Wednesday Night Should Be Free at the National Sports Collectors Convention

Why should we pay $18 for a sneak peak? It makes no sense to me, but that's what the National Sports Collectors Convention keep doing.

The first night of the National (Wednesday) is their "sneak peak" night. I went to the 2009 Cleveland National and "sneak peak" was code for "there's hardly anyone there."

The vendors were not completely set-up and the ones who were, several were not ready for customers. The big name card companies weren't running any promotions and most didn't have their tables ready.

The hours for the "sneak peak" are 4pm - 8pm. Why should we pay $4.50 an hour to attend a half-empty card show?


The "sneak peak" should become a Red Carpet Kick-off.
Let's do this right and do the following:

• Make the show free on Wednesday Night Only
• Have Ozzie Guillen, Mike Ditka or a Chicago legend cut the ribbon to open the show
• Offer special raffle prizes to the first 100 or so people who walk through the doors
• Team up with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as I blogged about here.
• Make it mandatory for booth owners to be set-up by 4:00.
• Give collectors a cheerleader tunnel to run through as they enter the show. 
• Have a band rock out some music as people wait in line and enter the show. 
• Run some CCTV of the event with monitors placed in the show.

Change the opening of the show into an event instead of way to collect $4.50 an hour from every collector who shows up expecting every booth to be ready.