Don't count out local hamfests. Yeah, some tiny ones are a little disappointing, but bigger cities usually have respectable events. Even if you're not into ham radio, you'll find plenty of non-radio tech stuff. And there there's the Dayton (OH) Hamvention which is /huge/ - people/groups/vendors drive in from all over the US and setup flea market booths, to sell and buy stuff, but also to just sit around and talk tech with the other attendees.
I remember going to this in the 80's and 90s'. Was astounding what you could find. Is it still going? I moved to Florida in the early 00's but still have family in the Dayton area....
I used to go as a kid in the 80's with my dad every year. The Hara Arena where it was held is no more. It was closed up for years and was finally torn down a couple years ago. But the Hamvention is still going on at a new location.
Yeah, back in the midwest after having spent 26 years in "The Valley" (no, not that valley, Silicon Valley).
I hit the Electronics Flea Market only a few times because, back then, I was not a morning person. I remember showing up at 7:00 AM or so once when the dark was just lifting and seeing people leaving with their small wire rolling carts filled with electronics. I imagined that all the good stuff got scooped up at 6:00.
More often though I would do the "Saturday crawl" to all the surplus electronics stores — when there were a lot of surplus electronics stores. Sadly over the decades I saw them all but disappear entirely.
It's probably just as well I am back in the midwest though. I'm already too much of a hoarder.
Surplus electronics stores were the absolute best thing about the 80s into 90s, but they're mostly all dead now.
Which is annoying, because back in the 90s you had hell to pay to get anything to work with a computer (usually abusing the parallel port); now any Raspberry Pi can easily control random doodads you might find, but there's no place to find them.
