The Rally, Affinity’s annual big blowout RV event ends today, and not a moment too soon for us. While we have really enjoyed being with so many of our RV friends, the rally itself hasn’t been much fun at all, and sales were very poor for so large a gathering.
We may attend another one of these events someday, but it won’t be at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds, or anywhere else where the rally attendees are not parked on the rally grounds. Yesterday the vending buildings closed at 5 p.m., but from about 2 p.m. on I don’t think we had more than one or two people stop by the booth. That makes it darned hard for a vendor who is paying over $1,000 for a rally booth and camping, not to mention the cost of traveling to Albuquerque.
Still, there have been some positive things happen to us while we’ve been here. We’ve made some very good contacts among the other vendors, and we’ve introduced a lot of new people to the Gypsy Journal. Hopefully some of them will turn into subscribers in the future.
One good thing that has happened while we were here, thanks to my good friend Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour recommending me, is that I have been asked to write a blog for the RV.net blog network. This is something I have been interested in for a long time.
It will be a separate blog from this one or my Todays Hero Blog, and I won’t be posting on a daily basis like I do here. I’ll probably be posting a lot of travel stories we have used in the Gypsy Journal in the past, as well as some new RV lifestyle pieces.
I can hear a lot of you asking why I’d take on another obligation, with so much already on my plate. It all comes down to selfishness on my part. I have found that blogging is an excellent tool to market the Gypsy Journal and the books, camping guides, and CDs we produce. With hundreds of thousands of readers a month, the exposure from being associated with RV.net is tremendous, and hopefully it will bring us a new reader now and then.
On another topic, have you ever heard that old saying that timing is everything? Well, it’s true. As you probably already know, we are looking for a new rig, and wondering how we can make that happen. One problem is that to help pay for a new (to us) RV, we need to sell our MCI bus conversion. Yesterday a couple here at the rally took a tour of the bus and wanted to buy it, for a price we were comfortable with, right now. The only problem is that we’d still have a shortfall between what we’d get from the bus and what we have put away, and the price of an RV to replace it with.
If it were a few months down the road, after we had a few more rallies under our belt and a little more in the bank, we’d have accepted their offer. But they came here to buy a bus, and they (understandably) don’t want to wait to get into one.
As they say, timing is everything, and the timing just was not right.
Thought For The Day – Illegal aliens have always been a problem in this country. Just ask any Indian.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick
They asked both Dale and I to do separate blogs when they started it up, If you were “invited”, it’s nothing that special, just another Afinity thingy.. When it 1st started, the Admin sent out “blanket PMs” to people active on the forums who had they own blogs.
Sounds like you had a good time at the rally. Not a good event for vendors though. When we were in the concession business, we noticed that as soon as the economy started to decline, for whatever reason, festivals and food etc., were some of the first things to go in the budget. It is probably a better early indicator than most of the more “sophisticated” methods out there. While there are still a lot of people RVing, they just aren’t spending money on the “extras”. We frequently reconsider a purchase in light of the uncertain economy right now. Don’t know what the future will bring, so we better be frugal for a while longer:-)
Congrats on your new opportunity. The timing for the sale of your bus might not have been right, but the timing for an opportunity to increase your income in order to buy a MH was sure right. Good luck with it.
Nick, I know they’re going to love you on RV.net’s blog! Welcome to the ‘Official Blog of the Open Road’ (blog.rv.net) The very best part of the rally for us was spending time in the RV.net boot with Leslie and David. They’re *really* good people.
Oh … and the reason nobody was in the Exhibit hall yesterday after 2 … they were all in our ‘Internet on the Road’ seminar! They had to move us to a bigger room to accommodate over 300 people! 🙂