Shows or rip-offs?

These exhibitions have the benefits of permanent specialty stores, without their high yearly overheads. They are a good way to let people see and learn about products and services, and usually have the capacity for large numbers of potential buyers to attend.

But payment for entry is also the stopping barrier for many like me. I refuse to pay to go to boat shows, car shows, home shows, book shows, caravan shows, and others whose aim is to display both tangibles, such as products, or intangible services and awareness. These manufacturing and retail advertising displays are staged with one aim - to sell!

Marketing is a legitimate cost for the businesses taking part, but its cost should not flow directly to potential consumers. The role of these shows is to sell product, not sell entry.

The public has been conditioned steadily over the years into believing that marketing exhibitions are entertainment, and that they ought to attend, that it is a normal activity. Were these events free, perhaps that may be so, but if there are admission charges, then they are just a rip-off, and an attempt, by the exhibitors, to defray the cost of advertising.

Just as viewers who record TV programs for later viewing, and fast forward through the ads to exclude them, don’t pay for the “privilege” of being marketed to, then how about we stay away … unless entry is free!

Irving Berlin was right: “There’s no business like show business”. Or should I be thinking more of P.T. Barnum saying: “There’s a sucker born every minute”?