Florida International Reptile Show Tampa.....any feedback?

Gino,

I'm not going to try to argue about how Alex came to have a show at the Fairground. I know what Alex himself told me before his show was scheduled, and I know what Tony told me, which of course might not be true.

I'm also not going to argue about whether our show resembled Tony's old show - we were both there, and obviously have different opinions. In my opinion, our show improved on last year's in Clearwater, which was our stated goal.

However, I would like to follow up on the point we agree on - Alex and I should talk about future shows, and try to work something out. Any suggestions (other than me calling or e-mailing Alex, which has not worked) on how to make that happen?

As I stated before, I don't consider well rationed discussion to be personal, and I don't think you're trying to pick a fight with anyone. No hard feelings at all, just trying to find a way that is fair to Alex and to us to improve on things in the future.

Any feedback anyone can provide on getting a PRODUCTIVE dialog between our team and Alex's strated would be great.

Thanks again,

Billy Healy
www.Repticon.com
ReptileShows@yahoo.com

Billy,
I will agree the Sun Dome show greatly improved upon Clearwater.
Honestly I think I could have had one in my backyard better than Clearwater was.
When I was comparing to the "original" show it was my intention to compare to the Fairgrounds shows Tony had held in the Past.
I hope you and Alex will get a conversation going because I don't think this is or needs to be ugly.
I will certainly make that point when next I speak with Alex.
I offer whatever help I can to make that work.

Thank you for understanding that I'm not against you guys.
I merely want to protect something of great value to me.

Take Care,
Gino

Billy,

I'm sorry you thought I was going to call you as soon as I returned from Raleigh. I still intend to set aside some time to have a conversation with you this week. However, I do believe it would be unfair to me if I did not reply publicly to your public allegations.

You have said that I booked the fairgrounds out from under tony. You and I were talking at the time and I told you tony had lost the fairgrounds. They refused to lease to him again. Otherwise, they would not have contracted with me. He was out before I was ever considered. As a matter of fact, it took a while for them to consider leasing to me because they thought I was fronting for him. All that aside, when tony's show was failing and sponsors suggested I take over, you were amongst the people who offered financial support if I needed it to wrangle the show from tony. If I was going to do anything underhanded, you offered to be a part of it.

I don't understand how things in Tampa changed. You congratulated me on having the Tampa show. I had always maintained that if anyone should have Tampa I had a feeling of entitlement since I had worked so hard for years trying to keep it together. You agreed. Then you gave tony a ridiculous (even $1 would have been ridiculous) amount of money for some nasty pipe and drape and a duct taped cobra and go from my cheering section to aggresive competitor. You believe you own the original Tampa show? Well, it's the original Tampa show that still owes me $16K. How will you be paying?

Regarding another, less important statement, my last two Tallahassee shows were less than what I need thought the door but not too bad for the vendors. My decision to scrap that show was based on your scheduling a show there as I did have one more show booked.

Now, we have had tit for tat. Would you like to return this to the private Alex/Billy arena? If so, I'll call you this week.

Billy

As someone who was heavily involved in the situation between Tony and Alex, I feel the urge to chime in here as well.

First off...you indeed did the industry a favor by buying Tony out and ridding the industry of a blight once and for all. For that, a sincere thank you.

That said, several of your comments in this thread need to be addressed.

As Gino pointed out, and as I verified myself with the Fairgrounds, Tony was given the unequivocal boot. The Clearwater Venue was a location of last resort since no other venue would take him without references. That particular show was an unqualified disaster. Claiming you improved on it is not much of an achievement. I can't imagine any direction it could possibly go but up.

Second, you may own the name, but the concept, venue and exhibitor list are, without any doubt, Gila Production's. Admittedly, my personal experience with your shows is limited to one I worked in Fort Myers and that was not good to say the least. However, from all accounts I have been supplied with, your recent Tampa Show was simply a typical Repticon production promoted under a name you purchased.

I also do not want to make this a pissing match. I agree wholeheartedly that a direct conversation between you and Alex would be beneficial to both the markets you currently compete in and the industry as a whole. Hopefully, by cooperating, you can both benefit

Alex,

There are several ways that I could choose to respond to your post, as it probably goes without saying that there are a few things in your post that I disagree with. If I were to respond to each point, I'm sure that we'd have another few pages of argument at least. However, in the spirit of moving the dialog forward in a more positive way, I'll leave most of my response for what I hope will be our future conversation.

I will say this, so everyone reading this post is clear. What you're saying is true in that I have always tried to have an open dialog with you, and be a "good neighbor" as as a promoter who sometimes operates in areas near yours. However, there is no mystery as to when I went from your "cheering section to aggressive competitor". It was precisely when you publicly announced an Atlanta show without an e-mail, phone call, or communication to me in any way, not more than two weeks after our private conversation in which you led me to believe that you would hold off on an Atlanta show until we'd had a chance to set down and talk about Atlanta and Tampa.

At the time you announced your Atlanta show, the Georgia Herp Society show had been announced for about a year, and our January show had been announced for several months. You scheduled a show in market that we had booked months earlier for a date that was six weeks prior to our show. I know that you knew about our show, because we talked about it.

It is difficult for me to see how your choice of this show date, which could not have been ideal for you as it was two weeks after the Herp Society show in the same market, could be designed as anything other than an attempt to throw a date out that was in front of our show. That to me is the action of an "aggressive competitor". And so everone in perfectly clear, that show was scheduled and announced well in advance of the finalization and announcement of our Tampa plans.

After the Atlanta announcement, I've been unable to actually confirm a time with you through e-mail when we can talk, although I've e-mailed you a few times trying to set up a time. To the best of my knowledge, you've never attempted to contact me since announcing your Atlanta show, prior to this thread. If I misinterpreted your actions in Atlanta as an act ON YOUR PART of being an "aggressive competitor", then I apologize. I have no desire to have a "war" with ANY promoter, but by the same token I won't go out of my way to protect a competitor's market four months after they've taken an aggressive swipe at one of mine.

That being said, and since I think everyone can agree that a conversation between the two of us could be helpful - I'm going to suggest that we coordinate that conversation here, again to keep us both honest. My last day of teaching this semester is May 23. Any time that you'd like to talk after that is fine by me - just let me know when the best time for me to call you is, and we can go from there.

If we can have an open, professional dialog about our shows, as I feel we've been able to in the past, then I think both of us and the vendors that we both serve will benefit greatly.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to talking to you.

Billy Healy
www.Repticon.com
ReptileShows@yahoo.com

According to Alex after his conversation with Billy the Tampa shows will be a Gila Production Event twice a year without Repticon competing in that area. Congrats to both teams for a spirit of cooperativeness that was more important than the spirit of competition!