Featured Event Coverage Iola Car Show and Swap meet Treated Badly

4 of us have been going to the Iola car show since the 70's. We have been swapping there since the 90's. Have had the same spaces for the last 15 or 20 years. We were just notified that we have lost our spaces because we pulled out of the show on Saturday morning, it starts Thursday. We had sold almost all of our stuff and one of the guys had to leave Friday as his wife was sick. We had 4 spaces and rented a big tent. They said we broke the rules. What a ****ed up way to treat the vendors who make the show happen. I have been to the show every year since 1978 except for 2 years, same with the rest of the crew. Our drive is 4 hours each way, so if we leave Saturday night we drive most of the way in the dark, pulling a trailer. We are now considering saying **** it and not going anymore. And yes we talked to the people in charge.

 

The swap meet is not their main focus for Iola anymore. Their energy is in the Blue Ribbon cars,the autograph sessions, new car and truck vendors and the car corral. If you look at the swap meet space it has been knocked down with a big beer garden, a large center area of the grounds with a fenced in space with more less permanent equipment parking, a trail that used to be swap spaces for golf carts and a large parking lot for their workers ALL those areas plus the big hill and space below the hill use to be for swap vendors. Since it got bought out a few years ago it has an over the top noticeable emphasis on every event they have at the area near the tower. The price keeps going up and they constantly ignore the main original draw of the show …swap meet vendors. They simply do’t give a **** about parts vendors and that is why they are screwing you. I was a vendor there for 25 plus years and have watched the decline of this once wonderful event.

 

Their things to know page for vendors doesn't say anything about be required to stay through Saturday. Now if you had a vehicle in the swap space between 9 and 4 that would be a violation of the posted rules, at least it would be for 2026. But any show that feels they can dump on their vendors will eventually lose all of the vendors that make the shows work and wind up with nothing but crooks and scam artists.

 

I agree it is on the way down.

 

Wisconsin

 

We have only been attending Iola for the past few years (as spectators), and are talking about skipping next year. TBH, I have gotten better deals at the local MN swaps. At least on the oddball stuff I am interested in.

 

What a steaming pantload. Guessing you and another 100 vendors will fall by the wayside again this year.

 

Had a issue like that locally and have seen it more than once. It usually starts when someone new takes over the show or swap meet and begins to twist it all over the place which changes the whole dynamic of the event. And is more about profit than anything.

 

Seeing good folks treated like **** really pisses me off. It was hard to throw a ''like'' on your post. Sorry this is happening.

 

Per what snoc653 said, when you talked to the people in charge were they able to produce a written rule against when you left, or were they just pulling it out of their hat?
It seems weird that they apparently had someone running around the grounds taking attendance.

 

As far as taking attendance, I would guess that they do have security walking the grounds. It would be simple to ask them to report empty spaces.
I am of the opinion that the discussion was where things failed. The event people should have provided a clear way back into their grace, especially on any new rules and OP should have explained that hourly employees can be held to start/stop times, but private contractors (such as a space rental) can set their own hours within the open/close times of the event. That life happens, emergencies happen, all goods might be sold before the end and other situations where a space might not be occupied the entire time. The event group is taking risks with weather, attendance and other expenses, but so are the vendors.
I wonder if there is something else that is driving this. Either personal issues with OP or wanting to wipe out the small vendors entirely.

 

They treated you guys very badly, up theirs...

 

I don't see what their problem was. If it has been like other swap meets, you paid for the weekend. That means they got theirs.

 

Sounds like a true bunch of ***-hats running the event. Hopefully vendors as well as spectators (and potential buyers) will vote with their feet and stay away next time. In this time of wide spread social media, public relations becomes even more important than ever. My thoughts...ef 'em!

 

Did a search and found this.
https://www.iolaoldcarshow.com/_files/ugd/77b430_e20e77227e404a05aaed9b21b87934ce.pdf
It does NOT say the spaces must be attended during the show.
Was there something else going on?

 

We were out of the gate before the 9am cut off on Saturday morning. Driving 4 hours home after leaving at 5pm, providing you can get out at 5 with all the other vendor trying to do the same, is one long day. Historically we have sold very little on Saturdays, It is mostly guys on dates or people just looking for something to do to kill the day. Just people eating and women carrying lawn ornaments, and other non car stuff. Thursday and Friday are the big sale days, as the die hard car guys take off work to go to the swap meet to get the parts they need for their build.

 

Words are important. As Cob said, encourage and must are different words. If you think you might want to go back, call the promoter and tell him so. If you want to protest, call the promoter and tell him about the many thousand views this thread is getting.

 

Swap meets have changed over the years as the participants and clientele have aged and are rapidly disappearing. There are still plenty of empty swap spaces even after making room for the cart paths and things like the beer garden.

Face it: it’s not 1986 anymore, or even 2006, and things have to change.ge. Ignoring these realities means a gradual death to swap meets as we know it.

Vendors leaving early was always a problem for me even thirty years ago, when I had all I could do to get there fot Sunday morning. It was extremely frustrating to find the field half empty because greedy vendors thought it was ok to make a quick kill, then vamoose with no consideration for the hundreds of attendees who drove hundreds of miles to find half the spaces empty.

I personally agree with the policy of revoking special considerations like “permanent” swap spaces for any vendor that doesn’t abide by the published rules and packs up early. The vendors are the backbone of the event, but the cash paying attendees are the ones that make the event viable, so why would a vendor piss on them.

 

And mention that people are using that thing called the Internet more and more every day to procure those hard to find bits and bobs. They need to be flexible or they won’t be there in 2 or 3 years. And profits go to ZERO when they have no show… I don’t have free time to get to most swap meets these days, and I definitely don’t go to those that treat people badly.

 

Are there empty vendor spots or are there more vendors wanting spaces than available spaces?

 

Lots of empty spots. And they keep making the swap field smaller.

 

They are indeed two different words, but I think most of us have been in situations where the intended connotation of the word encourage was much stronger than its denotation and not following that connotation had dire consequences.

 

...Excellent point, Mark. Seems like a ridiculous rule to me.

 

....See Mark's post #24.