Exhibitions are losing their lustre all round. Most of the retailers don't bother going any more because there's no margin to pay for the stands and give customers the "show discounts" they expect. You either need to be very big or making/importing your own unique product to be able to afford it. Us in the middle can't justify the cost given the low margins in retail.
Even at Kartmania's extremely modest exhibiting rates, by the time transport, stand building, accommodation etc are taken into account it's very difficult to make a profit. I think Martin quotes c. 2500 people through the doors, seeing as many of those people are parent/junior or racer/other half combinations, that's c. 1250 customers of which only a proportion may be TKM-ers. It will indeed be more productive to visit one TKM round at every circuit in the country and be guaranteed to speak to the vast majority of your customer base rather than three days hard work "just in case" some TKM-ers turn up.
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