So far there has been very little interest from people
in this area and
the States around us. After asking for help on this list I got only two
responses one person is working with me and the other said he would come
if we had it depending on the dates. But other wise we could really
tell how people would come here for the show. We could not get sponsors
without numbers to show a return on their investment. If nothing breaks
for us soon we will have wait until another time.
Well, that's the usual dilema for any new venture - Even guys
like Benz and Ford had some problems to sell the idea of owning
a self driven vehicle ....
No, serious - I had the very same problem with VCFe 1.0. You
will never get an even balance at your first try (and I will
be happy if any time). But Money isn't only the thing to hassle.
You have to balance two groups of people - your visitors _and_
your exhibitors. If you, for example manage to get a whooping
publicity and thousands of visitors, but you only have a few
things on display, nobody will show up for version 2.0 - and
the very same is true for your exhibitors - one may manage to
round up every collector between Buffalo and Salt Lake City,
but they won't come again if you can't herd in enough cattle
... err visitors.
So the only way is to go ahead and try it at a friendly
neightborhood sized version - a litte bit advertisement,
and everything at a lever where it doesn't cost you more
than lat's say a great vacation. After all, it is some
kind of work out vacation :)
VCFe 1.0 was made a reasonable success that way (and many
thanks to Sallam, who did help quite a lot), and VCFe 2.0
will now be a even bigger success ... only six more weeks !
And it even looks like we may fork a second VCF site alteady
next year in another European country.
You got to take the flag and carry it on -
There's no way to loose, only to miss a chance.
Err... let's say I got carried away :=)
Servus
H.
--
VCF Europa 2.0 am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen
http://www.vintage.org/vcfe
http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe