You are correct, there are way too many shows in Indiana. I know of at least two vendors at Kokomo that said they would have gone to Tipton had it been scheduled last weekend when CIG was in Princeton. Back in the 90's, I often did two shows on the same weekend but the market won't currently support that kind of overhead for me. There are several dealers that have gone out of business in recent months. Add that to the fact that we now have over a dozen promoters in Indiana and the quality of shows is suffering.
A lot of shows 10 or 20 years ago were actually smaller by table count, but they were 95% gun related items. Kokomo was only around 60 to 80 tables when I was doing shows there with DaCon Promotions. It's around 200 tables now and has been as big as 325 in the past. I remember when Muncie was barely 100 tables when Bertha had it. I could drive through the building to my tables. The first CIG show there was 230 tables and people were complaining that it was too crowded. At one time, Crown Point was around 100 tables. CIG has been able to consistently keep table counts of 300-350 there in recent years. I sometimes laugh to myself when I hear people complain about a low table count and I think, they should have seen the show 15 years ago!
I always try to primarily sell firearm related items, knives and military surplus. The reason I have diversified into more and more unrelated items in recent years is the simple fact that they sell (often better than "gun related items"). Dealers are there to make money. The market changes. I would prefer that gun shows were filled primarily with related items but sometimes I can make more money selling fidget spinners than magazines and ammunition. If I can sell 100 fidget spinners in 2 days I'd be stupid not to put them on the table.
I also think part of the problem is that the internet has killed the nice profit margins of shows in years past. Online customers can often make purchases at near wholesale prices if they know where to look. I certainly don't blame them, but it makes it difficult for a vendor with $1,500 in weekend operating costs to make a living. Many customers don't realize what is involved in setting up at a gun show. In my lifetime, I've lived in Lake County alone for over a year in hotel rooms, one weekend at a time. Many vendors spend Thursday prepping and loading, Friday traveling and setting up, Saturday and Sunday at the show and packing up and then Monday recovering from a long weekend (some of these guys even have real jobs during the week). I've always enjoyed it, but it's sometimes frustrating to lose a sale because they can buy something $2 cheaper online from a warehouse that doesn't even have the cost of a storefront. That's the nature of capitalism, but it forces vendors to adapt and sell different items or go out of business.
Sorry for the long rant.
Suffice it to say that I believe there are many different factors influencing the current trend.
