Tampa Show

I have to say that I have worked the show since Tony took it over and have always thought it to be top-notch in quality and also quite lucrative. The security has always been above average and the customer service from the staff quite good.

My one comment is that at every show i have ever worked, 99% of the dealers have either boxed their animals and put them under/behind the table after show hours or ,at the very least, thrown sheets over the animals left on the table to limit accessability. Ben, were your cages simply left on the table uncovered and accessible?

I am reasonably trusting but I never believe in tempting human nature too far.

We had our animals in the display bin and had the table cloth over them so you could not see what we had. we did the same thing on sat. after the show.

if this help you out.

Hey people Ben is not trying to bash the show , but when you have a show where your animals were stolen that usually leaves bad taste in your mouth, and pisses you off quite frankly I was pissed off when my animal was stolen too. This is where Ben is voicing out what he thought about it and his feelings about the show.

Anyways have fun ya'll

Winston

I've been thinking about something..... were these the same snakes that were in the cloth bag that you left in the middle of the table at the booth next to yours?

The reason I am asking, you were pretty much set up when I came in. You guys where looking for more electircal outlets so I thought the animals were put up and you were setting up lights and that bag appeared abandon sitting on our table, I first thought it was trash and picked it up, then realized it had a few snakes in it and thought someone had forgotten it..... I asked someone, not you, but that was near your booth area about them and they took them.

Are you sure they were put in their enclosure? Your booth was empty shortly after that.

Also, after you left and we were getting ready too, we were concerned about a light sitting on the end of your table that adjoined ours, that it might cause a fire and we checked it, but it was cool...... the reason I am saying this is that it was shinning on an enclosure and I don't remember seeing any covers on it or the ones next to it.. I know there was not any as I remember looking at the animals when we checked the light for heat...... no big deal, but when Winston said they were covered, I know they were not.

the snakes in the cloth bags were winstons, and I was the person you asked. I wish you did have a sighting of the suspect but in this case it is just me. I came and got them and then swept the sanichip off the table. We had run out of totes to put the medium sized snakes in.
The animals we had stolen were out of the display cases in front(on the end). No niether winston or I covered the larger totes and neodeshas becuase they had the heat lights on them. These were the ones near your table on that row, I believe winston covered the sliding display cases on friday, and then my two helpers did it on saturday.

Ben Cole

Ben,

Anytime I am setup at a show I ALWAYS cover my cages and the expensive animals I am worried about are either placed in another box under the table or taken back to the hotel. With covering the cages not only is it safe for making the animals/cages else's visible but it also give the animals more security as they are in the total darkness. Again I am sorry that your animals were stolen and I do hope you recover them. Maybe in the future you should really think about getting covers for your cages and such and or taking the animals you are concerned about and putting them in a smaller tote under the table hidden from view.



I know how frustrating it is to have an animal stolen at a show (I have had animals stolen twice at shows in the past). Even though it is terrible and frustrating it was my own fault and no one else's. I left the animals where they could be readily grabbed by customers and lost my animals. We have since done things to eliminate the possibility. We now cover our table which has the Deli containers with a screen where it is impossible for a customer to just grabbed and walk away. At the end of the day all Deli containers are removed from the table and placed inside a box that is closed and just looks like an empty box. This box is then either left at our table underneath hidden or taken back to our hotel with us. You have think this way, even if a security guard was dishonest they are not going to go rummaging through your boxes to get an animal that is behind or underneath your table. I mean there are always possibilities that something can get stolen from somewhere. Hell At the show one of the Vendors had $800 +/- worth of Jackson's Chameleons stolen from their Hotel room. They were not staying at one of the normal hotels either. If I remember they were staying at the Ramada. But luckily they were able to recover their animals from the staff. It just goes to show that ALWAYS protect your animals as if they were cash (which they technically are).

Ben, unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with the others here. Cmon man! You offered someone $175 for a snake, they took it, and now you want to complain about the price being to low??? That was what you offered, if it was to low, why would you insult a fellow vendor like that?

I am the superwholesaler Tony's vendors were complaining about, and as such, let me tell you, he put the screws to me big time! We spent hours going over exactly what I was and wasn't allowed to do at that show. And the truth is, I was willing to do it because that show is so good. Attendance was off a little but, um gee, there was a little war thing hanging in the air, so I'm thinking close to 5k per day is pretty good.

And the super low prices you keep throwing out there are ridiculous. I had the cheapest balls in the building at $15 each (clearly marked wild caught). Ben Siegel whom you've complained about was selling his for $30 not anywhere near the $10 you've talked about. The other prices you've throw out are crazy as well. 50 cents for red-ears! Where? I'd have taken 5000 at that price. $9 for corns, maybe in a few months, but if there had been a $9 corn in that building, you'd have had to arm wrestle me to get at it.

You cannot compare a FL show to shows up north. Those are two entirely different markets, and knowing you (from our dealings in the past) you know that. Reguardless of who Tony bans from his shows in this state, anyone you does have a table can simply go to one of those superwholesalers the day before the show, load up and then bring that stuff to the show. So that dog won't hunt either. Daytona is a bit different because it is the grandaddy of all shows. People come from around the worldm just to attend that show, so that really can't be thrown into the mix either.

As far as the vet inspections go, I know at the last Raleigh show the vet staff DID go over every single one of my animals, they were at my booth for at least an hour. Hell, they made me pull animals that had bad sheds going on. Tony, is the only guy I know who does ANY kind of inspections what so ever, so at least he is trying! Do you really think that all 500-600 amazon tree boas at the Daytona show last year were c.b.? And do you really think that the 50 ADULT African fire skinks Burgundy was selling there were c.b.? Tony does a great job protecting his customers, and he does a good job for his vendors as well. Cmon man, you're really going to hold him reasponsible because one of your employees didn't like the type of sandwhich they were offered? Bout next you'll want Charmin in the bathrooms.

You had a bad weekend. Hell, you had a comedy of errors as far as that goes. But, I really don't think what happened to you was Tony's fault.

I wasn't complaining about ben seigel, and I never said he was the one with $10 ball pythons at this show. What I was saying is that I thought I wasn't going to have to compete against him.

I have a good working relationship with Ben and he has cut me some wicked deals on animals he didn't want to sit on.

One thing everyone keep ####ting on is the prices I am sying were not posted on the cups. I agree. BUT how many people walk up to our table and purchase for FULL price without dickerin'. I would say about 25% of my customers do. So if you have that customer running bewteen me and a big guy trying to get the cheapest one, the big guys will always win. That's where I lost a lot of my sales.

Another thing that several people keep saying is i should have taken the animals back to the hotel room. I thought I was not able to once they were "vet checked".

If Tony allowed people to bring animals back and forth to the hotel each night there would be no way he could monitor if all those animals comming back and forth very really checked.

Also I did cover my animals on saturday night and winston did it friday!

However to be on the safe side I am designing and building displays that lock onto tables and are lockable themselves so a thief will have to break them of take the whole table.

ben cole

I was going to stay out of this one but I was never good at biting my tongue.

First off your animals are your responsibility!!! If you don't want something to be stolen or escape don't leave them at the show regardless of the security.
I never leave anything of any value at any show we attend. Not even Daytona and they have really good security there.
I am very sorry you had animals stolen but that happens to all of us at one time or another.

Second Tony is one of the best show promoters in the business hands down.
He does lots of advertising via radio and he sends out tons of fliers. At our hotel there was a stack of full page fliers for people to take. He sends fliers to some of the venders to send out in there shipments months prior to the show.

As for it being the next Dayona that's something you heard not something Tony advertised so you shouldn't knock him for your disappointment.

I have not done great at every show that Tony puts on but that's business. If you cant take the heat get a job at wal-mart.

And I cant believe that Tony was rude to you! He is one of the nicest guys you can come across and he will do all he can for you if you have a problem.
What probably happened was you got flip first and he may have lost it then.

For all of those reading this thread that have not been to the show ( or any of tony's shows) please don't take this guys word on what you can expect to see at Tony's shows.
It just seems like a bitter person trying to ease his lose by talking trash.

Just my 2 cents!
Nicole Ellsier
K&N Reptiles

Ben,

Your statement is truly ridiculous

I wasn't complaining about ben seigel, and I never said he was the one with $10 ball pythons at this show. What I was saying is that I thought I wasn't going to have to compete against him.

Do you think there is a show that is worth doing that Ben will not be a vendor at? You keep going back to the prices of $10ea on the Balls. Yes people make offers to vendors and sometimes vendors accept the offers. You did the exact same thing, but this is not the norm. The price slashing happens at the end of the show which is when you were saying the prices happened. This is getting more and more ridiculous. You keep hounding that you were disappointed because of the prices of Ball Pythons. Almost everyone at the show had Ball pythons and all were at many different prices. The customers will purchase from someone that they want to purchase from regardless of price. With your attitude about this entire show you are doing nothing but etching into the minds of prospect customers reading this that they may not want to purchase from you. Reputation is another thing that sells. Take the Mellers Chameleons for example. Just about everyone at the show that sells Chameleons (and some that don't) had Mellers chameleons. I was the HIGHEST priced vendor of them there and I SOLD OUT! Not only were my animals better quality (in country for 3+ months and fully treated and acclimated) but people know about my Chameleons I sell. Yes there were tons of people that were going to others just because they were selling them for $70ea when mine were $150ea. I had customers pick my brain on my acclimation process to only go and purchase from the vendors selling them cheaper. Did I get upset at anyone else? NO! That is what is called competition in Buisness. You say you owned a retail store and have managed 2. Well it sounds like if that is true you must not have done it long or were totally oblivious to the real world. If you are so scared of competition then you really should stick with the smaller shows.