I (the originator of this thread) was there, actually with a table, and I sold everything I brought. This year WAS a turnaround for the Frostfest, slightly. And since I know most of the staff, we talked about it and they agreed that this year was a breath of fresh air.
HOWEVER ...
ONE retailer does not a hamfest make! The Frostfest used to have several, i.e. Delaware Amateur Supply, HRO, Communications Headquarters, Virginia Ham Radio Supply, and a few others. Part of the fun of going there to buy a new rig was seeing what the retailers did to outdo each other's prices. That doesn't happen when one retailer has the monopoly position. Also, if you were there, then you saw how the place is set up, with the entrance in the middle and all the retailers on the front left side as you walked in. Well, up until two or three years go, retailers also occupied all the space in the right front of the Showplace too. And you might have noticed that about half of the booths over where Comm HQ was were actually private, flea-market guys. So if you compare this year's Frostfest with one, say, five years ago, this one had approximately one-fourth to one-third of the retailers as five years ago -- and keep in mind this year was better than last year!
All in all, I'm not complaining. There were more people in attendance this year, and people were buying stuff. Blame last year on terror and people still reeling from 9/11, which was only a little over a year ago at that point? Maybe. I dunno. It was good to see people out having a good time.
Whatever the case, I still think the club was very amiss to advertise that "major manufacturers" would be there. None were. They also claimed that "national retailers" (with an "s") would be there. One was. They also claimed we'd see lots of new equipment demonstrations from Kenwood, Icom, Yaesu, Alinco and Standard. We didn't see any. And I won't even mention that Standard got out of the business half a decade ago.
Oops, I just did.