Let's take a look at trade sessions vs. no trade sessions.

The two sessions on Wednesday can not be equally considered as the show floor is not open on Wednesday, thus no dealers affected. The show hasn't officially started.
Really the other three sessions are also outside of the show floor time frame. Now do these trade sessions really affect the dealers. Probably not as you may think.
Trade sessions deal with small denomination chips from not very populated areas. In general a dealer is not going to make a profit on some common $1.00 chips from Detroit MI, South Dakota, Florida , etc. The dealers are offering hard to find chips & tokens, other collectible casino items such as dice, playing cards, specialty gaming equipment, plus other higher value items none of which show up at trade sessions.

Trade sessions are a part of our convention. If the club does not provide some of these then collectors will make other arrangements such as setting up in their hotel rooms, which dealers have done in the past on their own before and during the show time frame.

In all the past conventions I have attended I make it a point to ask dealers how they did at the show. Despite having five trade sessions, which the club has had for many years, I always, yes always got positive feed back from dealers as to their sales. Trade sessions bring members to the show and those members will visit the show floor and interact with the dealers.

Bottom line - we need dealers to draw show attendees and we need show attendees to draw dealers. We are trying to compare apples and oranges as far as plus or minus dealer profits. If the dealer brings the right merchandise and offers it at fair prices, their profits won't be measurably affected by some members trading low value items for a few hours.

There will be trade sessions, either organized and controlled (no sales) or they will be set up in hotel rooms.

There you have my opinion - let the discussion begin.

Jim Steffner
Convention Chairman