce the quality of the shows and maybe the public will no longer feel it is worth coming to the model shows.

I think there are several distinct catagories of vendors. I was refering to vendors that sell hobby specific items such as casting kits, model plans, model specific parts, etc. These guys are mostly retired and living on fixed income. They sell a limited number of kits per year reguardless of how many shows they attend. In my opinion these vendors are critical to the model building hobby, for without them we won't have any models to build! More than one has told me there are too many shows and they can't and won't attend more than a couple per year. Many exibitors feel the same way. This affects the hobby in a negative manner.

I put machinery dealers into a totally different catagory. I love buying tools at the shows and I spend lots of money there too, but in my opinion the shows are about showing models and promoting the hobby, not about buying tools.

Exibitors make the show; without them you there is no show. Whoever is running the show needs to keep that in mind!

chuck

That would be Jerry Howells engine. Who unfortunately told me that he will not be attending NAMES or CF anymore.

chuck