Well since you asked… here’s some initial thoughts from Ben. (I say ‘initial’, cause don’t worry, there’ll be more.)
Complaining about the high-priced vendors is an exercise in futility. As long as they’re an important and reliable source of income for keeping the conventions in black – and I would assume they are – they’re gonna be around. Maybe, like Matt said, you can find some good deals, but I don’t even look and I tell everybody I know not to plan to buy stuff there. I sometimes buy from places like Brick Warriors or Citizen Brick cause their convention prices are identical to their online prices, so you can avoid shipping, but otherwise I don’t go to conventions to do shopping, other than the Lego store, because we don’t have one #pittsburghneedsalegostoredammit.
However, unhappiness about raffle winners selling their sets at inflated prices IS a legitimate complaint. Lego doesn’t like this. At BrickFair, Todd makes it abundantly clear that raffle and Bingo winnnings are not to be sold on BrickLink, Ebay, or elsewhere. The problem is, there’s no real way to enforce this, since once you have the set it’s yours, but what Lego can do is simply stop donating sets to conventions to use as prizes. I wouldn’t put it past Lego to do this, they’ve already canceled the Lego Store 30% off sale several years ago – Todd said there was a group of people who were registering for and attending BrickFair solely for that sale, and now they’re gone. “That’s ok, we didn’t want them here anyway” is what he said, but it also means I don’t get the 30% off sale, which is a big deal. Chad n them did not mention not selling winnings, I’m not sure if it’s because it slipped their mind or because they just don’t care.
Complaining about the bathrooms seems like an exercise in futility too. BrickFair has a similar situation and people complain every year, but I’ve noticed that the owners of the hall have not taken it upon themselves to install more, which would obviously be an expensive undertaking while reducing convention space. I did have to wait in line for the bathroom, but never more than 5 minutes, and certainly not as long as I have at Pens games.
I think that if someone won a raffle, they should not be ele gobble to win another time.
I’d just like to point out that Nick wins the award for worst auto-correct of all time. Also, two-time BrickFair raffle winner Susie Cribbs might not agree with this idea, she wouldn’t have her Fire Brigade otherwise.
More important here though is Nick’s thoughts on the trailer, cause he’s right, given the 8am opening time of the U-Haul place and the speed limit imposed by hauling a trailer, he can’t be expected to get there any earlier. But Evan’s complaint is also valid, that was a lot of valuable setup time lost while we were waiting. The only solution I have is this: picking up, packing up, and driving the trailer the night before. For conventions that I go to – and I plan to make PBF an annual thing now just like I do with BrickFair – I can be the driver. The only additional cost would be an extra night of U-haul rental, which to me would be money well spent and part of the cost of doing the convention (I don’t know what the trailer ended up costing per day, I saw that you guys chose one bigger than the ones I was looking at on U-haul, and didn’t have any problems filling it up, so I would assume this is going to be the default size til we get one). I have places to stay overnight in Lancaster and so I can arrive in Philly fairly early if need be. (If I’m not the driver, that’s an additional complication of paying for an extra hotel night for the driver, which would be a more significant expense.)
There’s my first post, I’ll probably do more next week, o the suspense.