Economy hits hard at Decatur Swap Meet 2014

The economic downturn was really evident at the Decatur Swap this past Thurs-Fri-Sat. We arrived Thursday at noon to find a lightly filled fairgrounds and no traffic waits ion or out of the meet.
Though all spaces were sold as usual the vendor turnout left several hundred spaces empty troughout the meet. Some obviously thought it better to lose their space money rather than the several hundred dollars or more in travel expenses.
Customer traffic was very light as well. Friday customer traffic was very light and Saturday no better.
When we left Braum's after breakfast at 7:30 AM on Saturday morning we arrived at the fairgrounds in only 6 minutes rather than the regular 20-30 minutes or more as in previous years. There were no holdups on the main roads in or out of the meet and the cusomer parking lots were sparse with cars, trucks, trailers.
There were deals to be had, of course, a very nice original 27 T Coupe sold for the asking price of $6500 with near perfect sheet metal.
The previous week in Conroe, just North of Houston, the swap meet there was very crowded and sold out for vendors spaces. The difference must have been the proximity to the largest Metro population in Texas as Decatur has been around and packed for upwards of 38 years.

 

Dang. Hope the Fburg swapmeet is better. But the grass-roots don't lie. If there isn't any money, we can't spend it.

 

You can thank the party of "NO".

 

Does anyone have any idea what the PATE swap is going to be like this year?

 

Aw gee. no crowds to push through? No wagons for the kiddies that we always trip over? Only actual buyers and no gawkers to deal with. Sellers that need to make a sale to pay the rent. Nobody to quote an EBAY price? ...sounds like fun to me.

 

And the other guys were gonna make my house payment?

 

Decatur attendance did seem down quite a bit from years past. We left Saturday afternoon and there seems to be more people walking but I don't know about buying.
The weather was the best I can remember and we still had a great time!

I was told Pate is sold out, but I saw ladies selling spaces in the little building while at Decatur. I have a hard time believing all spaces are sold. I know we were not allowed to up our number this year though.
We'll see....

Cheers!
Mickm

 

I thought Decatur seemed pretty damned packed. I saw a ton of people. They just didn't seem to be buyers.


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

You spelled it wrong it's BHO

 

Correct amundo, brother.

 

or those Double Strollers that about take out one's Achilles Tendon and occupy more aisle space than 3 people ?

 

Doesn't seem to be the case in CA. The Turlock swap in January was packed with buyers and sellers and we sold well. A friend that sold at the Big 3 in San Diego last weekend said the same thing...he had his best sales in the last 10 years.

Next one for me will be LARS Fathers Day swap...but that one is always busy.

Neal

 

Just in case you missed it, in the almost 4 years you've been a member here, Ryan's rule no. 2

"2. No political/religious/racial posts at all. No exceptions."

In response to the OP, sometimes swapmeets get a little bit stale. A friend of mine and I were talking recently about not going to Petit Jean (Arkansas) this year simply because it seems to be the same old stuff from the same old vendors. They don't sell it this year, so they load it back into the trailer to bring back next year. Oh, and we include ourselves in that group of people!

We go to sell a little, buy a little and mostly visit with friends that we see only once a year. But vendors have to decide if the cost in gas, food, etc is worth the time and trouble compared to what they'll make off the swapmeet. Buyers have to decide if it will be worth going, especially if there are too many vacant spaces and not enough of what they're looking for.