1563 - The National vs. Disney World

Foreign. Welcome Dr. James Beckett Sports Card Insights. Thanks Sponsors Beckett Media, Beckett grading Beckett authentication Comc.com Burbank sports cards Mike Stadium Sports Cards Heritage Auctions Hugs the Scott Auctions, Topps, Panini and Upper Deck I've been talking about Disney World for a while lately and comparing it to the national or my car General, and the national comes across very favorably in terms of a good way to spend some time for me. But is it better or not as good as going to Disney World? I'm going to draw some comparisons and try to give you some of the way I think about it. I don't want to go to Disney world every week, 52 weeks a year. I don't want to go to a national. I don't want to go to a show 52 weeks a year. Disneyland started in the 50s. My first visit to Disneyland was in the 60s. Second was in the 70s, in the 80s, also went to Disneyland. National had been there in, I think, 86 and 90. And the 90 trip I took my family, my kids were of the age, they really enjoyed it and I burned my candle at both ends that week. Then a couple of times uptook my family to Disney World in Florida in the 90s. So that's, let's see, 6070s, 80s, twice in the 90s. Okay. The story does not end there, but it took a pause because I have not been for a long time. So I am really looking forward to going back. And the reason for the episode is we have a trip scheduled for early next year for our extended family. It's going to be a big group, a lot of fun, a lot of different ages. And so that's tricky. But it's going to be great if I gave them my grandkids a choice. Do you want to go to the national or do you want to go to Disney World? There wouldn't be any. In fact, nobody in my extended family is going to vote for the national over the Disney World except for me. And for that one long weekend that has the National, I will be there. I'll be fully there. But when I'm at Disney World, I'll be fully at Disney World with my, as I said, extended family. Both of the events, you're on your feet a lot. So I don't know if going to the national and going to shows gets me in shape for going to Disney World. Probably no different than playing golf and walking a golf course. You get in way more than 10,000 steps. I don't like lines. I don't like lines. At the national. And I don't like lines at Disney World. I have, I think, the equivalent of a lightning pass at the national. So I can get in early in many cases. And so we'll see. I'm not sure what we're going to do this time. We've done the lightning pass or the fast pass at Universal Studios and at Disney back in the 90s, as I recall. We may do that, we may not. We may just enjoy walking around, especially for the little ones at Disney World. What I wouldn't like about it is, is if there are long lines and short rides. What I've tried to create at the national are short lines and long rides. Ride being sometimes being at a table and the adventure of going through a dollar box or trying to make a deal with somebody. Yeah, I'd rather be wherever I am. I want to have a proper balance of family, friends, and a hobby that I think is terrific. It is not fully shared with my extended families. Nothing against them. It's my hobby, so it's not either or I'll be at the National. I've been there every time. Like I said, Even 1990, I brought my family not to the national, but since it was at the Anaheim Convention center, we may have stayed in the Disneyland Hotel. And I went to the show in the morning and then probably went afternoon, evening with wife and kids to Disneyland. And I don't know when I slept because I got up the next morning, did it again. Newsflash. Going to Disney is more expensive than going to the National. Now, maybe not for a dealer, but for a collector. I don't sell cards at the National. I guess I could, but I don't want to have a booth. That's where it gets expensive. But the hotel, the airfare, the admissions, all that stuff, it turns out Disney is just as expensive or more than the national. And especially if you're bringing a bunch of people. If I just go to the national by myself, for what it would cost to take a family to Disney, I can fly there and back, I can stay there, I can eat and I can buy a bunch of cards and still be better off. Okay, that's not a. What I rather is just stuff costs money. When I go to the national, even though I spend money, I'm actually buying cards that have some value that I can trade or sell. So again, they're both not cheap and they're both worth it. Both of these things are destinations. And because they're a destination, I don't go to Disney and then take lunch off to go somewhere else outside the park, or I don't leave in the afternoon to go see a spring training game or something. When I'm at Disney, I'm totally at Disney. When I'm at the National, I'm totally at the National. So there's no monorail. There actually is a series of tunnels in Chicago, or overhanging tunnels, so you can stay out of the air going from some of the hotels. The closer hotels have a way to stay out of the rain. But still, I'm staying in the complex. And even when I go out to dinner with my OG buddies or some of the content creators, it's usually pretty close by and it's after the show is over. So a little bit of decompression there at Disney. I think we're going to be having most of our meals there too. There's plenty of restaurants, plenty of choice. Disney World, you're there. Similar. Okay, like I said, I don't like lines, so why am I going to Disney World? Because it's worth it. I don't believe I have a problem with instant gratification. When I go into the National, I'm going to figure out where I'm going to go. I can't just go exactly where I want to go. I'm browsing a little bit and that's part of the fun. I'm sure that's what we'll do with my younger grandkids, of going in there and letting them wander around and see the characters and all that. So, like I said, I'm not much for standing in line. And I don't think 4, 5, 6 year olds are either. They want to have the experience. For me, the only line I can remember standing in was to get an autograph of Mickey Mantle with my daughter back in the early 90s. That's the only line I can remember standing in line for an autograph. On the other hand, a granddaughter may be delighted to stand in line for Ariel or Elsa Ilsa. So there's going to be plenty of stuff for little girls who are not into sports, although perhaps a little bit of soccer. And we're going to push towards soccer. So at the end of the day at Disney World, if you spent more time in line than on the rides, that doesn't mean it's a terrible day. If the rides were great. And that's kind of what I see with a card show. Go to card show. I'm going to do a lot of walking, but it's worth it. I'm walking to get where I want to get to and when I get there, I'm happy I'm there. Disney and the national both have routing problems. Sometimes you got to figure out where you need to be when or which park or which area. And you can't just go from A to Z and then back to A again. Just like at the national, you have a little bit of a routing to know what's the most important thing to go to. And then is there something close by? And all that we have figured out that I was writing off Epcot too soon. I thought it's an adult thing with all these countries and all that. Wait a minute, Frozen is there with granddaughters. We will be at Epcot and that's where we'll be right at the beginning. So same thing. Some people go straight for the lines with the the card companies for their various activations and go straight to the dollar box. The guy that I want to go, I hit that early and then I got time for browsing and visiting afterwards. The complaint about Chicago, the main thing is I would never be a great architect as I think in terms of rectangles. And the national is very irregular. Disney is pretty irregular, although many of the Disney layouts are kind of circular, encouraging you to work your way around clockwise or counterclockwise. But you can get lost. If you're a little kid without a sense of direction, you get away from your parents, you could be confused. Same thing at the national. If you're a 9 year old kid and you get away from your parents and you head out in one direction, it'd be tough. And every once in a while you hear on the loudspeaker so that your parents are looking for you or the kid is looking for his parents. The other difference I think is the national is more solitary. You may go with some friends, but unless your friends have exactly the same interest, you're probably going off in your own direction for a while. You can do that at Disneyland or Disney World. If you've got teenagers and above, I would say you could trust to meet back up here for lunch. I'm not going to be able to do that with a 6 year old and a 4 year old. Not going to be say I'll see you for lunch. But as I said at the national, if you did go with your family, it's hard to find something that everybody likes. It's the same thing at Disneyland. There's some rides the teenagers are 20 somethings or the young adults are going to want to go on that are not appropriate or they're not even tall enough, some of the kids. So there's some give and take. That's what I always did back in the early days. I said let's take turns deciding which rides want to go on and then let's figure out a route that all of that can be accomplished today at this particular park. My. But at the National, I'm a free agent. I can do what I want to do. I'll make a few appointments and I'll be there for those. Are there rides, are there tables at the national that everybody should see? Probably there are. Heritage always has a fabulous booth with all their auction stuff. Huggins, Scott. Same thing. In the old guard area, they've got laying out their current and future auction, although they're now part of rea, which also has some great stuff. So I think everybody should look at that. Whereas I would skip the Pokemon or any kind of stuff like that. It may be that some of your family wants to do that. If you take some of the national, they ought to have something in mind they want to see or you ought to give them a sampling of. Here's what it's about. At Disney World, even small kids have their own opinions of I want to go on Small World or the teacup ride or the runaway mine train, whatever the different things are. And they have strong opinions. Just card collectors have strong opinions. At the National, Rich talks about being online and these are our people. Or if you're sitting at the Dollar Box or you're looking at a showcase table, the person next to you that's also interested in that, you could wind up being pretty good friends with somebody if you spend some time with them. On the other hand, if you're at Disney World and you're in line and there's another family right ahead of you and they've got similar age of kids or grandkids, then I guess that's fine that you may not ever see them again. Whereas at the National, I see some of the same people every year and I don't even know their name. They may not even know my name. I don't have a badge that says that. But they know that I'm intense at the Dollar Box on those mornings that I do that. Some of the same people. And I'm sure if I had lunch with them, which neither one of us takes time off for lunch other than an energy bar, I'm sure we'd get along great. The last few years of the national before I sold the company, it was not as much fun for Me, I just had meetings packed. I really was doing it for the benefit of others, for the good of our company, the good of the industry, and trying to make things happen. But it wasn't what I really wanted to do. That's the same thing that's going to happen at Disney World. I'm not going to grumble about it. In fact, that's what I needed to do. I did it. I wasn't complaining, but it's better now that I'm a free agent on the other end. Going to Disney World, when you've got a six and a four and a two, you're not doing it for you. I'm not going to get to ride on too many rides that are my choices, if any. But I'm going to delight in seeing their faces light up. And even young adults that'll be there, they're going to get a kick out of that, and I will, too. And it'll be remembering back in the day. And in that sense, it's the same. It's a different kind of enjoyment going to the national now, and it'll be a different kind of enjoyment going to Disney World early next year. I don't think I'm too old, but I'm getting older than I was because I haven't been in a while. And when I go to the national, not every year, but every so often, I think it's more tiring than it used to be. I have a backpack. If you're going to Disney World, you're doing a lot of walking. But like I said, walking's not the problem. Walking with a heavy backpack or carrying stuff for the kids, or carrying kids, which I did a lot of that back in the day. That's a real workout. Is it a more challenging workout than it is at the National? I don't know. It depends on if you're carrying the kids a lot. And there's two of them that are probably going to want to be carried some of the time. And they have rental strollers there, too. But that's just like at the card shows, dangerous when you get run over by some wheelie luggage or a stroller. So again, I don't think it's a huge physical challenge, but it five years from now, 10 years from now, and part of it at the national is a lot of bending over if I don't have a chair. If you go to the golf tournament, sometimes you can bring those foldable stools that fold up and it could fit actually in my backpack. I could pull that out and It'd be a little three pronged platform stool seat, but I don't think that's very comfortable either. But bending over to look at cards for an hour or more at a time is not that much fun. In fact, I'd rather be standing in line in Disneyland. So what can the national learn from Disney World? The crowd flow, the cleanliness, the signage, lots of food options, something for everyone. The national, there have been tables with jerky and tables with fudge. And the other thing I think they both have is Disney is just fabulous at managing the crowd and flowing things around. But the national, the herding cats, people want to go where they want to go. The national and Disney both have a sense of surprise when you get in the sense of discovery, the hunt. If you've been to the Disneyland a lot, then you probably know mostly what you're going to do. But there may be something new or there may be some ride that it's been redesigned or you're going with a different group. There have been some new grandkids that have come along and you don't want to spoil their wonderment. Every year I go to the National, I'm always surprised. I guess I expect to be surprised just like expect to be surprised when I'm doing Disney World because it's an entertainment venue, it's commerce, yes, But I don't know what's going to be in the dollar box. I don't know what's going to be in a showcase. I don't know what's going to be in these fabulous displays that Heritage and others have. I don't know what activations. The card company is going to have some special deals. But I'm excited to be there. And it's way better to be there than to have somebody, hey, you didn't go. But here, let me tell you what happened now. Really good to be there. And so I encourage everybody to go to a National if you can and go to Disney World if you can, or Disneyland if that's more convenient. They're both great anyway. On a PhD dissertation was about ranking things as you might have figured out. But it's not always good to rank. It doesn't have to be something better than another thing. For this long week, I'm going to be at Disney World with my extended family and have a great time. When I'm at the National, I'm there. I'm going to talk to my wife on the phone in the evenings and I'm going to give her the highlights when I get back. But that's just an individual experience, so it doesn't have to be better. I guess what I'm saying is wherever you are, it's where you need to be. You need to be present. I don't want to be thinking about Disney World when I'm at the national and I don't want to be thinking about the national or the hobby when I'm at Disney World with my kids. Remember back in the day, and I think they're still doing it, but the Super Bowl MVP right after it comes off the field, I'm going to Disney World. They go to Disney World right away. I'm going to Disney World at the beginning of next year. But you hope you can see I'm already pretty excited about it, partly because the kids and it's like John Newman asked me, when do you start thinking about next year's National? The day after this year's national is over. So same thing with Disney World. I'm already thinking about my next time to go to Disney World. I've been planning that. And everybody's going to be seven months, eight months older, whatever that would be early next year. And so the six year old is going to be seven years old, the four year old is going to be five year old, the two year old is going to be three years old. So that makes a difference. And if you think, what's the youngest you can be and enjoy Disneyland or Disney World? What's the youngest you can be and enjoy the hobby? Enjoy a huge national experience. I've seen kids that are seven, I think below seven, I think that's a little dicey. It really helps to be able to read. But there's some kids having a great time. Some of the activations they have are really pretty spectacular and very energetic. Anyway, I'm going to Disney World and I will tell you all about it when I get back. In the meantime, I am all in for the national and no place I'd rather be for that particular weekend. So thanks everybody. Be back with another episode in a couple of days. The man in the house of God is doing $.