Interested in a Group AZ Cuemaker's Booth at SBE 2012?

Worminator said:

I'm not sure Alan will allow this to happen. Troy from On the Hill Cue Sales and I used to share a booth, and a couple years ago he told us we could not do it any no longer... so we just merged into one company (which was in the works anyway).

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I got a couple PMs saying that sharing a booth might not be allowed. Darn shame. Maybe they'll change their mind after having a bunch of empty booths like last year.

I don't understand what the problem would be? Accountability, snobbiess towards the little guys (hope not)? You have 100's (if not 1,000's) of small cuemakers that are NOT willing to shell out $1,100+ for a both. There's no way I could justify that. But if you allow sharing, I bet they'd have a good chance of filling the place. Looks like about 20% of the booths were not filled last year. I didn't major in Finance but $800k sure sounds better than $600k.

Besides the financial aspect, how many people that get their feet wet with a partial showing might want to have their own booth next year?

So maybe until we can get a final ruling we should plan on this being only a social thing and nobody can sell anything.

If anyone knows Mr. Hopkins can you send him my phone number? Maybe we can sort out any problems or hurtles he might have.

Oh, and someone mentioned about the Cue Dealers having to be a member of one of the Cuemaker Associations to sell. If this is true, can you please fill us in? I've been considering joining one anyway. It would be nice to know beforehand so we don't ruffle any feathers.

If you have any ideas, please post them. If you'd rather stay anon just PM me and I'll put it out here as a general statement.

MightyCustomCue said:

Bruppert,
I've had a booth at the SBE a few times strictly doing retail so I can offer to register the booth in my business name and do as you have suggested: each participating AZ cuemaker share the cost of the booth and man-hours to man the booth and we would only be selling AZ cuemakers cues. The application strictly prohibits the subletting and/or combining of more than one business entity in one booth so this can be a solution.

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Sounds like a good idea. I've had about 1/2 a dozen people contact me so far saying they would be interested. I don't know if I'll bring anything to sell but I'm certainly up for meeting some of the people here.

Shoot me a PM with your contact info and we'll talk once we get at least 1/2 the number of people we'll need.

Worminator said:

Here is the problem I see with this... If Alan allows this to happen he sets a precedence and opens up a huge can of worms. Many of the cuemakers with booths bring less than 10 cues... what if 4 of those guys get together and have 30-40 cues in one booth and share the booth cost. Right there is three fewer booth sales... take that times all the potential shared booth opportunities that creates between cuemakers, dealers, and other vendors and Alan has a real mess on his hands.

It seems like a great idea on the surface, but when you think it through and understand the potential problems it will create for Alan, you can understand why he does not want to allow it.

Just my $.02...

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That is a valid Point. You always have to watch for people trying to abuse the rules. But its not what we are trying to do here.

We are going to have only one person in the booth, who may or may not be selling something. The person only gets one hour as well (A lot of interest, it would be cut to a 1/2 hour). Once their time is up so are their sales. So bringing a lot of stuff would be silly. Maybe bring a few of your best cues, maybe a book of pictures, some literature and a stack of business cards. Someone might get lucky and sell a cue but its more for meeting everyone and getting a little exposure. There wouldn't be an Exhibitors Pass, everyone would have to pay to get in. And everyone would have to follow whatever rules Mr. Hopkins has and make sure everyone else does. They don't and I doubt we'll be invited back the following year.

I see this as a good thing for everyone:
I would say pretty much everyone who will try this would NOT normally buy a booth.
How many people who try this and sell something might actually want their own booth next time?!
All the smaller cuemakers would get a chance to see what buyers are interested in, how the show works, maybe get or share some good ideas, learn how collectors critique cues, etc...
Mr. Hopkins sells another booth AND there's potential for future independent booth sales.

I heard a story the other day from another Cuemaker. A mutual acquaintance rented a booth several years ago. He is somewhat unknown, gave it a shot and spent over $2,000 plus 4 days of his time and didn't sell one cue. He hasn't rented a booth since. Had he gotten a little prior exposure than things might have gone better for him. As it stands now, I bet its quite a while before he tries that again.... if ever.

It may just come down to nobody being able to sell anything. That would be a shame but we'll see how it goes.