Sacramento “Reno” Swap Meet 2010
Monday, August 9th, 2010OK, OK, with all the fuss about the Hot August Nights Swap Meet, we decided to try the Sacramento “Reno Swap Meet” on August 1st, 2010.
We rolled into Arco Arena about 5:30pm on Saturday evening. We were met with a polite young lady who helped us with our entry and we were advised to go around the corner and “be patient.” Oh, this is not going to be good. We drive up to ridiculously long lines of parked vehicles, folks out wandering around, and it is hot out, so tempers are a bit short. We sat there until after 8:00pm waiting to get in. I did get to pay $2 for a can of Pepsi. (Did these people take a page from the early Mopars At The Strip playbook?) It was not the way to start a show.
The interesting part of this swap is that you can have your spaces all down a line parking space style, or you can have them in two row blocks, which made for a sort of Tetris thing going on. Neat idea, which does not work because people are squabbling, rearranging, trying to work things out. Your swap spaces go in rows, not blocks, which is typical of most swap meets and would end that BS/confusion.
The following morning is no better. Vendors can get in at 5am, so we are there just before 5. LONG lines of people waiting to get in. No signs or information directing anyone anywhere. In another lane, vehicles are whipping right in, passing the long, non-moving lines. Mrs. CJ watched this as the line we were stuck in did not move at all before she popped a gasket and marched up to see what the hell was going on. The non-moving line was for people that did not buy in the day before, poor bastards. but we had sat through that hell last night, we wanted in. So she started directing traffic to get us in the show to get our booth ready.
That early start time may seem like a good idea, but it is still frickin’ dark that early. We stumbled around the booth before the light finally came up and we could really get going.
And although this was our first year, I had heard that concessions were an issue here and this year was no exception. At about 11:30am, the one concession on our end of the show had warm bottled water and Diet Pepsi to drink and that was it. And about a 30 minute wait in line for the priviledge for paying up for that. An older gentleman stumbled into our booth, sweating and pale, fortunately I could give him some cold bottled water before he had medical problems.
We sold a few things, some MoPar people came through the booth and were happy to see some D-C-P parts, a few were kind enough to at least buy a hat to support our attendance even if we did not have parts they needed.
It was alot of crap for a one day show, that is for sure.