Commercial & Non Commercial Events

[+Renegade Knight]

After hearing a lot of the tales from the most recent Mega Event, the number of "I bought X" at the event comments has reached a point where I'm wondering if it's time to actually have the Non Commercial and Commercial disctinction for mega (or larger) events.

 

Then you can have mega events that are about cachers meeting cachers and you can have the roving carnival of glitz and glimmer for the cachers who like to meet other cachers with lots of sparkly things all around, or maybe the "My parents went to geowoodstalk and only got me this stupid T-Shirt" stuff.

[+Mauison]

I attended GW6 and was able to meet other cachers as well as browse the vendors row, which was only a small part of GW6. If someone didn't want to buy anything, they didn't need to stop at the vendors row. It was out of the way so that if someone wanted to get from one side of GW6 to the other, they didn't have to pass through the row.

 

Having the vendors there helped subsidize the cost of running the event by charging them fees to vend. I have no problem with this as I'm sure it cost a bundle to run the event. At the regular non-Mega events I've attended, there has never been a vendor nor have I deemed any of them commercial in any nature. So there is a nice mix of commercial and non-commercial events.

[+wandering4cache]

I attended also and bought only a hat & a veh decal. Both items we were looking to buy online, but this saved us the shipping & handling. There were a few tables with coins, but I'm not into that sort of thing, so we just skipped.

 

The venue was sooooo large with soooo much to do that the few vendors that were there took up very little space & little of your time. It certainly wasn't all about shopping. I estimate we spent about 15-20 minutes shopping out of the entire day. I made way more friends & memories than I did purchases.

 

The tshirt & coin we did get was part of our registration packet. So I guess I "bought" those too. lol

 

Actually I've heard more people say that there were sooooo many activities planned that the event needed to be longer or 2 days. I hadn't really even noticed people talking about what they bought.

 

I've also attended local events where they occasionally invite a local dealer to demo snowshoes or kayaks IF you are interested. They are outside & off to the side. Sometimes I need to remember to even go look for them if I'm interested. Its not like its a scheduled hour out of the event where you sit & watch. You just try out equipment if you want. Very nice!

Edited June 13, 2008 by wandering4cache

[+Renegade Knight]

...Having the vendors there helped subsidize the cost of running the event by charging them fees to vend. ...

 

I didn't know they had already reached this point with the mega events. Thanks for the info.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Events are already peculiar. If an event is held in a restaurant, does that make it "commercial"? it's a pretty common form of M&G - and just about guarantees that you have to spend $$ to attend.

 

Whereas, so far, all the GW events have been free, aside from paying state/county park entry fees - where applicable. GW5 in NC was free, free parking, free entry, and even those who didn't pay for the goodie bag ended up eating free too. From GW4 on, there's been a for $ registration, optional. No pay, no guarantee of eating, and no goodie bag - but you could attend.

 

I missed this years CA event, attended 3, 4 and 5. There were few or no vendors at 3, a tent's worth (carny type big tent) at 4 and a row of them at 5. I assume there was some vendor area at 6 as well, and something like that will now occur at all mega-events to help carry the costs. Avoiding the vendors is easy.

 

It's rather like a cache in a strip mall parking lot. Just because the cache brings you to the lot, doesn't make the cache commercial, or force you buy anything.