I have been to Paducah the last 10 yrs & am going again this year. Have 3 others that all go together for a fun road trip. We stay in Metropolis, IL. Our first stop is Hancock's of Paducah, then the Rotary Show, the Finkle Building, the warehouse place for lunch & smaller vendors, the quilt museum, Eleanor Burns & several other shops in the downtown area. We have special places for lunch & dinner. Sure, the convention center is crowded but I have an opportunity to look at all the new machines from all the vendors, & their treasures they bring. The second floor also has many vendors. There is so much to see & do & we are worn out by the time we get back to our hotel around 8:30 p.m. Needless to say, the quilts are stunningly & beautiful & it is a great time to meet & talk w/some of the makers. We arrive on Monday afternoon about 3 p.m. leave Friday a.m. after a final stop at Hancock's. We love it & cannot say enough about the City of Paducah, their hospitality, & the people who put on the quilt show & provide this opportunity for everyone. Make it a bucket list item if you haven't already. You will not regret it. Happy quilting & stitching!! Kathy

I have only been to local and regional shows and they are not usually packed with vendors. What I have observed over the 10 years or so I've paid any attention, is that there is a saturation point. Speaking for myself, I have everything I need to make a hundred quilts; notions, specialty feet, thread, etc. I especially see so much fabric at yard and estate sales that I'm a little saddened. Boxes of quilting and sewing supplies, much of it new or slightly used, still in the box. Sewing and sergers everywhere. A vendor spending $5,000 for a show needs a minimum of 200, $25 sales to break even. To make the usual expected retail profit, that vendor needs 400 sales at $25. Depending on what they are selling, that could be a big nut to crack. Add in all the other reasons given already by other members, on-line sales where no investment is needed, etc. I can see why there may be fewer vendors.

The organizations that run shows of all kinds are in it to make a profit. They charge enormous fees for space and vendors just can't afford it anymore.

I live near a small town that used to be filled with the greatest little shops and eateries. Artists, jewelers, home decor shops and such all left because the building owners kept raising the rents. Most of the shops are empty now. I can't understand why a renter would rather have an empty building costing money rather than have a building filled and paying for itself.

Madison Quilt Expo (Nancy Zieman's show) is full of vendors. I think the space for vendors is larger than the space for their spectacular quilts. And the vendors are spectacular, too. MSQC was there for the first time last year. And they have lots and lots of classes, sit 'n' sews, seminars, special speakers and such. So much fun. We're going to try to make our trip there this year an over-nighter. By the time our bus gets there in the morning, it's too late to get in on the morning classes.

There are three small quilt shows near here. One has no vendors or sometimes one; at the most two. One has maybe 10 (I'm not quite sure how many.) and the other has 19. They are all very nice shows. The 19 vendors gave rave reviews to our show this year. They loved being there and loved how they were treated. They come back year after year.

I have seen very little fAbric at yard sales the past few years. Once in a rare while there is a bonanza, but not very often.

i am one who goes to shows primarily to see the quilts.
i consider it a great success if i leave the show without having bought anything.

a good success is when i leave having bought only something i really need at a price too good to pass up.

I love going to the Houston show also. And, like you, I have favorite vendors that I enjoy visiting with each year. And there are always new one vendors to see and new products and fabrics to explore. It seems like there are more shows and so vendors are having to chose which ones to go to; they just can't do them all.

I know a lot of vendors chooses one or two big shows to go to a year. They go where the biggest crowds are. Paducah and Houston are the shows of choice for most of them. It is a big expense to vend so unless a profit is made to make it worthwhile many of the smaller vendors cannot afford to go to smaller shows. Paducah is full of vendors from the Marshmallow, quilt show floor, to the empty store, to the mall and all in between. I have never been disappointed with the amount of vendors there.

Well, I can tell you that there are so many vendors at Paducah, you will be tripping over them. They sell everything you thought you wanted and thousands of things you didn't even know existed. They even have vendors at the mall, so don't forget going there. I love Paducah in the spring, it's just a fabulous place and you get to meet many of the famous quilters. And that is a lesson by itself, they aren't quite what you expect sometimes !