Thanks to everyone who attended our recent homeschool conference this year!
As we go through the comments everyone left on our surveys, a common question is: Can’t we have more curriculum vendors, not vendors selling other goods and services? Closely related to that question is: Why didn’t I see my favorite curriculum vendor __________ there?
The answer to this is so important that we decided to write a blog post about it!
A curriculum vendor must feel it is worthwhile to attend.
Each vendor plays an important part in making our conference possible and successful. Every year we work on attracting as many curriculum-based vendors as possible.
One way to achieve this is to review other conferences to see if any of their vendors are not attending our conference. Most, if not all, of the top vendors that travel the homeschool circuit are almost always available at MPE’s conference.
Some curriculum vendors that we would like to have are no longer doing homeschool conferences at this time. Furthermore, these include such big names as:
We will keep adding to this list as needed.
If you have a curriculum vendor that you would like to see at our conference, please also let our vendor coordinator know by contacting exhibitors@midwesthomeschoolers.org.
One year one of our members invited Simply Charlotte Mason to attend, and they came especially because of her request. Important note: They are more likely to attend at your personal invitation if they know they have a built-in audience to purchase their products!
What if I purchase curriculum online at a “cheaper” price?
We cannot stress enough the importance of looking at curriculum from a vendor’s perspective. One commenter on our survey boasted about how they use our curriculum hall to view the curriculum and other educational items physically, then buy it online for cheaper.
There are several problems with this approach.
- If you buy curriculum and other items online after previewing curriculum at the conference, you are making it unprofitable for curriculum vendors to return next time. Yes, you may save a few dollars and cents, but what is the long-term cost?
- You are encouraging other vendors to take their place. Many comments on our homeschool conference survey complained about too few curriculum vendors. To this date, we’ve never turned away curriculum vendors from attending! But the success of our conference depends, in large part, to having a full vendor hall.
If you want to keep curriculum prices affordable, then we recommend purchasing your curriculum at the conference.
In conclusion, it’s really that simple. Shopping at the vendor hall allows us to have a conference each year!
Any questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments … and also see other frequently asked questions (with answers) on our conference survey.