TO: All vendors who were to receive a free space at the 2010 IVMS
Any vendors who paid for a space since the completion of the 2009 IVMS
FR: John DeBeck, IVMS Director
DA: May 1, 2010
Hello everyone,
For the last six years, the International Vintage Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet has had a successful run, starting in 2004 when we had the event for two years on the grounds of Nick's BMW in DePere. Rapidly outgrowing those grounds, we partnered with the Iola Old Car Show staff to run the event there in 2006. We had hoped to keep it there for future years, but as many of the guests and vendors found out, the difficulty in working with the staff who governed the grounds made this an impossibility, and the grounds arrangement was not conducive for this type of event. Fortunately, we were able to create an even better arrangement with the Outagamie County Fairgrounds in Seymour. The staff in Seymour has been nothing less than outstanding. It began when Jeremy Schroeder was the fairgrounds director in 2007, and he was more than accommodating. When he left his post in 2008, Rick Pruski stepped up and was very helpful for the last two years, as were a number of members of the fair board. This was, and still is, a relationship which we would be happy to continue.
In our first year in Seymour, poor weather put a severe damper (pun intended!) on the event from Saturday at 2PM through the end on Sunday. The event lost money due to lack of attendance that year, but I was not deterred, in hopes that future events would prove more promising. Both the 2008 and 2009 events were solid, with good weather for the most part, and the addition of racing on Friday night, which helped boost the bottom line a bit as well. For those who think that the IVMS is a major money maker, think again! My goal when I started the IVMS was to make a few dollars, be able to have the VJEMC get a portion of the proceeds to promote our club's good works, help some non-profit clubs with their coffers (like the groups running the concession stands or manning the entrance tent) and in truth, break even or do a little better. When one looks at the year in Iola, as well as the last two years in Seymour, never was more than $5,000 made after expenses, and this was before the donation made back to the VJEMC.
Don't get me wrong....I am not complaining about that. In truth, I think we put on a very good show, and I stated to several people going into it that I didn't care if I made a lot of money doing it.....I just didn't want to lose money! I knew there would be a lot of long hours for no pay, but because of my enthusiasm for the sport of vintage motorcycling and the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals, as well as search for parts and bikes I was looking for, I was enthused to begin this journey. It made even more sense because aside from the small meet that is held each May in Hatley at SK Service, there really was nothing in this region for the vintage motorcycle enthusiasts.
It was my hope that as we grew, more firms would want to jump on the bandwagon and get involved, either as sponsors, promoters, or in setting up displays. However, the landscape of swap meets is changing. With E-Bay taking away a lot of the swap meet business, meets are dwindling or closing up all together. Buzz Walneck cancelled a number of his swap meets in the last year. Will Stoner has also cancelled some, which are well-known nationwide. Even Mid-Ohio has decreased in size, and very dramatically last year, though it is the largest of all swap meets. Promoting a meet properly involves a lot of monetary risk, and a lot of the people or vendors who attend do not realize this.
Consider that advertising for the IVMS alone, when it comes to newspaper, TV, and radio, comes to about $20,000, and these rates keep going up. That means at $7 per adult, you need 3,000 adults just to cover that cost. That does not even take into consideration the costs of grounds rental, security, rental of equipment, and many more minor costs that the average Joe may not realize or even see. Couple this with the fact that even with bad weather, these are fixed costs which don't go away if it rains and your attendance is minimal.
I looked into weather insurance, but the costs are astronomical and there are a ton of hoops to jump through. The cost of the insurance would more than eat up any profit that would potentially be made, as it is an insurance in the high risk category.
Additionally, both myself and Carol Foreen have spent considerable time on the phones trying to get local or regional dealerships to come out to the event, as well as phoning vendors personally. We offer people free space and they still do not have the willingness to come out and join us. We've even presented it to dealers from the standpoint that it gives them a chance to show the new line of their brand of motorcycle, or other products they sell to several thousand people at once---a lot more than will walk into their shop for the entire summer! Randy Dean even went personally into the shops of many vendors last spring to speak with them. Yet, we get the excuse that they have no one to man the booth. You'd think hiring a staff member for a couple of days would more than pay off for them in increased sales via the IVMS! I guess not!
John Eng looked into having the BMW demo truck come to the event, and we inquired about the demo trucks for several other marques as well. The response was that they wanted $20,000 to just bring their truck there. Considering they go at little or no charge to other events, or serve as an event sponsor, that was rather ridiculous!
I also want to mention the racing situation. Bill and Steve Kasten from SK Service in Hatley bought the Badger Racing Association a couple of years ago with the idea of promoting vintage and modern pro racing around the region. In truth, we have been fortunate to have a good relationship with them and two successful races. I still consider them friends, as they are good people, and will attend their May swap event whenever I am available. However, after the end of the 2009 IVMS, I needed to have a conversation with them about how the races were promoted. In 2008, only 3 riders were present for the 4PM racer's meeting, and Steve was very concerned that we'd end up cancelling the races. Fortunately, by race time, about 45 racers were present and the Kastens were able to put on a fine show. This past year, only 22 racers were present, and Steve had to scramble, even having to get on a bike and race himself. Though they put on a nice show, it would be a terrible risk for the IVMS, and Badger Racing as well, to promote a race, and then have to cancel it when people were already in the stands due to lack of riders. Asking them specifically how it was promoted to riders, Steve's exact words were "we mailed out 600 flyers and handed out flyers at the races we attended." Well, folks, that's great, but a mailing usually only gets a 1-2 percent response rate (in this case, 6-12 responses!) and the Kastens attend the same few races each year in Wisconsin that the same riders attend. Their promotion efforts are extremely poor, and their efforts to use modern media like e-mail, the internet, or other means are non-existent. I explained to them how I expected the races to be promoted, but they were unwilling to go the extra mile to do it right. Consequently, I felt it would be a bad business decision to keep racing going with the Kastens. Again---both Bill and Steve are great guys, but I could not risk spending all of the up-front money (note, they spent no money in helping us promote the races) with the risk that we'd have to refund monies to spectators and have a real bad name for the IVMS as a whole. Likely, a bad race or cancelled race would also have been the death knell for Badger Racing, too.
Looking at all of the options, Pete Dujanovich and I made contacts with AHRMA, which was VERY enthusiastic about bringing their dirt track racing series to the fairgrounds in place of the Badger Racing group. A lot of good conversation ensued, and I approached the Seymour Speedway racing board about this. One needs to understand that the racing board is separate from the Outagamie County Fair board, and basically rents the track and maintains it. Thus, the Kastens and I had to deal with two different groups in setting up this event.
As Bill and Steve noted to me, the 2008 racing board was super to work with, and I couldn't agree more. However, they had a lot of difficulties with the newly elected board in 2009. In truth, the board was more concerned with making a lot of money and doing as little work as possible to do so. The Kastens told me of some of their issues as the 2009 races approached, but as I had very little to do with the racing end of things, I did not see many of the issues firsthand. When I approached the board this past fall about AHRMA racing, the new president, Dave Rihm, was not helpful at all, even to the point of being belligerent to me on the phone. After telling him and one of the other racing board officers that time was of an essence for us to meet in order to get AHRMA on the schedule, never once did I receive the courtesy of a return call or e-mail. I wrote a letter to the Outagamie County Fair president, Carl Schaumburg, and also to Rick Pruski, explaining that without the support of the racing board, just holding a swap meet with all of the promotion costs would not be something I would wish to consider, and asked for their help with the racing board. To date, we have not received a call from the racing board, nor a response from the fair. Of course, this was much too late for AHRMA, and they had to back out.
Many of you don't realize that I am the one who has to put up all of the up-front costs to finance this event. This is a huge risk on my part. The club does not make tons of money on $15 memberships, so it can not put this on without the help and support of sponsor(s), which has been mostly me to date. When people are cooperative and want to do things right and do a good job of communicating, it often goes smoothly, and when it does, I am not afraid to make this investment. However, you have to work with people who are on the same page, and sadly, the racing board is not, nor were the Kastens willing to do a better job of getting racers to the event and promoting it in a twenty-first century way. Again, the fairgrounds directors and staff have been wonderful, but the truth of the matter is that at this point, with the limited amount of money made at each event, it behooves me to just leave my money in the bank in a certificate of deposit and let it earn interest, so to speak. I also have worn tired of the few vendors each year who whine about their spaces, want to encroach on others, yell at me for their own stupidity, and so forth. Granted, 95 percent of the vendors and people we meet each year are wonderful, but when adults can't or refuse to follow the rules, want to drive over fences or lawns, refuse to pay to get in, well.....all of this affects the bottom line.
I also have to give a lot of credit for our success to Carol Foreen, the wonderfully polite and organized lady who many of you have come to know and love. She has been my extra hand for several years, but in her golden years, she and her husband Dick want to travel more, and she has had some health issues to deal with recently, both personally and in her family. She is like my second mother (I even tell her that!) and her husband Dick is like my big brother (we both work on model trains together and have worked at the same hobby shop!) Without Carol's drive (for which she gets paid peanuts!) this show would not exist. I have asked many people numerous times if they would like to help and donate time in advance of the show to help make this better, but few people aside from Pete and Carol have really stepped up. It was my hope that as this grew, those who made the early commitment would benefit a bit more financially, too, and I could put a few people on the "payroll." I attempted to put together a great staff around me who had knowledge and ideas that I did not. However, there just are not enough people like that willing to step forward.
I also have been a bit late in contacting you this year because I was personally struck with tragedy four times in the last four months myself, in addition to dealing with starting another firm when an opportunity came my way. My grandfather, aunt, a close work colleague, and one of my closest train club friends all passed away, and it seemed like all I've done for the past four months is attend funerals. It is not an excuse....just a lot to deal with at once. Thus, I have in some aspects "gone into a shell" so I can focus on my work and family for a bit, and now, have the chance and time to come out of it a bit and get some other things accomplished after the dust has settled.
The other factor to consider when it comes to the swap meet is we are in an area that is dominated by the Harley culture. Yet, amazingly, when we would call Harley dealers and clubs and ask them to bring out their vintage Harleys, we'd get almost no response, too. Living in a state with only five million people also means we are somewhat limited in vintage enthusiasts. If you compare to Mid-Ohio, there are over 20 million people in just a two hour radius of the site. We don't even come close to that. So our ability to grow may be somewhat limited. It saddens me that whenever I go out riding, or even am out on the road in a car during the good weather months, I seldom see people around here out riding vintage bikes. Just a ton of Harleys, along with newer crotch rockets and cruisers of other marques. Granted, I like any two-wheeled vehicle, new or old, but there's just not much vintage riding around this area. I tried to start a Monday night vintage ride a few years ago over at Nick's BMW. We never got more than six riders, and soon, there were only 2-3 regulars. So maybe this is just not the area for something vintage. I don't know. What do you think?
That being said, it is with great regret that I have decided to pull the plug on the IVMS for 2010. Do I think it can be viable and done well with a good supporting staff and some additional sponsor monies? Yes, I do. I have a bit of a concern that vendor numbers around the country will slowly shrivel up as more people go to the internet to buy and sell, (heck, I am guilty of it myself!) so from that standpoint, perhaps any effort would be for not. Most vendors at swap meets now tend to be older fellows who prefer not to use a computer and are unwilling to learn for their self-betterment, but the world is changing. If we give the swap spaces away and vendors still don't come, what can we do? One has to have events other than just a swap meet to make an event like this viable in order to get people excited to come. More people=more vendors. More vendors=more people. It's a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Plus, there is the weather risk. I did investigate indoor facilities, but the costs are incredibly high.
If you were to receive a free space this year, obviously you are not out any money by not having a 2010 event, so there are obviously no refunds that will be issued to these people, so don't send me whiny messages, as those will be ignored. You all know how I hate whiners. I tell it like it is. And usually, people don't like to hear the truth, because the truth hurts. That is why there are two classes of people when it comes to me....those who love me, and those who hate me. I like it that way. Then I know who my true supporters are, and who not to include in any of my activities because I refuse to be surrounded by ignorant people who create hardships. Anyone who paid for a space between the end of last year's show and now will have a refund enclosed within, as that is the right thing to do. Should we have the IVMS in 2011 or beyond, I also will most certainly honor the free space to those who had registered within the rules for it in 2008 or 2009.
Is it a viable possibility to reinvigorate the IVMS for 2011? Yes, it is. I am open to running it again, at the same or a different venue, but I need more volunteer help year-around for general office work/promotion duties, and we need sponsor monies to make it a go, or a good, sound racing series with good promotion of the races. I am not going to take the risk myself. If there is anyone who would have ideas towards this or is willing to step up, I am open to ideas, so please do not hesitate to contact me with good ideas by e-mail. Thanks, and thank you for your past support of the IVMS. It's time for me to focus on my family, my main firms, and also my new business; then hop on a Z1, and ride off into the sunset!