Silent Q

Posted By azog on April 26, 2009

So yea, I went to TCF this year. It’ll probably be the last year I go. From what I heard, it almost didn’t happen this year, and it that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen next year. Which, if this year was an indication of the future, is going to be no disappointment.

So beware this is a flame of TCF.

To start with, I “pre-ordered” my tix online. You can buy them at the gate for $15, or online for $10. Save $5, what a deal? Oh wait, there is a $2 service charge, so you’re really paying $12. Well, $3 is still a saving. You click “pre-order”, and it creates an e-mail message which it sends to some dude. Eventually, he checks his inbox and manually issues a PayPal invoice, which you remit. Sooner or later, he’ll check his e-mail again, and maybe, if he’s in the mood, he’ll send you your tickets.

I did not receive my tickets in time. They came on Saturday, the day OF the show. What’s the point? If there is a TCF next year, I’ll just wipe my butt with a $20 bill and have the same effect.

Anyways, blowing $20 (for two tickets actually, me and a friend), and then $30 at the game, we’re already at $50 for entrance fees. Pardon my French, but WTF? I replied to the “tickets@tcf-nj.org” e-mail address, but did not get a response.

Getting at the show is an adventure. They stuck the vendors in the halls of one of the buildings. Literally, the vendors are lined up in the halls, and you have to somehow maneuver yourself around. Either to pass by, or to browse, it was a fruitless experience.

I dunno who the guy in the yellow hat is. Just some random picture-crasher. After 30 minutes of that, we got sick of it, and decided to check out the flea market. IMO, the flea market is what makes TCF, TCF. Otherwise, it’s just another dying breed of a computer show. I’d probably say there were two dozen booths at the flea market, which is pretty meager. Evan said it was microscopic, and in my mind I said “how bad can it really be?”. Well, it was pretty pitiful. I did take a few pix, but the pix don’t transmit the futility of it all. At prior TCFs, there were probably several hundred booths. It was a good deal.

What we finally learned was that something happened between TCF and the management, which used to be MarketPro. But “used to be” is the phrase, since MarketPro didn’t manage TCF this year. MarketPro even decided to have their own shot at Edison, on the same weekend as TCF. Well, the scruples of that aside, we got pretty depressed at TCF and headed up to the Raritan Expo Center. We were still wearing our TCF tickets, and one guy came up and said “Hey, you were at TCF, too? Didn’t it suck?”. So we weren’t the only ones none happy.

So to make a long story short, even tho I haven’t been going to TCF for very long, it has been around for many years (30?), and what we saw is the last, gasping breaths of a dying behemoth.

It is a shame.

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