Virtual Expo

I was only able to be on for a short while but stopped to see Jeremy and Ameet and had a blast talking with them as well as other members.

I wasn’t able to purchase anything from either as nothing worked for my PC but they had a lot of beautiful cards.
 
An interesting start for sure. Looks like there are some things to be worked on for some dealers. A lot didn't know what to expect doing this. Hopefully the next show dealers are better prepared for it. Also, it would be nice if there was a visitor survey people could fill out about likes/dislikes regarding how dealers were set up.


Edit - A question for those disappointed, what did you expect the show to be like? What would you change?
 
I was able to pick up a couple cards from Ameet for my 03-04 project. I didn't really have any expectations going in other than hoping to find something I could use and being able to acquire it, especially with basically not having any funds to work with on this given day. I was even able to connect with a random attendee and work out a sale for a few cards he needed for a set he was working on.

Of course it would ben amazing to find something massive and everything is flawless, but that isn't how things work. I've enjoyed the show and do plan to check in tomorrow even though I likely don't expect to make any deals tomorrow. Even just camping out in Jeremy's booth most of the day has been a lot of fun. Time well spent.
 
hockeyguy2006 said:
Edit - A question for those disappointed, what did you expect the show to be like? What would you change?
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Not too sure what I was expecting, I was mostly curious and hoping to add some cards I need for my PC. I found things to be kind of disorganized, and I lost interest fairly quickly.

I think a few things that would help would be:

- More preparation from sellers (certain sellers were well prepared; kudos to them). What I mean is having some kind of way for people to know what is available prior to interacting with the dealer. Whether it be a list, pics, etc.

- Find a way to make the chat section more organized/accessible. As someone else mentioned, maybe have categories. Because everyone was just jamming in all kinds of comments, requests, etc and it was pretty messy.


Again, I will admit that I'm not the kind of person who would be hanging out at a show all day, but I was hoping to find some stuff I needed and ended up not feeling it was worth the time.
 
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cygnusx1 said:
Not too sure what I was expecting, I was mostly curious and hoping to add some cards I need for my PC. I found things to be kind of disorganized, and I lost interest fairly quickly.

I think a few things that would help would be:

- More preparation from sellers (certain sellers were well prepared; kudos to them). What I mean is having some kind of way for people to know what is available prior to interacting with the dealer. Whether it be a list, pics, etc.

- Find a way to make the chat section more organized/accessible. As someone else mentioned, maybe have categories. Because everyone was just jamming in all kinds of comments, requests, etc and it was pretty messy.


Again, I will admit that I'm not the kind of person who would be hanging out at a show all day, but I was hoping to find some stuff I needed and ended up not feeling it was worth the time.

And yes, the show was free and I was just dropping in to check it out, but I do find it funny that voicing constructive criticism instantly gets you labeled a whiner.
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I did not find your post whiny. Others I did.
 
The show has it's positives and negatives for sure. Some sellers don't seem adequately prepared and it shows when you enter their area, some don't even have someone manning their booth it's just links which I don't necessarily agree with, but everyone has a different situation so no judging.

I did really enjoy the folks who had their things photographed/scanned and put somewhere like Jeremy's dropbox folders or Ameet's album on Google.

I didn't enjoy the folks who either only showed what they had if you asked, or just posted their eBay links. Someone in Jeremy's chat made a good point that if you are searching for something specific (ex. player PC) then if it's on eBay chances are you've already seen it. The fun of card shows (in my opinion and apparently this person) is the fun of searching through things not knowing what you might find. I like to look at what folks have for sale because sometimes stuff just catches my eye that I wouldn't necessarily ask for/search for on eBay.

I managed to acquire 2 cards for the PC, one of them a really nice one that's been on my WL since 11/12, so I'm definitely happy with that but it's no coincidence that the 2 people I thought were most organized (Ameet/Jeremy) are the 2 people I ended up making deals with.


All of the above being said I think you should go into things like this with an open mind and just try stuff out. For the 1st 30 mins or so I poked around and wasn't really enjoying the experience, but I kept digging and interacting with folks and ended up enjoying it more than I thought. I do agree with Jeremy that if they do this again it will be better as I think more sellers will come out, and hopefully be better prepared. Someone mentioned a post-expo survey to participants and I think that would be great idea so everyone (buyers and sellers) can provide various feedback.


Last point - the most enjoyable part of the day was just hanging out on camera and chatting with folks. I spent a good amount of time just sitting on camera in Jeremy's booth and chatting and/or "meeting" various folks from the site and from off the site and it was a blast just talking.

My 2 cents :beer:

Happy hunting everyone
 
I've never been to an expo, so I was looking forward to this. I enjoyed myself, and spent most of the day touring through the booths. Yes, some dealers weren't prepared, or didn't put a strong effort into their interaction with viewers. Some booths just showed store shelves, or someone sitting there. I exited those booths fairly quickly. There were a few dealers that had some banter going on (with the audience, not others on the screen) which I enjoyed. Having dealer folders to look through is a better idea than visitors coming on and saying "Have you got ..."?

btw, as a former elementary teacher the tech glitches for a first try shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. As a class, we always tried to have a laugh about it, and learn so that we were better prepared for next time. The "baby steps" have been taken, now it's time to start taking bigger steps.
 
im not very computer savvy to say the least, had an issue with explorer at the start but was fine on my iPhone. I emailed Steve and he msged me to let me know about chrome being better then explorer and then the fun started:)

I have never been to an expo unfortunately in person, and really don't have anything negative to say except I would have loved to add a helm card to the PC which I have yet to do, however there is always tomorrow:)

just like everything there are always minor bumps, but it is always how we improve from our last outing!
 
I agree with the majority, the intent is good, the execution faced challenges. But I’m confident this is merely a stepping stone to great experiences in the future!
 
BigBarracuda said:
I agree with the majority, the intent is good, the execution faced challenges. But I’m confident this is merely a stepping stone to great experiences in the future!
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Now there’s an attitude I can be proud of having on this forum!
 
I watched for about an hour or so, loved watching the couple guys I did watch (Ameet & Jeremy) for lengthy periods of time.

Ameet was super organized. That's what I was really impressed with. I was lurking when Josh and he were talking and Josh was firing off what cards he was interested in and what box # they were in. Just made the process, as an observer, go so much more quickly and fluidly.

I'll definitely be lurking tomorrow, as I'd like to at least put names to faces, but fully well aware most folks won't have what I'm looking to buy, at this moment, for the hockey side of my collection.

I loved the idea from the start, just because I love cards and love hearing card related chatter. Well done, gang!
 
I enjoyed sorting through the process today. I had some glitches on my end but got it going as the day went on. This will be very good as people learn how to use the interface. Not unlike the Expo some booths were very uninviting so I left them. Others were better. It did surprise me how many dealers did not know what they had. Just send me an email was a common refrain but I understand they have massive amounts of stuff to go through.
I plan to spend a good chunk of time tomorrow. Will update again. Great start to a new process in my mind.
 
I did not get a chance to check it out today(was super busy picking the best pad buckles, fight straps, NHL Shields, patches and other goodies for the next Pearl Hockey :), I did attend a few of the test runs and the potential is there for sure. This is the future. even when things get back to some type of normalcy, these can be done between the May/November in person shows and allows those that can't make the trip to Toronto to participate. I will tomorrow
 
I popped in on it today. It LOOKS experimental. And that's fine...but personally, I'm not interested in being the experimental animal on either side of the table. I'll read the postmortems closely to see what does and doesn't work, and make notes.

I suspect come Fall expo, we'll be doing the same schtick.
 
I really like the idea. It gives a whole new group of collectors the opportunity to see what other dealers/collectors have available that can't travel to Expo. Was it perfect? Maybe not. But it's the first one. Give the promoter a couple shows to iron out the kinks before judging. No one knows with Covid how long the regulations will last so perhaps this will become the new norm? And any option to buy/sell cards in any matter is not a bad thing. My two cents
 
I would like to see this succeed. I have definitely heard much more negative than positive, in fact this forum is the first place where I have heard ANYTHING positive about the experience, however I did not get a chance to try it myself today due to other commitments. I hope to take a peek tomorrow.

If they manage to work out whatever kinks they may have, it sounds as though this has the potential to be a game changer for our hobby, provided the sellers put the effort into making it as close to a “being at the show” experience as they can. I just hope that people will give it a chance and that the negatives aren’t louder than the positives.
 

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