Their faire in San Mateo was crazy expensive. Kids tickets (for even 4 year olds,) were $30 and adult tickets were $50. Parking was ridiculous at $35 per day, despite this being San Mateo and the events center having plenty of parking. Parking for the Oakland A’s and Warriors is cheaper than that. The proximity to the Caltrain was advertised as a “10-15 minute walk” despite the distance being almost a mile. With several small kids and it being rainy that weekend, the thought of walking a mile in the rain wasn’t very attractive only to pay $220 for two adults and four kids under age 7. Helpfully there were bicycle instructions from San Francisco in case someone thought that might be a good idea. For being billed as a “family friendly event,” It was anything but, just on the logistics front alone. It’s like the organizers are detached from reality and live in some kind of dream world where $245 is a fair price for a family of 4 with parking. That’s about double what I pay to go to Major League Baseball games with the family. I get it, they don’t like cars, because climate and all that. But some of us live in reality. To get to the Caltrain from my house in Mountain View, it’s a two mile walk. So with kids we’d have to load the car to drive to the station, so we might as well just drive to San Mateo.
My point is simple: tickets and parking were insanely priced and it’s no wonder that the overall business failed because clearly the management had some trouble reconciling reality with their perception of their own value.
Yes, the location was really not ideal in terms of access, but tbh I don't know where else in the bay area you could hold that kind of event.
I think the bigger issue was that every year it felt like 98% of the same exhibits in the same places. So it was the kind of thing you did once. Twice was a mistake. In 2016(?) I volunteered at a friend's booth, and didn't even really want to walk around because I'd already seen it all. And ppl gobbed the booth because it something different.
To be honest I think most of the really awesome makers don't usually show up at Maker Faire. 95% of the exhibits are of the "Look ma I put a servo inside a puppet" variety. Very few of, say, the Hackaday-front-page caliber. There are some, but not enough to make it feel mindblowingly awesome.
I'd say there's no point really for individuals unless you're selling something with a decent profit margin. Publicity and talking with people is easier to get online.
FWIW, you could always park for free at one of their satellite lots and take a bus right to the front gate. We did that for years and it worked fine.
I don’t think they run the parking concession on-site, and they charge $35 for those spots because the lot fills up fast at that price. If they charged less, the lot would just fill up sooner.
>My point is simple: tickets and parking were insanely priced and it’s no wonder that the overall business failed because clearly the management had some trouble reconciling reality with their perception of their own value.
The ones I went to were always full of people including families. The price is about the same as a theme park or other such event.
Just because to you it's not worth the price does not mean it's not worth the price to everyone. Assuming everyone thinks exactly like you and values things exactly like you is a very flawed view on life.
My point is simple: tickets and parking were insanely priced and it’s no wonder that the overall business failed because clearly the management had some trouble reconciling reality with their perception of their own value.