Quick National Recap

[fenwaykid]

Flew in Friday night and spent Saturday and Sunday at the show. Here’s my quick recap!

IX Center Facility: 3/10

Building is awful, space was tight and I felt there wasn’t any rhyme or reason to where everyone was set up. In prior years the “corp” booths were all together, this year they were spread all over the place. The breakers section felt like a walk down shakedown street, trash everywhere, tight lanes, people yelllng, BO. Really felt like this was the worst national I’ve been too in the last 10 years - space and layout wise.

Food Options: 4/10

Minimal food, long lines. I was starving today at lunch and ate a bratwurst for $10. As I was eating it I gave myself a 50/50 chance of getting food poisoning. Still doing ok so thats good. The pizza was flop city, Portnoy would not approve. All that said, if it wasn’t for the $8 lemonade with $4 refills this would have been a 1/10 rating - loved that lemonade!

Dealers/Inventory: 2/10

This was the year that the national cut back / kicked out booth renters. Many long time dealers were cut out this year as booth owners weren’t allowing sublets for fear of losing their table in the future. Boy, did it really hurt. Inventory this year seemed awful - mostly impacting modern error cards. All the long time dealers just bring vintage and ridiculous stuff that nobody wants. I’m talking used baseball gloves, $2 signed baseballs of nobody’s, insurance companies, used trophies, and just utter garbage from the early 90’s, 5-row shoeboxes filled with $1 packs (1991 leaf, etc). Turd Durso, JBJ whomever needs to get a grip on this as I feel the quality and content of the long time dealers is moving in the wrong direction. With Fanatics Fest around the corner, I would be concerned how this impacts the future of the National. I did find that dealers were very willing to haggle - which was nice. One dealer even had a QR code scan at his table which brought up an excel file prices for all his cards. Really liked this, avoid the annoying back and forth with grumpy ass dealers! Both days I was there in the food court area people were set up with signs that read “buying” or spread out their own cards on the tables and held their own mini-card shows. It was a lot of fun and honestly saw better stuff there than with many of the dealers.


Cleveland: 1/10

This is just not an ideal location for a National. Chicago is 100x better. Just the proximity of the hotels to the show, restaurants across the street, casino down the road - it just makes it so much more enjoyable to attend in Chicago. Everybody was staying all over the place, Ubers were expensive and very slow which made getting around a bit of a pain.

Corporate: 6/10

Topps/Fanatics were set up and did a nice job keeping the excitement and buzz going. I was excited about the wrapper redemptions as the last few years these have been amazing, but a combination of high prices and limited products that are eligible for packs ruined it this year. I bought a couple boxes of Bowman U ‘22 for $175 each (meanwhile $124.99 on fanatics.com) to get a few silver packs - didn’t hit anything and it left a bad taste in my mouth - really overpaying just to get silver packs from topps. Heritage has a great set up with tons of eye candy including the Babe Ruth jersey that he called his shot with, pretty awesome to see. eBay was a bit boring this year, they didn’t give out cards like in prior years, just mag holders and a magnifying glass. Alt was pretty cool, nice set up and had a bank like set up where you could get money upfront for stuff that you consigned. Used them for the first time and was pleased with the experience. Panini delivered again, I had an appointment for redemption replacements and they hit it out of the park there. This has been a highlight for me the last few years.

Overall: 3.2/10

Looking forward to next year!

[asujbl]

There are like 10 hotels within 5 miles. It’s the airport. My hotel was 4.1 miles away… same as the one directly across the street. The ones in Rocky River? Even closer

How far do you think downtown is exactly? You’re 7 miles from the Casino and every restaurant on the planet

You don’t like he IX Center? That’s fine… it’s next to the airport. That’s why people like it

The Cleveland hate is so ridiculous. It’s lazy as hell. If you are anywhere from Strongsville to the Lake itself you’re 15-20 minutes maximum

[kingofsnake]

fenwaykid, thank you for the reasonable and detailed recap. I'm glad I missed this show.

[Triple B]

I agree. The National has outgrown the IX Center. Having only ONE exit for all of those cars was always an issue, but with attendance likely at an all-time high, two hours to leave the venue is a bit much. Hopefully Chicago becomes the go-to with 1-2 cities as options (no thanks, Atlantic City).

I had a feeling that cutting the IX Center in half was going to cause an issue. It caused MANY. Tight lanes, limited washrooms, unbelievable lineups for ANYTHING. Chicago will be nice if they got their AC fixed, LOL.

[tyrith]

Originally Posted by asujbl

There are like 10 hotels within 5 miles. It’s the airport. My hotel was 4.1 miles away… same as the one directly across the street. The ones in Rocky River? Even closer

How far do you think downtown is exactly? You’re 7 miles from the Casino and every restaurant on the planet

You don’t like he IX Center? That’s fine… it’s next to the airport. That’s why people like it

The Cleveland hate is so ridiculous. It’s lazy as hell. If you are anywhere from Strongsville to the Lake itself you’re 15-20 minutes maximum

If you're flying to the show, the difference between Chicago - where you have a bunch of hotels where you don't even have to go outside to get to the show - and Cleveland - where you have to either rent a car or take an Uber for every leg - is massive.

[Giroux]

Be careful insulting Ohio/the Cleveland National around here...

[jfan2024]

Pretty accurate recap. Show should never be in Cleveland again, same as AC. Both cities are far more convenient for me personally to drive to but these cities just can't host the National anymore. IX is a dump venue and while I actually like Cleveland, let's be honest there's only like 5 good places to eat and 5 things to do around the city. Great for a single trip but the second time in Cleveland for me was largely a pass. Have to hand it to Cleveland sports fans though, Indians were down 3-0 with two out nobody on in the 9th and the fans were still rooting for the team on the edge of their seats. Can't decide if I respect it or if this city is full of insane lunatics.

My biggest complaint of this show was the redemption programs. It's basically the only reason I go. I walked away redeeming a grand total of zero cases this year when I normally do up to a dozen every year. There was no value whatsoever left to collectors. Combined blame goes to the manufacturers (who should not allow the big 3 to sell above MSRP at the show) and the big 3 (marking everything up by the same amount they're buying the packs back for).

[coupie21]

Originally Posted by jfan2024

Pretty accurate recap. Show should never be in Cleveland again, same as AC. Both cities are far more convenient for me personally to drive to but these cities just can't host the National anymore. IX is a dump venue and while I actually like Cleveland, let's be honest there's only like 5 good places to eat and 5 things to do around the city. Great for a single trip but the second time in Cleveland for me was largely a pass. Have to hand it to Cleveland sports fans though, Indians were down 3-0 with two out nobody on in the 9th and the fans were still rooting for the team on the edge of their seats. Can't decide if I respect it or if this city is full of insane lunatics.

My biggest complaint of this show was the redemption programs. It's basically the only reason I go. I walked away redeeming a grand total of zero cases this year when I normally do up to a dozen every year. There was no value whatsoever left to collectors. Combined blame goes to the manufacturers (who should not allow the big 3 to sell above MSRP at the show) and the big 3 (marking everything up by the same amount they're buying the packs back for).

This (Again) 100%!!! Absolute greed S%$t show! These jackwagons aren't already making enough off of us, that they got squeeze every little last bit out of you!

[solt0131]

This is the last time the show will be in Cleveland, so for all the haters you'll be happy.

[N8theGR8]

Cleveland is closest for me so I like that aspect of it, but I agree, it was bad. This was my 12th National and my least favorite of them all. I will say though, today was awesome! Still a lot of people, but you could breathe and move, so I enjoyed today a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[727sportscards]

Didn’t go this year but back in 2018, I thought Cleveland and the IX Center was flawless. I had the best time imaginable .

I realize the “hobby” has grown and I have gotten older and less patient with nonsense. Seems like I missed absolutely nothing but a miserable time.

[shorne07]

Overall, I dug it. XI Center didn’t bother me. AC worked, welcome change from last year. Panini’s Black Box redemption program is definitely changing, lots of folks only leaving the booth with a single box. Curious to see what happens next year with that. Traffic was rough, felt bad for locals coming in to park (we ended up getting out of the Uber from the airport and walking about 20 minutes). Promotions felt slimmer (didn’t get a lot of freebies, more booths required $100+ to spin the freebie wheel, looking at you Wild Card with your stupid Dino-might!). Saw great cards and memorabilia, had an encounter with LT in the airport. Still a nice time, sorry for the ramble.

[tipandpick]

Originally Posted by asujbl

There are like 10 hotels within 5 miles. It’s the airport. My hotel was 4.1 miles away… same as the one directly across the street. The ones in Rocky River? Even closer

How far do you think downtown is exactly? You’re 7 miles from the Casino and every restaurant on the planet

You don’t like he IX Center? That’s fine… it’s next to the airport. That’s why people like it

The Cleveland hate is so ridiculous. It’s lazy as hell. If you are anywhere from Strongsville to the Lake itself you’re 15-20 minutes maximum

"10 hotels within 5 miles" --> With an average of, what, 200 rooms per hotel? That's 2,000 rooms for 100,000 people. So the other 60,000 people have to stay where?

Hotels within 30 miles that were less than $500/night were sold out beyond 30 days of the event. Any other city would have had plenty of hotel capacity far closer than Cleveland.

And traffic to get into the I-X Center was AWFUL. People were getting out of their Ubers and walking a mile to save time.

As to the Ubers, I took about six of them across three days and paid surge pricing on 75% of them. $60+ for a 12-mile drive. None of them arrived within 10 minutes.

Ignoring the housing/transportation logistics, the venue wasn't equipped to handle that level of human traffic. Wifi/cell reception was horrid. Want to comp a card during the event? 90% of the time, you couldn't. Lines to get a $15 sandwich at lunch were 20+ minutes. Water? $4 a bottle...I couldn't find another source. Bathrooms? Another line.

Nothing 'lazy' about any of the above.

[sonnyday]

Originally Posted by fenwaykid

Food Options: 4/10

Minimal food, long lines. I was starving today at lunch and ate a bratwurst for $10. As I was eating it I gave myself a 50/50 chance of getting food poisoning. Still doing ok so thats good. The pizza was flop city, Portnoy would not approve. All that said, if it wasn’t for the $8 lemonade with $4 refills this would have been a 1/10 rating - loved that lemonade!

Compared to Chicago and Atlantic City. The variety of food options was a complete 180. It just seemed bad because the lines were so long.Cleveland also had hundreds of tables to sit at. I think Chicago has 6.

[JustinVerlander07]

Only going to comment on the inventory part: almost the entire breaker side of the floor was super modern cards of the trendiest guys, so inventory wasn't an issue. Perhaps OP just didn't bother looking.

[Bigjigglies]

Originally Posted by fenwaykid

IX Center Facility: 3/10

Building is awful, space was tight and I felt there wasn’t any rhyme or reason to where everyone was set up. In prior years the “corp” booths were all together, this year they were spread all over the place. The breakers section felt like a walk down shakedown street, trash everywhere, tight lanes, people yelllng, BO. Really felt like this was the worst national I’ve been too in the last 10 years - space and layout wise.

Food Options: 4/10

Minimal food, long lines. I was starving today at lunch and ate a bratwurst for $10. As I was eating it I gave myself a 50/50 chance of getting food poisoning. Still doing ok so thats good. The pizza was flop city, Portnoy would not approve. All that said, if it wasn’t for the $8 lemonade with $4 refills this would have been a 1/10 rating - loved that lemonade!

Dealers/Inventory: 2/10

All the corporate booths were along the back wall of both rooms. They did this so you could see the room without having corporate booths in the middle blocking the view across the room.

Food prices were HIGH. Talked to a couple of the operators and both told me that they had to submit their menu and prices to the national promotors, the promotors raised the prices by roughly 40% and that was the cut that the promotors took. Same with the ATM fees, normally that are $2.95 per transaction and the show promotors had them raise it to $5.95 per transaction and they got a $3.00 cut of every transaction. Nickle and diming customers without their knowledge.

As for no rhyme or reason to the booth set ups, the dealers pick their booth location.

[fulltritty]

Originally Posted by Bigjigglies

All the corporate booths were along the back wall of both rooms. They did this so you could see the room without having corporate booths in the middle blocking the view across the room.

Food prices were HIGH. Talked to a couple of the operators and both told me that they had to submit their menu and prices to the national promotors, the promotors raised the prices by roughly 40% and that was the cut that the promotors took. Same with the ATM fees, normally that are $2.95 per transaction and the show promotors had them raise it to $5.95 per transaction and they got a $3.00 cut of every transaction. Nickle and diming customers without their knowledge.

As for no rhyme or reason to the booth set ups, the dealers pick their booth location.

$7 for a slice of pizza; $48 for a whole pie.

The bar area had the cheapest soda price I could find with $3 for a can.

[sportzluvr1]

Its Cleveland.