Daniel,
You're expectations seem to be somewhat unrealistic for a free event. To do what you want HL to do would cost them as much as it would to go to a trade show, and you want them to do it for each regional? How much are you willing to pay per person to attend the regional event?
The regional events were designed essentially as a super-sized signing event, to allow collectors to visit with Bill while he was also cutting back on his travel schedule.
This year the four regional events all followed a similar pattern, with lighthouse groups and representatives invited to set up tables and share information with collectors. Remember that Bill's desire is to advocate preservation and involvement in preservation efforts. The format used this year provided a good setting for that type of interaction. 3 of the 4 regionals did provide food for participants. All provided a nice variety of give aways.
Major issue with providing food: how many to plan for. As collectors, we have been very, very bad about RSVPing to HL so they had an approximate head count to plan for. At the CA event they had more sandwich than could have ever been eaten by the group present. Last year (2001) at Navy Pier, a bunch of extra folks showed up for an expensive sit down dinner, causing some serious last minute scrambling to find room for everyone.
Only Bill attended the NJ and CA regionals. Both Bill & Nancy were at the FL event. Pretty much the entire family was at the Chicago event since it was the same weekend as the collectibles show.
Unfortunately, having the Chicago event in the middle of the ICE made for a very hectic day for all the HL staff. I do believe Bill and Nancy enjoy the opportunity to visit with collectors around the country. I also feel it is important that Kim and Esther and Harry also attend some of the events so they get a feeling for what is happening in the collector's world.
In this time of decreased sales (and thus decreased income) I would offer the following suggestions for HL:
• Do more regional events, allowing more collectors to attend them.
• Keep the format as used this year when possible. If they were to do a regional away from the coast it would be difficult to get lighthouse groups represented, but clubs could be represented and I am sure other information could be provided.
• The Florida event was the longest this year, at 4 hours. The others were generally around 3 hours. I think I would keep the time at about 4 hours max.
• The give-aways this year were fine. I would rather see them invest money in adding a regional or two.
• I would like to see a little more thought put into where the events are held. Not just what city, but also the size of the facility. Two of the events this year strained the capacity of the venue. Two of them were in kind of east nowhere (imo). Generally the facilities were nice, but parking was an issue as was size of the rooms.
Probably the largest of the regional events was the Chicago one. Why? Not just because of the ICE the same weekend. As connected collectors, we made the regional event into the centerpiece of a fun weekend. We planned other events to encourage people to attend; we pretty much turned the weekend into a mini-reunion. We had people from all over the country join with us to make for a great, fun filled, all-around weekend.
I think I have been on the soap box long enough for the time being, so I will step down for a bit.
Dave
