So the dealers do their dealer to dealer trade on Friday, ignoring much of the public, which isn't great anyway because people have to work, and then the all leave Saturday and you still have your ghost town. There really isn't a good solution. Frankly Friday Saturday and Sunday is probably still the best option because although Sunday is a ghost town the dealer attendance on Saturday, when the public has a chance to come out, would probably be higher.
I'm not speaking about Baltimore in particular, because I'm no expert on BWI flights, but when dealers decide to leave early, it's sometimes due to an earlier than optimal last flight out to where they're going, and an extra hotel night can wreak havoc with the P/L situation.
Agreed I would think you’d have a better chance of them staying and would almost certainly at least get more that stay if saturday was the 2nd day instead of the third. I would also think at least some are a little quicker to leave a city like Baltimore than they would nicer cities. I guess the other thing they could try is selling tables by the day or reselling the Sunday for tables when they know they dealer won’t be staying for it
It's a fair point. There was rioting in 2015 in the Inner Harbor and the July 2016 show closed 4 hours early on Friday due to planned protests a block away from the convention center. I was at that show, and ultimately nothing happened, but it had a dramatic effect on attendance and effectively killed the show for the weekend as well.
I remember a lot of people saying they were avoiding that one because of that. Overall it’s really not any better and honestly probably worse than it was then. Obviously most people that go there will be fine, it’s just not fun or appealing though to go into cities like that especially to events that would be a prime target.
