We just attended Iowa gas for our 4th straight year. We incorporated a vacation into the time we spent driving the 4000 miles (round trip) to the Iowa show. Every year has been a great experience for me and my wife. I will continue supporting Iowa Gas again next year as well.
We were not able to make it to the Bettendorf show, however, we did drive by the venue before everyone was set up. The covered vending area is always a plus when hosting an outdoor event in the summertime in the mid-west. The vending area was about a 2-block walk from the hotel, and the auction was about a 50-yard walk on an overhead foot bridge to the other side of the railroad tracks. It all looked like a good set up. From what I heard, the room-to-room vending didn't go well because the hotel has two towers and that made it hard for buyers to find the vendor rooms. This will be a learning curve for the promoter and maybe next year they will have specific rooms blocked off for room-to-room vendors.
That said I think we have many factors affecting what the Iowa show was 20 years ago, and what it is today. I would agree with the fact that the promoters could do a far better job reigning in the early vending. They did a better job on that this year, and there is always room for improvement. I myself bought good stuff on every day of the show and sold very well too. This year's show had a terrible windstorm in the middle of the night on Monday that affected anyone that was set up outside. Then at about 9am on Tuesday morning another bad storm moved in and left people scrambling to get their stuff put away. I know a few vendors suffered some damaged items because of these two events. I think this frustrated some of them, so they packed up and left which was very understandable. Another issue is as a buyer first and a vendor second, it's always hard with so many shows to come up with new items to bring to market. A lot more people are collecting these days and there are so many competing ways to find the items that we love so much. Many people Imo stay home and buy from auctions. A lot of the younger collectors don't realize you had to go to shows to find stuff or you sent a letter in the mail with a Polaroid photo, but now I'm dating myself. I may try to attend the Bettendorf show next year but if I do, it will be only as a buyer because both of these shows now for me compete with the Pacific Coast bash that I also attend in September.
