"Historicon, Round 3" Topic

For what it's worth, and I know I may be sorry I said that, Matthew Grove and I are coordinating the Historicon Flea Market again this July. Our aim, as before, is to make the whole experience as pleasant and hassle-free as possible, whether you're buying or selling. Or both. And as before, if you run into a problem, please let us know and we will try to fix it. There really is no point to doing these things otherwise!

Best of luck! Thanks for taking on a thankless task!

Mark

Good Luck Lads!
From a buyers point of view I would just like to have wide walkways as the sweat and backpacks have been deadly in the past :)
Thanks,Clif

That was my only comment from last year, but I'm not sure there's any way around that without compromising gaming tables. Seemed to me that a lot of people bring the same stuff every year.

BTW – Having volunteered for similar duties, that is not only a thankless task, but you get far fewer thank you's than you do complaints. So thanks!

Put in a THUNDERDOME arena so if you "Break a deal, face the wheel".. that should keep things civil.

Good luck, and thanks.

We are planning on some flea foraging while we are there.

Thanks for doing that, and I look forward to $pending at the flea market soon.

The problem with setting up a proper Thunderdome, is hiring Tina Turner. She is expensive and has a tight schedule.

"Thunderdome's simple. Get to the weapons, use them any way you can. I know you won't break the rules . . . there aren't any."

Good luck,

LLC aka Ron

Oh…tight SCHEDULE. I thought you were going to say something else.

I'll be there, earning spending money. It pays better than a paper route.

I would have to say as both a seller and a buyer over the years the area has to be bigger so we have some room to walk around. To often traffic jams occur.

As the other half of the team I'd love to give you more room, but we all know there is only so much room and we do the best we can. I hate the traffic jams too as the table you want to look at passes by as you are swept away with the tide. :-)

I want to thank everyone for cutting us some slack as we try to work with both seller and buyer so everyone has a chance to find a deal or sell their stuff.

For those selling I think we are taking bribes this year for better tables, aren't we Chris?

Just kidding HMGS BOD and Historicon Director person. :-)

Matthew

How about throwing out the "dealers" from it and have a real flea market.

Well,

I hear that a lot but I have only had to question one person about that in the last 2 years we have been doing Historicon – and Chris and I only do the Historicon flea market, not the other two conventions. I did hear that they had to remove one seller at last Year's Fall-In, but that is just what I have hear – not witnessed, so I don't know if it is true.

Someone mentioned above that it seems the same guys are there with the same stuff every year – I've noticed this too. But I have yet to see a credit card transaction, business cards or other things that indicate they are a dealer. The Credit card is a real no no. Why do you think we have all of the sellers agree to the flea market terms and sign the release form? So we can kick any sellers out that we need to.

Tiger g, if you see a person you think is a dealer (and this goes for anyone) come to the flea market sign in desk and tell us. We will look into it.

Some people think that professional painters are using the flea market to sell their stuff. But again, I walk the flea market and talk with all of you selling. There are some nice stuff that is painted for sale, but I have seen it stay on the table all day. People are looking for good deals, not professional painting priced figures.

I don't know about the rest of you but if I am going to buy a painted figure, I think about the cost of the bare metal and my time, or cost to have someone else paint it. Then I compare it to the figure for sale. 90 percent of the time I pass because it it priced too high, but every now and then the person is willing to deal,and that's the fun of the flea market.

The bottom line is that the job is a tough one to do, while we have gotten some nice feedback every year, we still get the complaints. We can't please everyone. We have to work with the space we are given and use our best judgement with regard to sellers. If someone sees something during the course of the flea market and does not tell us, we really can't do anything about it. Then we hear about it on the boards again. So tell us then not after.

We are looking forward to another good year for Historicon's flea market.

Thanks

Matthew

What he said.

Last year only one person (that I know of personally) walked up with a complaint about people selling painted figures. (This was after we had closed down Saturday for the day.) We let him vent for awhile, then Matthew asked him what "people" was he talking about? Well, actually there was only one person. OK, which person? Well, some guy over there (he gestured to a row of empty tables). Hmmm, kinda tough to take action now, much less know it is we are supposed to take action ON. The guy mumbled something (I'm sure it was complimentary, though) and stalked off.

OK, so we'll put that guy on the "not made happy" list and push on.

Can I sell my foreclosed house due to high adjustible interest rates at the flea market?
Will anyone be selling cheap gas?
How about cheap corn, cheap milk, cheap cornfed beef?
Will any of you guys be bringing Carbon Footprints for sale?
I am forced to sell my Lear jet and my SUV.
However, I am proud to say my mower is electric, I recycle plastic, I did not fertilize the lawn this spring, I wash the car as little as possible, we neutered the cat as soon as we got her, and I am fixing up the spare bedroom so that we can adopt a polar bear who lost his ice flow. Now where's that Freon, I need. Oh there it is next to the DDT.
Don't worry my prices are low.

>Probably not. We don't have high adjustible interest rates at the flea market.
>Only if you bring the burritos.
>You would not care for the quality, and we are all about quality.
>No, the Blackfeet Indian tribe will be handling those.
>Good. Use the proceeds to buy stuff at the con, you cheapskate.
>I'd be more impressed if you washed your mower as little as possible, did not fertilize the cat this spring, neutered the polar bear on the lawn, and mixed the freon and DDT in your spare bedroom.
>Don't worry, so are our standards.

Well, this may be a silly question, but has anyone considered having the Flea Market only "open" during the hours that the "Dealer Hall" is open?

That's been the policy for quite a while. At the first Fall In back in '97 (IIRC) the flea market was allowed to open an hour earlier, on one occasion only. At least one dealer's reaction was, ah, intense: at the registration desk, on my first stint as a staff worker, he put his face about 2" from mine and without any preamble screamed (and I'm not exaggerating here) "THE FLEA MARKET IS OPEN!" What?, I said cleverly. (I was new and not wise in the ways of the world.) "T H E F L E A M A R K E T I S O P E N!" Later I was advised that this was for this guy--an interesting fellow from Ral Partha--being unusually civil.

Tiger g, if you see a person you think is a dealer (and this goes for anyone) come to the flea market sign in desk and tell us. We will look into it.

I guess I will but I thought it was obvious when someone sells the same terrain 6 conventions in a row. Or the same painter has been there on and off for years. In fact two over the last few years two people were selling the same items as a dealer. When I questioned one who I know he said he was able to charge more money per item in the flea market than at his table.

I will find you this year and point them out and give you history from what I can remember.

Tiger g,

Yes please come find me or Chris. As for the first person selling the same terrain 6 conventions in a row, as I said we only do Historicon's flea market, and this is now our 3rd year. I did not see the same terrain being sold by the same guy last year as I did the year before. I did see a few faces that I remembered as painted terrain and figures are things I always look at no matter if they are in the flea market or dealer's hall. I have a good memory for faces – just not names. But their stuff was different.

On that second part – If I had know when you saw that, I would have been over to the dealer's hall with you to check out the items and then the director of the convention, you, the seller and I would have had a talk together.

Here's something people don't realize – I can't do something if I am just told that so and so seller is a dealer. About all I can do is ask.

If the items for sale are the same as in the dealer's hall, and mind you it has to be the exact same items, like some guy is selling nice scratch built terrain and the same stuff is in the dealer's hall, there's a problem.

But other than that, it is hearsay and the person who makes the accusation needs to be willing to help me out. As I said, I have only been doing this for 2 years at Historicon. I don't know all of the "players" yet but I am learning.

So everyone who does not want a dealer in the flea market needs to be willing to face that dealer with me and inform me which dealer they are working with, and what they said they said to you, like in the example above.

As to the times the flea market is open, it is open an hour after the dealers hall opens and closes an hour before the dealers hall does.

It's all about cooperation and helping us. You as the sellers and buyers in the flea market are the ones who benefit from it, not us, and the fact that the convention even has a flea market I find to be really nice. At say, ORIGINS, you get to pay to have your stuff sold at an auction.

Matthew

Chris J and Matthew:
I can only thank you for your continuing service in this regard. I know so well how thankless a job it can be.
My only gripe – some will call it whining I'm sure – is the pseudo dealer in the fleamarket who follows the posted rules such as no credit cards or shelving or business cards but manages to violate the spirit of the fleamarket. You can pick these types out easily by observing their wares and you see rank upon rank of similarly painted items – often wrapped and in most cases price tagged items – or the commercially boxed multiples. This is not some poor schmuck gleaning out his own wargaming collection in order to make a simple buck.
As a valid dealer who will be in the Expo hall, who pays his business licenses and taxes year to year, and must compete with these psuedo dealers, I will always mount an objection about them until HMGS (and East in particular) finds some way to root them out. I have objected in the past to their presence in the fleamarket – ask Bob Giglio and most members of the Board – and I will probably do so again.
Toby Barrett

Well I may be selling at the Flea Market and even though I am and have been a dealer at Historicon and other events, I will not have a vendor booth at Historicon.

So are you saying that I cannot sell there?

Of course i know that I cannot use a Credit card processing machine or bring in shelves. IOn addition to some painted itemsa and odds and ends, I still have plenty of brand new Osprey and other titles that I plan to sell at $10 USD or less each.

We hear you about the pseudo-dealers, but it is a thorny problem. If we ask a guy who kind of looks like a dealer what's going on, and he's following the rules and maintains he is NOT a dealer, what do we do then? Tell him we don't believe his story and throw him out? The powers that be have told us they do not want us to stage a confrontation unless there is a firm basis for doing so. Fortunately the other flea market sellers are getting as irritated as anyone, and have discouraged a couple of these weasels from setting up--at least that's what I've been told.

Maybe the most effective way of dealing with it is for people not to buy from someone they suspect is not maintaining the spirit of the flea market--although how this could be made a practical deterrent is an open question, since gamers are a notoriously bargain-hunting lot!

"…since gamers are a notoriously bargain-hunting lot!…" What an understatement. LOL!

Who do people expect, to be in Flea markets? Only people with their own stuff? When you buy out a store going out of business or are going out of business yourself, would this not qualify as flea market stuff. You see such outfits at outdoor flea markets all the time.

A dealer at a flea market is one who also has a table in the Dealer room in my opinion. Other restirictions would not be fair to gamers and most if not all dealers/ store owners who are also gamers.

With the high costs of going to Historicon, selling some items at well below retail or cost in some cases in order to recover expenses only seems logical.

However, I would not expect to sell my 15mm Anceint or 10-12mm SciFi Alien range in the flea market.

RudyNelson,

I understand your point. I am thinking about getting rid of some eras that I bought and have never done anything with for 5 years, so I want to sell them off. Now I have them still in the foundry blisters and there are a lot – ask Chris or anyone who knows me, I don't piece meal an era if I am getting into it. I buy both sides since I am too use to having to field both for a game.

But for Master Caster (and I understand your point too) I look like a dealer because I have 100 blisters of ECW foundry or some other era on the table.

So when I look at a booth with this issue I have a hard time telling them to get out, they are a dealer. Now I have no problem if I saw them last year with 100 packs of foundry selling like hot cakes and then see them with the same thing this year, going up to them and asking what's up.

I've said this before, I don't know everyone. I don't know if you are a dealer or not. Only the third year, but I am beginning to remember faces and place names so hopefully over the next several years this issue will get better.

For those out there who have never sold in the flea market, why would you want to as a dealer? It's a hassle, and you have less selling time. You don't have much space and the list goes on. I just see this problem lessening every year.

But once more I will state that you may come to us and approach the person you feel is offending the rules, or is a know dealer and we will all confront the person together. If you are not willing to do this, then don't bring it up.

I really think this issue is blown out of proportion. But we will see how many folks step up.

And for the record, I am not a dealer, I am an addict and a buyer. I was told the first figure was free with the rules – HONEST. :-) And I change gaming interests like Chris changes his socks. – wait – he doesn't change his socks. :-)

I'm one of those gamers who likes anything that looks nice, from the Romans to WW2 – Never got past that era. But I do bounce around a lot and I imagine a lot of gamers do too, so there are a lot of us who unload entire armies still in blisters because we never got around to painting them and we are now interested in something else.

Let's just enjoy the convention and not finger point too much. Is it really worth it in the long run? maybe to some, but I don't really think the majority cares. They are going to spend their money in both the dealer's hall and the flea market. If there is something they want they will buy it. And the new stuff is not in the flea market.

Matthew

Matt

Maybe you're too nice a guy to run the flea market area. I think that area needs the whip once in a while.

Any volunteers?

sma1941

I'm too nice of a guy to run the flea market. hmmmmmmm

Maybe I'm just having a bad day but I agree with Chris – any volunteers?

What if Historicon did not have a flea market this year due to all of the complainers?

"…What if Historicon did not have a flea market this year due to all of the complainers?…"

Then you would have chaos. People selling off the backs of their cars or sellers scattered around the venue and in hallways, much like happened at several Origins in the 1980s.

Kind of like woodstock on the 60's – people dealing off the backs of their cars…

I have always had mixed feelings about the flea market…I've noted that we seem to see the same people for the most part, but even though I have lots of stuff that I would love to sell, without a financial crisis of some kind to motivate me, I just can't stomach the thought of sitting for even half a day at a flea market table when I could be running or playing in games.

As a former BOD member I always supported the flea market, even when there was some sentiment among BOD members to knuckle under to some of the dealers and either restrict it even more or even eliminate it. I think my exact words were over my dead body, which some of fellow BOD members would have hoped for anyways.

As far as "dealers" in the flea market, I was never really bothered by it. First, unless their prices were competitive they wouldn't sell much and if they were willing to set up and break down their tables every day, I'd be willing to let them knock themselves out. Given the lack of space at Historicon for any fledgling dealer or manufacturer I think the flea market is a useful outlet to allow them to sell their wares and test the market. The next step might be dealer tables at Fall In, where we have no shortage, then they can work their way up to Historicon, at which point they will forget what it was like to be a struggling newbie and then they'll start complaining about the evil flea market.

db