If the original question of this thread is how did makers do, obviously from the drifting in this thread someone should zero in on the "DO?".
At first glance that is sales. Tony Bose and Ernest Emerson were not complaining about poor sales. Some makers seemed to have done ok, some didn't, but every knife show in the world is like that.
The general criteria is great makers do great, bad makers do bad, and the real measure of a show for sales is how the middle range makers do. A maker in the middle range with sales skills, a good personality, a decent knife, and approaches his knifemaking as a business will usually do well at most shows.
A maker with an attitude, a little arrogance, expecting the world to come to him so no need to do any promotion, is going to do badly even if he makes a good knife.
Table location can affect sales--but if you make the right kind of knives and approach your sales as a business it should not matter if the person next to you is selling things you don't care for such as ray skin wallets.
As I recall the old show rules allowed a tableholder to use 10% of his table space for anything they wanted, non-related. But the other 90% of the table space HAD to be knife related. I think some non-related things are often very interesting. I've even heard ray skin wallets referred to as knife business wallets, as most of us use them. (They never wear out!).
My oft-repeated refrain on this forum is if makers worried more about the knives they made and their own business practices instead of worrying what the guy next to them was selling, or how the other guy was making his knives, the increased business to the maker from more focused attention to his own business would offset any decrease in sales because they are not next to a brother knifemaker in a show.
If the primary reason for attending the Blade show is to hang out, to see and be seen, to pass out cards-- then sales should not figure into it--since that is not why they attended. So if you go for those reasons it was a good show. And the "DO" is you did good. There are a lot of top makers, good friends, and more knife related people in one room than any other venue.
If you went to the show to get an advancement or entrance to a group such as ABS, or it is your first major knife show, then certainly you will have fond memories of such things. But that is not a valid measure of whether the show was up or down, good or bad. If you've never been to a Blade Show it is an impressive thing--but I'm not sure how impressive it is compared to Blade Shows a couple of years ago in a more thriving economy.
The slow economy is not the fault of the Blade Show staff--and all the tweaking and efficient operation of the show, even if everything had been perfect in that regard, cannot change the economic conditions.
If you're there for a big party of fellow knife people it is the biggest in the game.
With three tables that start at $450 each, and after attending every single Blade Show since 1982, my personal criteria for a show, any show, has to be what did I take away from that show that I can quickly put to a bottom line.
It can be sales, it can be knives taken for consignment for auction, it can be meeting someone who will become an active buyer in our auctions. But at the end of the day for me the up or down of a show has a dollar figure on it.
With high table rates then there has to be many more contacts, sales, etc. than most of the other shows I attend, so a Blade Show is much more of an uphill struggle from the outset, compared to most of the other shows I attend.
The Blade Show is the toughest knife show to produce. It is the biggest, it's number one, and with the number of people attending the odds are someone is always going to be in the wrong section, on the wrong tables, or in general being unhappy about something.
Was it the best Blade show ever held, I don't think so. Was it an ok show. It was. Would I go back? I've already reserved my tables.
I personally do not think increasing the number of tables and increasing table rates is the wisest move in this economy. But at the bottom line it is their show to do with as they wish. As a show attendee we have the option of making our recommendations to the show staff--if any changes are to be made they are the ones who have to hear the recommendations and then implement them. And if we're really unhappy we can choose to not attend future shows. That are the real options.
As for me, I'll be at the show.
Oh well