Being There

When Tony Singer, the founder and orchestrator of the great Automobilia Monterey, confirmed to me that the event was officially done, it hit me like death of a great friend.  Held in the ballroom of the Embassy Suites hotel during Monterey Car Week, Automobilia Monterey was, like so many other great events that have ceased to exist during that week, a great and rare gem that brought smiles and reminded we collector types that there are others out there like us.

According to Tony, many of the vendors, thanks to Covid, have been relying heavily on sales through internet portals rather than attending in-person events.  The good success they’ve been having, and since they can do business in pajamas if they want, makes it all entirely understandable.  No one wants to get Covid if they can avoid it, and why travel to Monterey to sell items only to have to schlep many of them back if they can be sold much more easily online?  Perfectly logical.  Except for the human aspect.

A family reunion of sorts, Car Week is a time when we all come together and enjoy one of our favorite pastimes – cars!  It’s a time when we can reconnect with friends that maybe we only see once a year, and Automobilia Monterey was famous for it.  Vendors might lament that they are having great success from the internet – but here’s an example of why in-person vending is so important, particularly at an event as well established and well run as Automobilia Monterey – Patrick, of Model Citizen Diecast.

I first met Patrick at Automobilia Monterey several years back.  I never bought anything from him, but admired greatly the detailed diecast models he sold.  In 2022, I got the bug to buy a nice, high-quality, 1/18^th-scale Lamborghini Countach, so I reached out to Patrick; he had a couple to choose from, and we met at Automobilia Monterey in 2023 where he was vending and I bought the beautiful model.  Why did I buy from Patrick?  Well – I ‘knew’ him through AM.  My digital partner, Eric of the Break-Fix podcast, also hosted him as a guest on the podcast (below) so it was more than just the sale of one car.  It also generated a lovely marketing opportunity to promote Model Citizen.

Being there, in-person, offers a lot of advantages over the anonymity of the net, so while we must encourage vendors to invest in going to events, we also must encourage buyers to buy and support the effort.  Unless, of course, we one day want to wake up in a world where we can only find those things we want, and the things we never knew we wanted, online.