APS Gass (Great American Stamp Show) 2022

Any comments from the show in Sacramento?

I will start:

As one who needs to drive to the show and not stay in a show hotel, this is yet another venue not suitable to parking safely near by. Not sure how safe the streets are in the area nor the level of car break-ins.

Now off to the car, freeway and show.....

More later.

Based on the map and the types of establishments in the area, I would expect it to be as safe as any city ever is. Of course, I am a big city person.

Current crime map:

https://experience.arcgis.com/exper...e/Crime-Map/

Finding parking was not an issue as folks were not in the offices, thus it was available throughout the morning. The parking rates were consistent with large city urban parking fees where others not driving is the preferred virtue signal made while driving your car. As the the percentage index, only 33% of the folks walking past me while I was paying for the space were local homeless. Stayed about the same walking the few hundred feet to the venue entrance and then to the show hotel for breakfast. Following breakfast most folks were heading to work or wandering to the show.

Attendance seemed low for the opening. Too soon for dealer comments about the sales traffic.

I had one fear dissolve, the show was not a three headed monster; the various factions of philately melded together well.

I was the first non-preregistered person to register and did so about 8:30 am.

Only news, not that it is new news, is James Lee who taught an education seminar on proofs Wednesday is not at the show with a table. Rather he is in the process of retirement, no more shows and soon he will pull down his website. The unanswered question as to who will take up the essay and proof mantle will require time to discern.

Walking downtown Sacramento at dusk / after sun set felt no less safe than any other city. Not nuts about how few non-street people are around and seeing a herd of rats jumping around adjacent to a 3-tent homeless encampment near city hall was less than confidence building. BUT there are some super exhibits, the FDoI program was solid, and the dealers are plentiful.

Friday's attendance remained relatively low. No dealer grumblings hear about lack of sales but the consensus is this show does not compare to the two other prior APS Summer Shows held in Sacramento.

There was some Uber disruption affecting some attendees due to the ending of the Farm Workers march and the thousands showing up to show support for the cause (making unionization voting easier for the workers, especially the undocumented. California did have a law forcing farms to allow union organizers on the private property of the farms but that was held as an unconstitutional taking by the US Supreme Court in 2021.

Back to the show again today....

I suspect show attendance was affected by the combination of higher airfares and by a reluctance to fly when flights are so unreliable these days.

It will be interesting to see an after the show report. I am not inclined to do much air travel for the reasons eyeonwall noted since airlines are defining routes they know they may not fly rather than take a conservative approach to flight planning.

I do believe shows likely need to be more diversified (offer more to attract options). For example, look at comic-con. It is more than just selling comic books.

American Airlines put up flights and then decided to cancel because they did not have a enough advance bookings. This leaves the ones that did book in a possible bind especially when early bookings usually means lower fares.

I was thinking of attending Boston 2026 (want to see Boston for other reasons too) but seems rail travel options are limited. For me it would require train changes in DC and in NYC and departure times from here are 0-Dark-Thirty. Then one has to deal with getting to the station as parking at stations is limited. When I was in England, I always had options for trains.

GASS has exhibits and seminars/society meetings. What else would you suggest.

Back to lower attendance - there are fewer dealers this year, so that would attract fewer people.

I believe that the era of the big show is coming to an end. Show's like SEMA and others make sense because vehicles really need to be seen in person due to their very nature. But other traditional shows of all types are going away and COVID mania, air travel woes and record inflation only hastened that.

Besides networking and breaking bread with other collectors/dealers in person instead of via the Internet what is the advantage of attending a big show in the era of online shopping, online seminars, online forums, Stamp Chats, APS virtual classes, online reference materials and resources of every imaginable type, online digitized exhibits etc..

You cannot sit in a stamp's leather bucket seats or spin the cylinder and feel the quality of it's double action or ooh and ahh over the quality of the silk jacket or taste the nuances of that banana flambé. Stamps are pretty one dimensional for the most part.

I love stamps and I really love Boston but it will be interesting to see what attendance is like in 2026. If the Lord permits I will attend since I live in Massachusetts and it is an excuse to eat in the North End, shop on Newbury Street, visit Fenway, see some whales, hang out at the Public Gardens and so on. The stamps part I take part in every day electronically.

In my opinion, the era of road travel and road trips is also coming to an end; and this is also having a negative impact on stamp shows.
Don

On the other hand, the last APS show in Chicago did very well. Despite all those problems enumerated. I suspect that there were simply a lot of collectors who did not want to travel that far this time. And no amount of on line viewing will ever equal seeing stamps in person.

It was just reported on Richard Frajola's Board that the GASS Champion of Champion Grand Award went to Vince King for his outside-the-box exhibit Timbromanie, which can be viewed at the Philamercury site.

This may be slightly different as it presents the exhibit in the format when it won the Grand Award at Sarasota. But it is a delight to view.

https://www.rfrajola.com/Tim/Tim.htm

The APS Summer Seminar ended up only being only virtual due to a lack of people wanted to travel. Hotel rates have jumped as well. I visit my Dad (11 hr drive) and have stopped along the way. The hotel I usually stay at went up over 30% since earlier this year.

According to the APS website attendance at the 2021 Chicago show was approx. 2500.

https://stamps.org/events/past-stampshows

A better comparison would be the Omaha show versus the Sacramento show. Chicago is on a different level, in terms of accessibility and other things to do, then smaller cities like those two. For me, the decision was made in April when I visited Sacto on business and in connection with my other hobby, model railroading. One hotel night in its exceptionally gritty central downtown was enough to tell me I didn't want to spend vacation days or hobby dollars on another trip there. I am guessing that the situation declined significantly in the years after APS committed to going there, which is not their fault, but for future shows, the overall visitor experience needs to be a large factor in the decision.