Is it a trademark like Maker Faire where everyone has to pay per-attendee royalties to use the name on their event?

No, it was not trademarked. Not until VERY recently, even if so. I'm not convinced it is.... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 8:08 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Vintage Computer Festivals??? On Thu, 14 Apr 2016, ethan at 757.org wrote: It is a trademark, but I have no idea what the terms are. Evan? did not apparently have much difficulty negotiating with Sellam to use the trademark.

The legal stuff to do so is underway.

YOU added the emphasis. "Vintage Computer Festival" is a brand that will turn 20 years old next year. There is tremendous value for being associated with it. We do all the marketing, write the checks, and so on. If someone wants to find out how much work it is to start a successful event, then I wish them the best of luck.

I understand the desire to having a separate vendor area so as to keep the exhibit area a bit ?neater? and more focused on demos rather than selling/trading. It is a tradeoff and I agree it?s a choice that folks have to make if they want to exhibit or vend (ie without a number of folks it?s hard to ?do both?). Unlike most commercial ?shows? where it?s the same vendors/exhibitors at each, VCF *will* be different because you?ll have different vendors/exhibitors showing up that tend to be from the ?local? geographic area. TTFN - Guy

Looking forward to seeing you there. I encourage you to sell as much as possible in consignment as long as it's on-topic. :)

The details aren't determined. When we figure it out (available consignment space for VCF West) then we'll announce it.

Talk to me after you've organized nine VCFs, then you will think different about the first part of your comment. :)

No. That's a dumb question.

Given that 90%+ of the folks who passed by my exhibit were grade A geeks, I don't think there is any danger of this. (Written as a certified geek ... as my wife will attest)

It depends on what your goal is. If you're trying to run something fleamarketish for those already at least partly inside the hobby, probably the latter. If you're trying to attract new people to the hobby...well, it strikes me as at least plausible that it's the former. But I don't think our hobby will ever be very mainstream, and indeed I'm not sure it even makes sense, since so much of what makes us distinctive is that we play with non-mainstream or no-longer-mainstream stuff. So it seems to me that trying to attract the mainstream is going to either fail or end up producing something very different. (Not that something different is necessarily bad, of course, but it is, well, _different_, not what we here have.) Most/all of us got here without being wowed in the mainstream sense by a classic computer show, after all. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

As a first time attendee I am of course first and foremost excited to see some of the older systems I have never seen outside of YouTube/pictures. However, I also wouldn't mind picking up items that I am looking for. Heck, I am going to be there with a car what better opportunity to transport stuff and make sure it gets back in one piece. After the last set of fiascos with all the major shippers (nobody is immune these days) and the rising cost of shipping (even though gas has been crashing fast) buying items outside of chips is becoming cost prohibitive! If VCF feels it would be best to separate the two areas fine - but please make sure to have the two areas for those of us who are hobbyist/enthusiasts! -Ali

We have a good reason for doing this. Events that mix sales/exhibits together, without making distinctions for those of us IN the hobby, but these events will only ever shrink, not grow, as the audience/collectors get older. Our goal at VCF is to produce awesome events that show vintage computing to people * beyond * hobby insiders. When people who have casual interest attend a VCF, they're not going to come back if the room is a big confusing mix of exhibits and stuff for sale. These people -- a massive audience vs. the few of us active collectors -- aren't attending to find memory for their Banana 3000. They're attending to be wowed.

Of course. Local flavor is a good thing. There is plenty of it here in NJ and there will be plenty this summer in California. I completely agree. Frankly, I think Sellam wishes he'd have done that. But we cannot change the past, so the new non-profit is looking forward instead. :)

This is not "Evan trying it his way." :) This past weekend was the 21st VCF based on the same arrangement (10 West shows until 2007, 11 East shows). We're not doing an experiment here. We (not just "Evan") have seen what works. Sellam mentored me in Festival management for a few years before he trusted me (and now the non-profit) to take over his baby. "See how it goes"...? It's been going great for 19 years. Maybe one day we'll have a flea/swap event. Perhaps even include that as a separate day before/after the main show. VCF West XI this summer will be our standard arrangement (that's already settled). Sellam, the former MARCH, and now the non-profit have done plenty of innovative things. For example, at East a couple of years ago we added Friday which is devoted to technical classes. It's worked fine for us our East and at all the past West shows. Again, something that works well ** twenty-one times ** is probably good. :)

It has been a long time. It has been far too long since VCF (west) John Craig experienced a process that a friend called "the inevitable decline of flea-markets". They start out as a peer event, where the attendees and sellers are the same people. Before long, realities of setup call for sellers being allowed in before buyers. That gives the sellers a headstart on buying the best deals. "We might as well just do musical chairs - when the music stop, you take home whatever is on the table that you ended up with" Soon, it attracted vendors who are NOT buyers. In the case of computer swaps, those were the vendors of Taiwan clone systems and parts. It was such a good deal for them that more and more of them signed up. Soon, there started to be a shortage of spaces (a delightful prospect for show management!). So, the management created a multi-level pricing for space. Competing companies offered more and more shows until there was one almost every weekend. Eventually, the show was ALL new item vendors, with hobbyists few and far between. Soon the hobbyist buyers stopped coming. There was a period of time where the show could still appeal to the general public ("great place to buy your new computer!"), but after a while, the swaps ceased to exist.

On 4/18/16 4:36 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: two things have killed the electronics ones off in the Bay Area eBay and the nail in the coffin the state of California requiring a sales number if you sell more than 3 times in a year. https://www.boe.ca.gov/info/temporary_sellers.htm I tried selling at "Foothill" once last year and the experience was so foul I decided never to try it again.

Warning: Longish anti-eBay tale inbound! Just under a year ago, both eBay and PayPal amended their Terms Of Service (TOS) to state that they and any of their associates are allowed to robo-call members for any reason, at any phone number they obtain by any means, for any reason, specifically including marketing purposes. While many argued that eBay and PayPal just had to create such terms to call members for legitimate reasons such as dealing with nonpayment and other issues, I really didn't like the new terms. The only way provided for members to opt out of the robo-calling terms was to close their accounts. I did that, and was vocal about it (not that many people heard me, though, as I'm hardly an influential person online). PayPal very quickly amended their TOS based on the very loud backlash online, but for some reason, eBay seemed to get a lot less attention online over the new TOS. Nevertheless, eBay did eventually quietly change their TOS to allow members to opt out of receiving marketing calls. So just a couple weeks ago, there was a vintage military radio item listed on eBay that I really wanted, and was having trouble finding anywhere else. With the most disagreeable TOS terms gone, I decided to join eBay again. I created a new account on a Friday, and bought that one item plus another technical manual. The first item was marked as shipped over the weekend, but the manual transaction was still in process on Monday morning. On the following Monday morning, I got an email from eBay stating that my new account was suspended, and that I would not be allowed to use eBay from that account, any other account, or any account I later create. No reason was provided. I called eBay technical support immediately, and their agent politely but firmly refused to discuss the reason for suspension. Just an apparent lifetime ban with no reason provided, and no recourse. I can only speculate about their reasoning. My former association with eBay was long and trouble-free, with well over a thousand happy transactions and a 100% positive rating in the mid to high 800s. Maybe they specifically flagged me in their database as a trouble-maker over my vocal opposition to their TOS changes, or maybe they simply have a blanket rule of "once you leave, you may never return". I have read other accounts online of people being banned for various reasons (many legitimate, of course), but then eBay would go as far as banning any other accounts with any tenuous association to the banned members in eBay's database, including banning family members, roommates, etc. eBay does have cause to protect themselves and their members from scammers, but their enforcement policies can be pretty heavy-handed in my opinion. While I am disappointed that I can apparently never buy old computer and radio items on eBay ever again, this recent experience leads me to suspect that my decision to part ways with eBay a year ago wasn't a bad idea. They may just not be folks I'd like to do business with. eBay really has single-handedly destroyed special-interest swap meets in my experience, and now I wish that we could create some viable alternative to eBay for our stuff. But they're just too big to compete with at this time. All that being said, I've gotten the impression that eBay is more anti-seller than anti-buyer. I've read a lot of accounts of sellers getting screwed over by scammy buyers, with eBay siding with the buyer every time. Coupled with accounts of PayPal seller's accounts being frozen instantly, for extended periods, with lots of money in the account, I tend to think that neither eBay nor PayPal are safe for anything but casual buying and selling with entirely disposable amounts of money. In the interest of full disclosure, this is the entire notice I received from eBay about my account suspension: -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

-----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark J. Blair Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 11:04 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: [OT] eBay tale (Was: Re: flea markets (was Re: Vintage Computer Festivals???)) my experience, and now I wish that we could create some viable alternative > to eBay for our stuff. But they're just too big to compete with at this time. www.zeescripts.com sells an eBay clone for $57, or a multi-vendor ecommerce for $197. Both are PHP and MySQL based. It is a one-time fee, and all code is given, so you can modify it to suit your needs. Several templates, including responsive templates, are included. If Jay would host the eBay clone on his servers, I would fork over the $57. We don't really need a huge following, but it would grow very quickly, once people from the various forums and lists started telling their members about it. Perhaps someone with knowledge in these areas would have the time to look into this? Cindy Croxton

That sounds right. Then again, eBay seems to be going out of its way to alienate large numbers of people. In the case discussed here, it may be a one-off change. But in other areas it's deliberate broad policy. Ask gun collectors/owners about eBay policies some time. A non-PC eBay competitor could potentially win a large audience. paul

Mark, Like you said what makes eBay work is it is big. So sellers (i.e. actual merchants who want to make a living) who want to get the most money for something want the biggest exposure will go to eBay. eBay lets them sell their SB card to some guy in SE Asia for ridiculous amounts of money (anybody seen $100 KB and mouse auctions lately???). Honestly, I don't think we need anything fancy to sell. We could simply start another mailing list and people could post items for sale w/ asking prices and negotiations can be done privately over email. Easy peasy. What do you think? -Ali

True, and maybe we should all make a concentrated effort on the marketplace (the actual marketplace not the subforum on the VCF) - but no matter what we do we will never get the guy "selling off dear departed Dad's old C64" because he thinks he has found his ticket to retirement. That is why eBay's huge reach will always attract those guys. At best we get the bleep bleeps who come on the forum asking "how much something is worth?" to be never heard of or to see it listed on eBay for huge amounts. That is why every time I see one of those threads I simply reply "FREE + actual cost of S&H". -Ali

On 4/20/2016 11:04 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote: That situation is indeed nuts. But, on the bright side, if you only use eBay rarely, just have a relative or friend allow you to borrow their account when needed. - J.

Naw, it's not a bad thing. Whomever made the first named Vintage Computing Festival handed it off, and if someone wants to maintain control and keep order that isn't a bad thing. In Norfolk I helped run (to the point of signing the contract with the city venue) two Mini-Maker Faires that were pretty decent in size. O'Reilly Publishing owns Maker Faire, Mini Maker Faire, etc. It was good making things go. There was strict controls over artwork, domain names, web site CMS / theme etc. They just don't want people doing things that would harm the hard work they put into building their brand and their thing. It's tough when you have rando's trying to do things, not everyone uses good judgement. This was kind of the case with us and Makerfaire, we did all the work but it looked good. The flip side was using the branding from Make Magazine didn't really help us that much. The #1 source of marketing was Facebook, it blew away our mention in local print media and everything else. One thing that kind of gave an upset stomach was the 2nd year there was a per-attendee license fee that we had to pay to O'Reilly/Make Magazine. This kind of sucked because we were a free event to the public. We had to raise around $7000 in sponsorship money to pay for the venue (which took a ton of work.) The venue along with many others were in a ticketmaster contract so in order to do online paid ticketing using the chosen system (Eventbright) we would of had to buy out the ticket master contract first. So the middle finger to that is go free. Other makerfaires were pulling in a good chunk of money but were in areas with more support than Norfolk VA, and at venues not locked into contracts -- which can be tougher to secure. Events are a pain to run! I also have a 2nd row seat to a 20,000 person gaming music and gaming festival that grew organically. That one is hell :-) The payback is when you run into random people and they talk about how much they liked the event. That sounds ok? -- Ethan O'Toole

On 04/18/2016 01:47 PM, Ian Finder wrote: And yours now seems pretty snotty. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech -http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst -http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back." - from some guy on the internet.

Correct. No, if someone wants to have a new Festival in their area then we (Vintage Computer Federation) would run it with local assistance. We get a lot of requests from people who want a festival in their city. The challenge is twofold: finding local people who have the skills/time to help run it, and making sure there's enough local audience to attend. Anybody who wants more information should contact me privately at evan at vcfed.org.