Local Couple is Running a Successful Show
Austria is inching its way day by day to becoming one of the more passionate card collecting communities in Europe.
Eva and Christoph Baumgartner are doing everything they can to make sure the hobby craze continues in their small country.
The wife-husband duo — which founded the company Austrian Trading Cards in 2021 — ran its first card show in September ’23. One year later, the Austrian Cardshow was held in Vienna, where it doubled in size. It is the lone card show in the country.
The Baumgartners attended a show in Munich, Germany in 2022, and started to hear chatter from local Austrians that they would love to have their own card show.
“Why do we not have a card show in Austria?” Christoph said. “Is it really necessary to drive to Germany? It’s a long trip to Germany. Vienna’s on the east side of Austria, and if you would drive to Germany, you have, I don’t know, four to five hours.
“It was very important to have such a card show in Austria.”
A Successful Show
When the Austrian Cardshow had its first event in 2023, Eva didn’t know what to expect.
“We didn’t know how people felt about it,” Eva said. “It was really good and we knew we had to get bigger and bigger. We were looking for a bigger location.”
The show certainly increased in size and volume when it ran this year on Sept. 28 at the Sportcenter Donaucity in Vienna. The Baumgartners said the venue went from 300 square meters in the first show to 1,000 square meters this year; the crowd doubled from 500 to 1,000 attendees.
There were 100 dealer tables, along with a solid corporate presence that included third-party grading companies PSA and BGS. It’s key to have grading companies on site at international card shows since it can be challenging for individual collectors to mail in submissions.
“We had a lot of exhibitors from all of Europe,” Christoph said. “They were from the United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria. It was very good to see that the Austrian Cardshow is also interesting for European exhibitors.”
According to Christoph, about 80% of the on-site dealers were selling sports cards. Soccer is by far the most popular and collected sport in Austria.
“It is the biggest market,” Christoph said. “We have so many soccer clubs in Austria. I think we have more than 1,000 local soccer clubs.”
Formula 1, NBA, and NFL, followed by TCG with Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Lorcana, and magic are all areas of interest for card collectors in Austria.
The eight-hour Austrian Cardshow was a mix of a traditional card show along with family activities.
“We don’t want to have only the card show. It is important to get a lot of people to this show, and so we try to make other activities,” Christoph said.
The biggest draw was a soccer match that featured legendary Austrian players Toni Polster and Andreas Herzog as the two teams’ coaches.
The Baumgartners estimated that 70% of the attendees came only for the card show, while the other 30% came to the event for the soccer match and family activities.
Growing The Hobby
The Baumgartners — who collect cards together — built a card shop next to their house near Vienna. Austrian Trading Cards is the only hobby shop in Austria that sells exclusively sports cards. The next nearest card store is hours away in Germany and Hungary.
Along with growing The Hobby on a daily basis through their card shop, the Baumgartners will continue their card show every September. They schedule their event around other card shows in Germany so they aren’t competing against one another.
“We are all together and sharing our experiences to push the hobby in our area here in Europe and also eastern Europe, so we try to distribute everything in this area,” Eva said.
Even though it’s early in their infancy of running card shows, Eva and Christoph feel good about where they’re at and how dedicated Austrians are to turning collecting into a popular hobby. “We’re so thankful to have our community, which is growing day by day,” Eva said. “Everybody’s giving such great feedback to us, so we are really happy with that. The end is really not reached. We have so many possibilities, and it will be growing and getting better and better.”
