Several callers have asked when I'll have the final tally on attendance. It will be later this week when we get a chance to count the tickets, and perhaps a month before I can sort through all the registrations to determine how many rod builders and how many fishermen were there. We do know from a couple markers that attendance was up, again, this year. Not nearly as much as I had hoped and expected, but you can't do much about the weather.

As far as how many stayed away due to the major storm that occured on Thursday and Friday, making airline flights and road travel impossible for some, we'll never know. I do know that about a third of the advance event tickets that had been sold and were being held at the will-call window were never picked up. Not sure how that translates into any kind of overall percentage, but in the end, we did see a slight increase in attendance this year. How much is something I won't know for a few days. I'm too busy to get to that just yet.

I've not heard back from all the retail vendors yet and doubt I will for another week or so. They'll be busy unpacking and filling orders they took at the show. The ones that have contacted me so far report good sales and good profits, again. One thing they have to keep in mind is that it's great to leave with a profit already in hand after these two days, but the ability to cultivate new customers at this event results in "show business" that may continue on for many months if not many years. I still have one very astute vendor who tells me each year that he's still making money of the very first event we held in Charlotte 5 years ago - those customers he met and made there, are now lifetime customers and continue to buy from him. That's a very important point to remember any time you attend and display at such an event.

The rod builders who were there with booth and table space did better than at any previous event. I think this points to the fact that we are getting the general interest fishing crowd, at least insofar as those who are actually interested in buying custom rods. The NC Wildlife article helped in this regard and I spoke to several folks who said they were there to look at, and consider buying, custom rods as a result of that article. I believe it was Russ at Calico Creek Rods that told me that this year's event was really "good to them."

We had another show promoter at the event that met with me and offered to put a fly fishing type event back into the adjacent hall from us. We can do that, if the pros outweigh any cons. It's something I'll talk to him about later this Spring. It would have to be done in such a way that it compliments what we do and doesn't place so much additional strain on our current resources and facilities (The ShowPlace can easily handle it) that we don't give up the really good working atmosphere we have for our exhibitors. We'll see.

I'll meet with the Showplace in about 10 days for a wrap up meeting and see where things fall. Then we can decide whether we want to do this again and what, if any changes, we might want to make. I do enjoy it, but it's one heck of a lot of work for me. It will take me about 3 to 4 months to get caught up on the regular daily work I missed over this past week - it has to be made up at the same time each new day's work comes in. So we'll take a bit of time to reflect and then decide where to go.

Thanks to all who attended and displayed. I hope you had a great time.

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I know the rod builders there did pretty well. I saw more than a few guys carrying out finished rods that they must have bought on the show floor. It's got me wondering if I need a table there next year!

Also heard about the "situation" with one builder not buying a table and handing out business cards and quoting rod prices anyway. It's a shame and I hope it didn't put a damper on things for the rod builders who did buy space. I thought this sort of thing was covered pretty well in past years and more again in the months leading up to this years show. Shame on somebody. Why do people do things like this?

I know 4 people who did not make it from the NY area, and there were a few guys who placed pre-orders for GUSA blanks & tee shirts who did not show up. So I've got no doubt the weather played a pretty big part in keeping people home from teh North East. REgardless, for the NERB booth, we had traffic pretty much non-stop for both days, and even though Sunday was a bit slower than SAturday, I barely had time to step away from teh booth to do a Book Exchange with Jim Upton.

Tom, I'd also like to thank you for yesterday, that was the icing on the cake.

Ed,

The “situation” wasn’t really much of a situation. On Sunday, over the course of the weekend, 1 retail vendor and 2 of the custom rod builders that had bought booth/table space at the event, complained to me that there was a custom rod builder on the show floor handing business cards to fishermen and asking them to call him after the event to discuss having a custom rod built. Obviously, this is very much against our policy - the opportunity to sell rods at the event or to make business contacts to possibly sell custom rods at a later date to fishermen met at the event, is reservedly exclusively for those rod builders that paid their money to obtain booth/table space at the event. They paid for that privilege. This rule has been in place for 5 years, is well known, and is consistent with that of other trade shows in all industries.

At any rate, I asked the rod builder in question if he was handing out business cards to prospective customers and he said that he was, but that he was asking them to wait until after they had left the show and gotten back home before calling him. As I said, this is still very much against our policy and as I politely explained to him, unfair to those builders who had paid for booth space. He understood and said he would stop. He did. He was not told to leave nor was there any sort of harsh words exchanged.  At whatever time he did leave, it was of his own accord.

One of the rod builders that had complained had told me that he would no longer buy booth space at the event - he explained to me that it would be a lot less expensive if he just came in next year and handed out his business cards in the same manner that this other fellow was doing. He was a little miffed at that exact point and understandably upset. And he had every right to be. When I spoke to him later in the day I found out that he had ended up selling 6 or 7 rods during the weekend and made a good many business contacts that he feels made the event more than worth his while. At this point I hope he feels good about things overall and that he’ll return next year.

I will try to do a better job in the future of making sure folks stay within the rules. You know it's tough to catch everyone and it's a shame they would do this to the legitimate exhibitors there, but you can only do what you can do. We do our best and sometimes that's not quite good enough. But we do try.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Not really a big deal and certainly not a “situation” that put a damper on the event for the vast majority that were there. I fully expect to hear rumors about this but what you read above is pretty much what transpired. The facts and nothing else. Let this be the end of it.

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Billy,

Ralph and I had a great time with you guys. I had no idea that Dave would turn out to be such a crack shot. If we should hear of any shooting "incidents" in Australia, I'll keep my mouth shut on who might be behind it.

.............

LOL
Just wait 'till I've made it back thru airport Customs again before letting my reputation get out there....I don't wan't any more headaches.... :-)

Tom, thanks for yesterday. I thought it was going to be a quick drop-in visit. I was more than pleasantly surprised - the day just kept getting better and better. I really appreciate your hospitality.

Dave

Paul and I left New Jersey after a couple hours sleep at 2:00 am friday and made High Point by 11:00 am. I'm glad we left when we did. Snow started on the southern most part of the Jersey Pike around 3:00 am. The Maryland stretch of I-95 was a mix of snow and freezing rain that was accumulating enough to where we saw a couple of vehicles off the road. Coming into Washigton at 5:30 am, it was nothing but freezing rain blowing across the roadway. Releif finally came entering the Virginia stretch to Richmond in the form of rain. If there were folks planning to travel down anywhere north of Maryland on friday during the daylight hours, I'd say that they probablly waved the white flag.

Were there many cancellations at the Radison?

One other thing to think about is the general economic conditions right now. To be up at all in conditions like they are now is a victory. Fishing and fishing rods fall under discretionary spending for the vast majority of people and is one of the things that gets cut back when money is tight.

Tom,

I come from a part of the world where adverse weather conditions to the extent of inhibiting travel is very rare indeed, so I can only imagine how difficult it must make logistics for this type of venture. That leads me to wonder why the show is not held in summer rather than winter? Maybe because most of those involved in the industry would rather be out fishing than attend an exhibition. Or maybe venues are much more expensive during times of milder weather.

Anyway, I am sure that you have already contemplated this, and the current time slot is the optimum solution. Just asking out of interest. No way for me to ever attend one, but I hope to at least experience it through the pages of Rodmaker.

Finally, I get the impression that you pull off this exhibition more or less singlehandedly. That shows a lot of diligence, dedication and most of all a lot of passion. Congratulations, and thanks.

Armand

Armond;
I can answer part of that.
In this part of the world from the first of March till the End of November is "peak fishing time" and for builders that means "Peak rod building time"
Many of them would be hard pressed to leave their businesses at this time to attend the Expo

Then in December are the holydays.

Armand,

You are correct. Such a show would almost assuredly flop in the summer - you can't butt up against good fishing weather and win.

Large scale rod building events will always be a house of cards. You can never pull off such an event with just a regional crowd - the craft doesn't have that kind of density anywhere in the world. Thus, you must draw from a truly grand geographic area. Nationwide, if not worldwide. That means that somewhere, somebody is going to be having some sort of bad weather. You roll the dice and see what happens. Sure, a good many were not able to attend due to the weather. How many? I don't know, 100, maybe. 500 maybe. I just don't know. But we did have an increase in attendance. The tally looks like 3000 tickets were sold, but that was for the full two days and a third of the attendees bought 2 tickets (one for Saturday and one for Sunday). But the ticket tally is greater than last year. I just don't know yet how much of an increase we had. I think it will probably end up being about 150 more guys than last year. But I don't know, yet.

I do indeed do this pretty much single handedly, but there is always more to the story. Even with all my work leading up to the event, I could not make it worthwhile without the fantastic seminar presenters, the exhibitors, and the small handful of people who come out on Saturday and Sunday to help with ticket sales and staff my booth. Also, Rodney Powell, who isn't even a rod builder, just a fishing buddy, takes a great deal of the mundane tasks off me around the time of the event which frees me up to do other things that need tending to. No way that just one person could actually do everything and have such an event work out well. So I never want to forget that handful of folks that take care of all the little things that I can't possibly get around to.

This event still has enormous possbilities. We haven't maxed out, yet. We can do much more and just need to run all the numbers and talk to those involved as far as what to do next. If nothing else, we've proven all the naysayers wrong these last 5 years and particularly these last 2 years. You can indeed stage a large scale, stand-alone custom rod building show and have it succeed tremendously.

............

Regarding the person handing out his personal business cards in order to try and make rod sales, I think if it had been my show I would have given any such offender a quick trip to the exit door and a hard kick to the patootie as I tossed that same patootie outside. After all the mentions on this board regarding the policy on this I really cannot believe that anyone would be so inconsiderate of your other exhibitors especially those who were rod builders. Surely he knew he was violating the rules even if he did not, he should have put himself in the place of those who had bought space and thought about how he would have felt had someone done him the same way. I heard some talk about this late Sunday but did not know the details until now.

Tom, I attended this event last year for the first time and made my plans early for this years show. I was looking forward to meeting Doc Ski and others that I met last year. My flight form Maine was cancelled and the airline was unable to get me there. I had to call the Radison Friday night to cancel my room. I walked around all week-end just sick that I couldn't attend. Wait until next year!!!!!

I'm glad that things went well for you and the show - just sorry that I couldn't attend.

Ron Jack

Richard,

The situation was handled and all is well. No need to rehash it. I fully expect some unfounded rumors to surface, but the facts are above and it's over and done with. Too many entirely good things went on for this thread to become a discussion about this one thing that did little to nothing to upset what was, for all intents and purposes, a really great time for everyone involved.

..................

Ron,

I'm sorry you couldn't make it. It was even better than last year. I really felt for all you guys up there that just couldn't get down here, particularly after so many planned for so long to finally do it. Let's see what happens for next year.

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