Expo...nentially more expensive

I'm certainly happy to know that Roanoke and Salem are getting some decent expos, and I'm looking forward to the Business and Technology Expo coming up, but let's consider a few things here.

While I gave up going to The Home Show weekend before last for the Birth and Baby Expo (which was - by logistical mishap turned boon - free), I'm not sure I would have been too bananas about it anyway: paying for entry into a show that's selling stuff.

Same for the Women's Expo this last weekend, which - even had I been in town - I wouldn't have gone to, admittedly. But I did get the lowdown from a friend who did, and $16 at the door for her and her 13-year-old daughter in order to find high-priced wares inside spelled walking around aimlessly for an hour to make it feel worth while and leaving empty-handed.

I completely understand the seller's point of view: booths are not cheap at such events, and recouping sometimes several hundred dollars in overhead means higher-prices on goods. I can understand why sellers still attend, too, since you often have to get a little creative in finding things to do in Roanoke.

What I wonder is - with expensive entry fees, expensive booth rentals, and expensive goods - who's making the money? My first guess would be the venue location, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that they've failed to reach fiscal projections as well.

So what does this all mean? Well, maybe nobody's making the money. To me, it means that during these slumped economic times, maybe a smaller entry fee would mean more buyers. Maybe smaller booth fees would spell more booths sold.

In other words, maybe the real issue is that no one's come up with anything more creative than upping prices in order to solve a very complicated economic environment. In the mean time, businesses large and small are shrugging their shoulders and wondering why no one's buying when prices have risen incrementally since this recession began.

What ever could be the reason?

Downtown: Birth and Baby Expo

There were certainly no shortages on announcements for last Saturday's Birth and Baby Expo put on by the New Life Birth Center at the Higher Eduction Center downtown. I saw a flier somewhere, saw it in the paper the Thursday before, and heard about it word of mouth from family.

What I didn't gather was that it was more a symposium than an expo, so when my wife and I sauntered in around 10am we expected to see booths with information, product promos, and some good literature. While there were some booths - maybe seven or eight - we were surprised to find that there was a schedule of speakers and panels throughout the day on a variety of birth and baby-related subjects. One of which we'd already missed.

Like most symposia, you couldn't hit all of the talks because they overlapped, but due to the misnomer, the talks were so sparsely populated that overlapping wasn't conducive to informing as many people as possible so much as it was forcing the handful of people there for the day to forgo one talk for another. This caused some talks not even to take place, since there weren't any people attending.

Plus, there was the lack of communication about an entry fee: some things mentioned no fee, others said free, and still others said $3 or a baby toy. Three dollars each certainly wouldn't have dissuaded us from coming, though collecting the entry fee was only mentioned halfway through the day and in passing.

So, it seems logistics and somewhat poor planning overshadowed what was a very informative and beneficial affair. There was a slew of helpful, knowledgeable, and loquacious midwives, doulas, nurses, and mothers there that many people did not avail themselves of.

Perhaps in the future, with the same level of advertising but better execution, the Birth and Baby *ahem* Expo will garner the attendance it deserves and generate some revenue and interest to boot.