Event Coverage Iola Car Show and Swap meet Treated Badly

Id tell them to F off a d not go back as a vender.

There loss not yours . You don't go back then they get nothing and the show is less

The whole start mid week and expect people to give that many days of rhere lives to pay to sell used car parts is getting absurd.

Jefferson ruined there meet by letting buyers in on Fridays years back so then more and more went then and on opening day paying public at 6AM was a day late.
So they dropped Sunday do some absurd late start on Friday and you need to move in on Thursday so the old selling spare **** in the garage is now missing two days of work and if you want to buy spare **** your taking a Friday off and any good stuff got sold between vendors and friends of vendors on Thursday.
The show ****s now. Id like to sell there again to clean out the shop but im not taking three days off sell stuff I don't need and jump through hoops .
The late Friday start times and no early parking before the opening time is **** .

Only way im going back to Jefferson is to by a spot so I can be inside on Thursday and eay Friday morning and ill just park in vender spot like I see others doing.

I miss the swaps like Grays lake were its Saturday only and

 

I’ve never, it thirty or forty years, seen a vendor completely sell out.

Just bring a lawn chair and watch the crowd if you find yourself with nothing to sell. You committed to a weekend. Live up to that commitment.

 

@finn we will have to agree to disagree.
As someone who has sold a dozen times at swaps, I have done a bunch of work before hand. I have loaded up and driven out. I have PAID for the privilege of getting a spot at the venue which the promoter has spent good money setting up and advertising. It almost always starts at or before dawn. It is more work to set up and display. Then the human interaction, good and bad. This ends with break down, reloading and driving back home.
I have bought and paid for the opportunity. I have not been paid for the time. Don't tell me I'm committed to a weekend. If it rains, or otherwise is inhospitable to customers, I'm not staying. If I have seen a drop in viable customers to the point where I decide I'm wasting my time, that's it.
You may want me to stay all weekend, but I want a steady stream of sales and to go home with an empty truck and a bulging pocket. That has NEVER happened, just like you said.
Seems you as a buyer have failed to support the swap just as much as the sellers that have closed up when the buyers dwindle.

 

I say that was a *****ish thing to do, considering the rules don’t seem to warrant their response.

 

I guess it’s a moot point, since the 2026 vendor rules state” it is strongly advised” that vendors stay until at least 4:00 on Saturday.

I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that previous years rules had language to the effect that if you leave early, you forfeit the guarantee of receiving last year’s spot. That’s not in the 2026 rules.

Also, blaming the attendees for your problems is rather lame, ie in effect akin victim shaming. It’s easy to turn that around to say attendance is dropping off because vendors are price gouging or selling junk rather than useable product.

 

It's the way of the world today. Not just specific to Wisconsin.

 

I had this happen, and actually made sense... but pissed me off... but made sense...and the rules did say no motorized vehicles between 8 and 4... guess they don't want the liability of people walking around and someone running them over pulling a trailer..

 

Well, there are the HAMB cl***ifieds, eBay and FB. If that's too much trouble, s****yard price for steel that you don't need is currently $7.00 a hundred pounds.

 

This has been an interesting read. As mentioned, the OP did follow the 2025 rules and was gone before the no motorized vehicle time. And the difference between strongly encouraged and required are very different. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If the event wants to require the vendors to remain then they should say that. They most likely don't say that because some vendors would find that offensive and skip the event. Doing underhanded retaliatory punishment because they didn't say what they meant shows a lack of integrity. If the event hosts lack integrity, then there is no reasonable expectation that the people participating in their event would be required to act with integrity. Even though this venue is near the edge of how far I would travel to look for things I need, I have lost any thought of keeping this event on my someday list. And as a customer and not a vendor, I always make it a point to find something or many things that I want in order to justify the trip and the vendors commitment to be there. Who knows, maybe next year someone will have that (fill in the blank) that I have been searching for and hadn't been able to find even with the internet. When promoters do things like cancel standing reserved spaces for pettiness, in my opinion, they forfeit the right to complain about vendor shortages.

 

Very well put.

 

Greedy vendors? You mean the guys who took time off from their jobs to drive hundreds of miles and paid for multiple nights of lodging not to mention the fuel costs and the meals eaten during the event. Those gredy vendor who faced either leaving early or having to take a Monday off from work to accomodate the drive home. The same greedy vendors who hunted down and cleaned up those parts on the table plus priced them all. I's ok that those greedy vendors spent all that time money and effort so that a buyer couldn't take 1day off or get to a swap one day earlier to find a part the obviousl had no free time to go find locally. Greedy vendor or lazy buyer?

 

Finn says we greedy vendors are victim shaming. I think Finn is projecting blame (shame) because his schedule doesn’t fit everybody else’s. It has long been established that swap meets start at dark thirty on the first day, and nobody (except Finn) thinks the vendor will save parts for the lazy Sunday people. I guess he’s vying for a space on the Iola Swap board of directors.

 

I suspect that if they changed the first day of "swap space set up" to Friday, instead of having it on Thursday, having vendors that would want to stay through Sat @ 4pm might not be a problem.
Back when the show was going big time, the early set up day was pretty much required.

Some people that are looking for parts simply can not get off work on weekdays, they are still hoping some vendors are still there Sat.
I remember the days when Jefferson set up was Sat morning, an hour before the spectators gate opened up. It was a zoo, imagine trying to get a truck or trailer full of stuff unloaded into a swap space while possible buyers are trying to see what is on your truck? The challenge has always been to allow some set up time, and still try to control the vendors from buying the good stuff before the public can get in.

Is "strongly advised" a stronger message then "strongly suggest", but still not mean required?

 

I'll just add that "Contracts" live & die by the strength of their wording with emphasis on the proper use of each word as defined by a competent "legally recognized" dictionary and would very likely have to sympathize with BJR in this case.
That said, after being both vendor & buyer since about 1970, I learned early on that if I was was going as a vendor I needed to make the commitment to stick it out for whatever the time required, and made sure to attend usually as a group of 3-4 guys with enough stuff to sell that was actually something marketable so that we at least broke even or traded for things needed without too much to load up & bring home. If slow buyer attendance (inside) or bad weather (outside) made it obvious we were wasting our time we met with / made arrangements with promoter to get OK to vacate early; only happened a couple of times; otherwise we stuck it out & made the best of it by taking turns looking for parts needed.
The one & only time I bailed out of Hershey a day early (1981); I had failed to sell my Studebaker, so made the roughly 600+ mile drive home. Pulled in well after dark. Phone was ringing as I got through the door; answered it & a fellow was calling to ask if it was still for sale & that he'd gotten the number while looking at it at Hershey just before it disappeared. Long story short; I ended up driving straight back to the I77/79 Split just north of Charleston WV to make the sale.
You have to love this hobby; it's never boring & every day can be an adventure with the right mindset!

 

Okay, Finn, how about this...when you buy a ticket as a spectator, you are required to stay until the end of the day. NO EXCEPTIONS. It doesn't matter if you have anything else to do that day, or if you've already spent every cent you brought with you. You will stay until those in charge decide you can leave.

 

I know I saw the “penalty for leaving early” published previously, although it’s not there in the 2026 rules. Pretty certain it was in the 2024 or 25 rules, though, and was reiterated in the periodic emails they start sending out six months before the event.

I recall reading it even though I’m not a vendor.

I’m certainly enough that I’d testify under oath ( not that it would ever come to that).

 

I’ll throw in with the big Nashville Swap Meet, for comparison sake.
On its 38th year at the Nashville Fairgrounds this coming February.

Setup day is all day Saturday until 3:00, which works ok, to a point.

The doors open at 6:30 AM Sunday, but at 3:00 things start to shut down, and vendors HAVE to pack up and pull out. It’s a clusterf**k with the indoor vendors vying for a pickup spot around the building, and having to wade through the also departing outside vendors

When it was at the old fairgrounds (now the soccer stadium) for years before, there were multiple smaller buildings with their own entrances. You could actually pull into a building, unload at your spot and pull out in a matter of minutes. The large indoor vendor crowd now has to setup and tear down in two huge connected buildings with unloading outside. This means having help or carting your parts into the building from outside. Or you you pile up your stuff outside, go park in the vendor lot, take the shuttle bus back and then setup in your spot. Parking has turned into a nightmare for vendors and buyers. On top of that the city is building, or has finished building, a new soccer stadium on the fairground property. More, once available, space gobbled up.

As this long running event is put on by the AACA, they seem to be adverse to changing locations, or are locked in with the City on a long term contract.

It’s like, “If we can make it more difficult for both the vendors and buyers to participate, maybe some will stay home and we can better handle the reduced crowd size.” It is unfortunate that the facility, though new and modern, has been strangled by the City and its shrinking fairgrounds footprint.

I have been going for probably 35 years, both as a vendor and buyer., so I’ve seen it from both angles. Now that I’ve moved to within an hour away, will I start again? Last time I went was as a buyer, I just couldn’t handle the vendor issues even with a lot of stuff to get rid of. We will see.

“The juice isn’t worth the squeeze”.

 

Pretty big difference between someone attending a swap to buy something, and someone attending a swap to sell something.

When I attended swaps to sell stuff, I was using the meets historical past and available swap space to sell my junk. Since the venue is providing an historic past featuring plenty of sales, the space I was renting from them was based on the possibility of selling my stuff. I didn't have a problem staying for the hours the site determined were in their best interest. I expected to arrive at the set up time (as close as possible) and stay there until it ended. I discovered early in my swap carrier that sometimes the last guy there was the guy that wanted the stuff I wanted to go away.

If I'm going to a swap meet to buy something, I'm paying for the possibility that one of the vendors there has what I'm looking for at a price I can afford. I'm not renting his space, I'm paying for the chance to pickup something I may need.

 

Brian, IMO you are being treated unfairly but the worst I've know was the treatment of AutoFair sellers at Charlotte Motor Speedway. LOTS of vendors paid thir fees up front in 2020 and then CMS canceled the event due to COVID and DID NOT refund their fees. The show hasn't been the same since. Most refused to return. Some organizers just don't get it.

 

I used to sell at Jefferson every spring for about 20 years
Frankly the BS has gotten to the point i may not go back to buy even.
The late start on Friday makes it tough to really see it all by close especally if your buying stuff and trying to get out and its packed with people from the time the gates open and most stuff that was good is sold to another vendor Thursday . Then your dealing with the normal Friday town traffic with people going to work . If people are set up Thurday night then open the damn gates at 6:00 AM like it used to be !
At least open the parking sooner so you can get parked and not sit in the street a hour .
One year its open early next year it's not.

Going Saturday is pretty much a waste of time.
Taking a day off On Friday is not always easy at work and its lost pay .
To sell your now taking Thursday and Friday off .

I sell some on market place and if its rare or sought after maybe EBAY.
A lot of my **** is newer so no HAMB.

Frankly I think the Thursday at Iola and Friday at Jefferson has ruined the shows.

I liked how Grays lake used to be were venders set up early am and buyers got in around 9 and everything wasent picked over by other vendors the day before.

 

That usually comes because someone showed up on Saturday afternoon and there were a number of empty spaces and they griped about the lack of vendors and empty spaces or they griped that they got turned down because of spaces being sold out and there are blocks of empty spaces around.