I plan to attend the show in charlotte next month. I counted the dealers listed in teh show announcement and I think you have 23 listed. Thats great but against the sponsor list here with about 65 being listed I would have thought that more would have come out to support this show. Is the list finalized or will more be added. I hope so.

I would consider 23 to be a huge number to be at a show of this type. Most builder "shows" have "maybe" 5 or 6. With the cost, in both time, labor and money involved, I wouldn't think that any business would (or should) make that kind of investment just to "show support" for a show which in itself is a business.

Many of the sponsors of this site are small businesses (some on the other side of the country) and don't have the resources to particpate.

Mike

Scott,

First off, the vendors at the National Rod Building Show are not there to support the show - they attend and display in order to be supported BY the show. And that's the way it should be.

I feel fairly certain that most of the sponsors listed to the left would indeed benefit from attending and displaying, but there are some economic issues that each of them has to weigh when deciding whether or not to attend.

Keep in mind that even a vendor who might sell, say, $15,000 duing the weekend, may still have trouble offsetting his or her cost in attending. Remember, there is a difference between gross profit and net profit. The margin on most rod building items is not what you might imagine and thus against a physical cost that can range anywhere from several hundred to several thousands of dollars, some companies simply can't afford to attend if they must travel and ship product from very long distances. It's just a little more complicated than you might imagine at first glance. Certainly some are missing a golden opportunity, while others have crunched the numbers and simply realized that they just can't come out ahead. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

Having said that, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the vendors and the displays that will be there this year. By the time the show rolls around we'll have about 25 vendors displaying in 40 or more booths on the show floor. That's up from about 17 last year and the number of actual booth spaces will be about twice that of last year (many companies are coming back with more product than they brought last year and need more booth space). Last year's show was the largest rod building show ever held anywhere and this year's show will be about twice as large overall. With the success of last year's show and the expected success of this year's show, I don't see it going backwards at this point. I fully expect it will continue to grow again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

Between the very full slate of seminars and presentations, the throngs of rod builders, the vendor displays, the huge amount of product and information, etc., I would find it very hard to believe that you can get around to see and do everything at this year's show before the weekend is out.


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2005 05:56PM by Tom Kirkman.

...and how many rod blanks did you say that I can shake, Tom???

From what I can tally, it'll be between 4,000 and 5,000.

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Scott if you attend I think you'll be surprised at how much stuff 23 dealers and manufacturers can bring. I still feel like I missed stuff at last year's show and plan to stay for both days this year. Don't worry about there being too little, worry that there will be too much and that you'll miss some of it!!!

I went to the BassMasters Classic at the Greensboro collosium a few years back. If this show is even close to that one, you'll need both days and then some to see everything.

Bill in WV

As far as rod building goes, it is the BassMaster Classic, and then some.

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I attended the show last year and was highly impressed. It was difficult to take in all that was available. And this year's show is even bigger, by a large margin.

In my opinion, it is the "must go to" event. It has so many features in addition to the show, that you can't go wrong. The seminars alone are worth the cost of admission.

Can hardly wait for it to come around.

Stan