Observations on the current state of the hobby from a show this weekend

[whitmm]

Went to the show at Canterbury Park in Minnesota today. Decent crowd for end of show, heard some dealers saying it was a great show and super busy the first half.

Was supposed to be sports only today and TCG only tomorrow. First booth when you walk in, next to the PSA table: 3 8-foot table booth with all Pokemon cards

[nabzy28]

Hilliard show was quite good, today. Great mix of vintage, current stuff and a little of the TCG tables were all throughout. There were a few of the vintage dealers who probably always do the Strongsville show, and it was incredible. Just unreal stuff in those cases to window shop and wish, lol. Will be interesting to hear how the new Grove City show goes tomorrow.

[ObanMontecristo]

For those in the Philly suburbs, there’s a show at the Phoenixville Rec Center tomorrow (Sun 5/4) from 10-3. Smaller show but it was pretty decent last year. I actually got a table to help thin out my PC a bit.

[al3xmac10]

How is the Dallas Card Show today?
Looking for this card, if anyone can help...

[bigunitcards]

I went to the Dallas Card Show today, first show I've been to in a LONG time. Place was absolutely packed, I've never bumped into and swiped against so many people in my life. It was a challenge to get around and browse efficiently.

Seemed like a very good mixture of all sports, modern & vintage, Pokemon etc, wax, and some non-sport stuff - not overwhelmingly any one thing. I was struck by how many tables had signs about buying and how many people are trying to sell their hard case of slabs. So many tables seemed to only care about buying, with a few token cards out for attention, that was interesting to me.

I have such a narrow collecting focus on RJ cards with all my active buying being 90s rarities, I never expect to find anything at a show. I did find a few tables with some solid 90s stashes though, hard to miss an EC or Star Rubies. Even saw a sweet Griffey Bowman Golden Anniversary Refractor. And I saw 4 or 5 RJ cards after a few passes thru, nothing needed though.

I'm not sure if the hobby is healthy or what have you, but the participation and activity are quite astounding.

[al3xmac10]

Originally Posted by bigunitcards

I went to the Dallas Card Show today, first show I've been to in a LONG time. Place was absolutely packed, I've never bumped into and swiped against so many people in my life. It was a challenge to get around and browse efficiently.

Seemed like a very good mixture of all sports, modern & vintage, Pokemon etc, wax, and some non-sport stuff - not overwhelmingly any one thing. I was struck by how many tables had signs about buying and how many people are trying to sell their hard case of slabs. So many tables seemed to only care about buying, with a few token cards out for attention, that was interesting to me.

I have such a narrow collecting focus on RJ cards with all my active buying being 90s rarities, I never expect to find anything at a show. I did find a few tables with some solid 90s stashes though, hard to miss an EC or Star Rubies. Even saw a sweet Griffey Bowman Golden Anniversary Refractor. And I saw 4 or 5 RJ cards after a few passes thru, nothing needed though.

I'm not sure if the hobby is healthy or what have you, but the participation and activity are quite astounding.

great report, thanks for sharing!

[Cracktoast]

Originally Posted by bigunitcards

I went to the Dallas Card Show today, first show I've been to in a LONG time. Place was absolutely packed, I've never bumped into and swiped against so many people in my life. It was a challenge to get around and browse efficiently.

Seemed like a very good mixture of all sports, modern & vintage, Pokemon etc, wax, and some non-sport stuff - not overwhelmingly any one thing. I was struck by how many tables had signs about buying and how many people are trying to sell their hard case of slabs. So many tables seemed to only care about buying, with a few token cards out for attention, that was interesting to me.

I have such a narrow collecting focus on RJ cards with all my active buying being 90s rarities, I never expect to find anything at a show. I did find a few tables with some solid 90s stashes though, hard to miss an EC or Star Rubies. Even saw a sweet Griffey Bowman Golden Anniversary Refractor. And I saw 4 or 5 RJ cards after a few passes thru, nothing needed though.

I'm not sure if the hobby is healthy or what have you, but the participation and activity are quite astounding.

Repacks

[solt0131]

Why doesn’t the puddle monkey ever give a recap of a show that he attended?

[patchgenie]

Originally Posted by Cracktoast

Repacks

can't go wrong with turning 5 dollars worth of cards into $20!

[JohnnyAppleseed]

Originally Posted by ObanMontecristo

For those in the Philly suburbs, there’s a show at the Phoenixville Rec Center tomorrow (Sun 5/4) from 10-3. Smaller show but it was pretty decent last year. I actually got a table to help thin out my PC a bit.

Does this pop up monthly/quarterly or is it a one-off that happens every year?

Wouldn't be a bad idea to get it added to this next time around: https://sportscollectorsdigest.com/collecting-101/show-calendar

[Bowman1951]

I don't know how many promoters hang out on these boards but I'd like to give you the perspective of someone who now does this "full time". I utilize quotes around those words because I'm a stay-at-home dad on top of being a promoter after getting burned out in the higher education world after 20+ years and now having a huge desire to work for myself. I don't track my hours but I'm doing some type of promotion type work 24/7, even though it may not come out to 40 hours per week.

I don't intimately share a lot of my stats most places and will talk mostly in percentages, not raw numbers. But this is what I'm experiencing.

Monthly Mixer

A show I started with about 50 tables in 2021 after the pandemic crowd size limits lifted while I was still working full time when my area needed a consistent Saturday event is now officially expanding to 115 tables and I can't go any larger than that. The mixer will never be more than 50/50 sports/TCG but the TCG side has been expanding a lot due to vendor demand and has also led to a 40% surge in attendance year over year. The sports guys are still very pleased with my marketing efforts and most of my giveaways are sports based. I approached almost 1000 paid attendants at the beginning of 2025 but that has pulled back over the last few months a bit. I think I've seen the "peak" but I'm still ok with that, given when I started I was happy with 250-300 attendees but have tripled that over four years. I'll quickly share that I also started a second Mixer that occurs on a bi-monthly basis in the second biggest city in Mass, Worcester. Attendance for the very first event exceeded expectations based on marketing spent.

Bi-Annual TCG only

I'm about to run Event #5 after beginning these in 2023 and have consistently seen attendances increase after every event by like 20-25%. In fact, I got a bunch of social media complaints about the last 115 table event (same place I run my mixer) being too hard to get around the room that I found the biggest hotel I could and am going to 165 tables in June 2025. With an expansion of space also comes increases in marketing budgets, and hope the attendance total is up more than 25% from the last one with 50 less tables. These will continue in the Boston market into 2026 as I work through the results if this bigger hotel center will pay off long-term because the pricing here is also significantly more.

Specialty Events:

Here is where it gets interesting if this is your kind of thing. I expanded into doing a once a year minor league ballpark mixer, as well. Prices to rent a place like this are about triple of what they cost for a hotel ballroom, entry costs and table costs go up on a scale equal to that. I can get 125 8-ft tables into a covered concourse and last year was extremely popular but again, for July 2025 I hope attendance is up about 25% year over year. Destination shows are SUPER fun though and got so many compliments about how much people loved it.

Convention center TCG's - I love my Boston market and expansion into Central Massachusetts but it was just a natural time to begin looking into even larger TCG only events around the northeast in markets Collect-A-Con does not hit. There are few promoters doing this, you can see it from the complaints from the sports crowd in this thread saying they didn't expect so much Pokemon to be at their local show. I'm trying to get out ahead of this and am close to signing on to five different convention centers for the end of 2025 and into 2026, to hold 250+ table events that ONLY cater to the Pokemon crowd and nobody else. Given that I immediately saw I could draw crowds close to double the size when they were TCG-only in hotel ballrooms, it gave me the eureka moment to continue with expansion now that I ultimately have the time to do so. Our first one is going to be happening on Sept 7th, 2025 in the same building as The Philly Show. To make these events work and be successful long term, I'm going to need a minimum of 2000+ people walking in and have planned marketing budgets to match these efforts. For example, I'll be getting my first ever billboard ad near the Philly Convention Center running a month before the event.

I'm not ready to announce the other cities until the ink is dry on contracts but these are as close to being finalized as one can be without putting down massive deposits to hold the locations. If you're thinking of becoming a promoter and think any of this is easy or won't cost that much money.....know that I'm approaching $30k in just deposits alone for the events that I've mentioned above. And once some of these conventions move into a contract phase, that will grow to over six figures before a single customer walks through the doors. Don't even get me started on the $500 a week I'm spending on ordering specialty marketing materials for these larger events that get placed all around the rooms.

I'm happy to answer questions anyone may have either publicly or through DM if you would like some insight on anything particular. It's been a wild ride to find my hobby niche over the past few years and I can definitely say there isn't a day that goes by where I don't love my new chosen career, even if it's extremely challenging at times. One thing I can address is that I don't focus on sports-only events because there are already enough of them in my area. I'm a sports card guy myself but brought in a business partner who is TCG-only and is helping to drive that growth with his knowledge base.

TLDR: - Attendance may have peaked at the beginning of 2025 but is still double what it was 22-24. TCG's are absolutely hot, some promoters are taking advantage of it, others may be struggling with the growth or how best to balance it.

[kyle1707]

I saw a blurb that Psa graded 1.5 million cards in April

How do you grade 50 thousand cards a day ?

And can you imagine the garbage that is being graded

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by kyle1707

I saw a blurb that Psa graded 1.5 million cards in April

How do you grade 50 thousand cards a day ?

And can you imagine the garbage that is being graded

and BGS slabs about 50K a month

how great is that?

[Rbradleigh]

Originally Posted by kyle1707

I saw a blurb that Psa graded 1.5 million cards in April

How do you grade 50 thousand cards a day ?

And can you imagine the garbage that is being graded

Not sure if previously posted this so I apologize if redundant, last summer/fall I was unemployed and for a whopping month I picked up a few hours/wk cataloging cards for a person who has/had a full time business whose model primarily based on charging $4/card for PSA group submission.
I was amazed at the amount of cards submitted with a raw value < $5.
The business owner told me those were submitted by a high volume flipper who made a decent amount of money doing such. I couldn’t see where the math worked unless getting a perhaps 85% or better gem rate.

$4 submission fee
$20 PSA fee
$1 shipping fee.

Anyhow, unfortunately just this past week that part of the business ceased and the owner is keeping other revenue streams (consults and card reviews) available. I don’t know if still on a full-time basis. Don’t know if due to too many cards to process, increased PSA fees & TATs, decreased subs from customers to make enough volume in fees work?

Sorry to sidetrack, my point being that yes, I agree that way too many cards are submitted for grading, and I know I’ve submitted some in the past that absolutely fall into this category which I regret.

[KhalDrogo]

Thank you repacks!

[Bowman1951]

Do people realize that more than 750,000 of what was submitted last month was Pokemon alone? More than 6 out of every 10 cards submitted last month was TCG.

I'm not defending the amount of "garbage" that may be going in but sports have stayed fairly flat, if not fallen in recent months whereas TCG is up factors that have never been seen before. Overall, it's up more than 100% YoY.

[ThoseBackPages]

the raw folks are up in arms!

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by Bowman1951

Do people realize that more than 750,000 of what was submitted last month was Pokemon alone? More than 6 out of every 10 cards submitted last month was TCG.

I'm not defending the amount of "garbage" that may be going in but sports have stayed fairly flat, if not fallen in recent months whereas TCG is up factors that have never been seen before. Overall, it's up more than 100% YoY.

Correct. Pokémon is hitting on all cylinders. Sports is floundering.

Imagine getting $50k for a pop 50 PSA 10 90s Griffey that Fleer printed 10k copies of.

[Qubits]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Correct. Pokémon is hitting on all cylinders. Sports is floundering.

Imagine getting $50k for a pop 50 PSA 10 90s Griffey that Fleer printed 10k copies of.

Hell modern pokemon has pop 10k+ PSA 10s that sell for $2k. Its wild (and probably unsustainable).

[patchgenie]

Originally Posted by Rbradleigh

Not sure if previously posted this so I apologize if redundant, last summer/fall I was unemployed and for a whopping month I picked up a few hours/wk cataloging cards for a person who has/had a full time business whose model primarily based on charging $4/card for PSA group submission.
I was amazed at the amount of cards submitted with a raw value < $5.
The business owner told me those were submitted by a high volume flipper who made a decent amount of money doing such. I couldn’t see where the math worked unless getting a perhaps 85% or better gem rate.

$4 submission fee
$20 PSA fee
$1 shipping fee.

Anyhow, unfortunately just this past week that part of the business ceased and the owner is keeping other revenue streams (consults and card reviews) available. I don’t know if still on a full-time basis. Don’t know if due to too many cards to process, increased PSA fees & TATs, decreased subs from customers to make enough volume in fees work?

Sorry to sidetrack, my point being that yes, I agree that way too many cards are submitted for grading, and I know I’ve submitted some in the past that absolutely fall into this category which I regret.

must of ran out of sweet flips!

poké is way more popular than sports. everyone likes it!

[kyle1707]

Originally Posted by Qubits

Hell modern pokemon has pop 10k+ PSA 10s that sell for $2k. Its wild (and probably unsustainable).

My son found a latias and latios 170/181 in his Pokémon binder from years ago when we used to buy boxes

I sent it to Psa and got a Psa 9 and sold it for 2000 plus

I was surprised how many there were on eBay and how the prices stayed so high

But we are happy. I sold it as fast as I could

[WallyatJCCards]

Originally Posted by kyle1707

I saw a blurb that Psa graded 1.5 million cards in April

How do you grade 50 thousand cards a day ?

And can you imagine the garbage that is being graded

Maybe one of the folks who are good with "Pack Odds" can do the math on some fascinating facts for PSA. 50,000/day, even if they have 50 employees, just grading cards...

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by kyle1707

My son found a latias and latios 170/181 in his Pokémon binder from years ago when we used to buy boxes

I sent it to Psa and got a Psa 9 and sold it for 2000 plus

I was surprised how many there were on eBay and how the prices stayed so high

But we are happy. I sold it as fast as I could

how great is that?

[NYBBFAN]

Originally Posted by WallyatJCCards

Maybe one of the folks who are good with "Pack Odds" can do the math on some fascinating facts for PSA. 50,000/day, even if they have 50 employees, just grading cards...

I can’t tell if you’re joking, but PSA has far more than 50 card graders.

[Rbradleigh]

Originally Posted by patchgenie

must of ran out of sweet flips!

poké is way more popular than sports. everyone likes it!

Oh there were plenty of pokemon cards submitted which I knew nothing about and struggled to find the card & set for filling out the PSA submission request. Even more difficult the cards that are in Japanese.