Originally Posted by
Hydro Junkie
That is what I'm thinking. Remove the need to travel from the coasts to the midwest and the costs go down for those that would have had to travel. For me, it's a 36 or so hour and 2300 mile drive just to get to Muncie. That means four days of travel time and anywhere from 230 to 460 gallons of gas, depending if I take my camp trailer or not. If I stay at hotels and eat at restaurants every meal, you can add $150 or so per day away from home. That kind of money adds up quickly, especially when you add the time off from work that I may or may not get paid for
Exactly! And I'll go one further, how many kids get exposed to it when it's held in "Taj-Muncie" only? Unless they're already affiliated with model aircraft (like Dad brings them), they're not pulling in new kids. Not many mid-Atlantic parents are going to drive two days and spend that kind of money so a kid can see. Now, it it was something they could do in a day trip, there's more opportunity to pull in kids that wouldn't otherwise know.
I spent 23 years in the military, and made 10 cross country moves. Not once did I ever consider stopping at Taj-Muncie. Why? Because nobody else in the family gives a rats a** about model airplanes - and there's NOTHING else there for them to do. Given a choice between spending a day at Munice, or spending an extra day at Disney, or a battlefield park, etc., it's not even a choice.