Tampa Show

At first reading this thread was fine and I was not going to post here. I have done one of Tony's shows a few years back, the North Carolina show, and it was promoted very well and very busy. I was very happy with the crowd and the exposure to a different market. However it was a two day show and during the night I also had some animals disappear. I was told they were escaping during the night and this may have been the case, but certain things that were missing certainly did not escape. When i came back in the morning, the covers were on the floor and my displays were exposed. What happened there during the night I really don't know. I mentioned it to Tony but did not really press the issue, he told me security said things were escaping so I just absorbed it as sometimes s%&t happens. I realize this is painful but sometimes it is what you have to do. I am not here complaining because I truly did not voice my displeasure as much as I should and am not here making an issue of something from years gone by. The show was great and I did a good volume. I just wanted to throw my two cents in with this next observation.

One thing I did notice which somewhat bothered me was the fact that there were many people left in the building after the public was not. I can understand letting the vendors secure everything for about an hour after the show has closed, but then get everyone out. I have been doing this for over 10 years and this was the only show that allowed people to be milling around hours after the show was over. When I did Orlando or other big two day shows in the past there would be a sweep of the isles to clear out everyone except a few people who were security. With that being the case, assuming you arrive at the show as soon as people are allowed back in, there is little chance anyone can touch your stuff. This may make everyone feel better about doing two day shows and leaving their animals in the building. Just something to consider.

Yes the webslave gave me options but I have never even been to the BOi or this website until the day I posted, so I had no idea the avenuesoptions meant or could/would do.

You guys continue to say that you asked for the correspondence between Mr. Cueto and I and I deleted it. Yes I had, like three days before anyone asked about it.

You guys keep using that point to make it seem like I am avoiding it. It is becuase i don't want to spend an hour typing it in since I suck at typing.
Well I believe Rk has gotten an original copy for Mr. Cueto-go get it from him!
However Rk has told me already he doesn't see why i was angry and that I am still in the wrong.-oh well. 10 people can read the samething and will get 10 different meanings.

Yes I am a new guy to this forum, and I am a new guy to southeastern u.s shows. Maybe I should have expected different things that i did. I thought with 50+shows vended and 100+ shows attended over six years and 11 years in the industry I knew how things went. I guess my style doesn't work here, although I did very well at Nationals.

ben cole

Ben,

By what I am seeing in the e-mail you sent to Tony you are complaining about everything & anything you can. I do Tony's Tampa show overtime. I have gotten there early, mid evening and late and have never had the kind of problems you are complaining about. Yes sometimes there are vehicles outside and you have wait or waeve through them but nothing that is not workable by any means. It seems to me that no matter what, you would not have been happy at the show as you were and are pissed about having to do anything yourself and not having him bend over backwards for you personally. One thing you are ludicrous in the lunch thing. Tony gives out lunch as a FREE added perk. It is not a required thing and he does not have to do it. You sit there and Blame him because some of the items ran out before they got to your table and you had to pay for your employees lunch. Well guess what... SO WHAT! That is YOUR responsibility and not Tony's. Maybe you should have used a little common sense and thought to bring something no matter if Tony said they were offering lunch. We personally ALWAYS bring a cooler full of drinks and snack food and sandwich foods so that we don't have to go spend money at the concession stand. But you know what the concession stands are there so everyone can get something to eat if they desire to. You state that you have done so many shows and know what your doing but to me (this is my opinion) you are acting like a spoiled child who did not get his way. Please by all means everyone read the correspondence and make your own decisions on what traspired. I personally see nothing wrong with tony's reponse to Ben. I can understand he was a little upset but he did not act unprofesional and get irate like he could have and we were led to believe he had done.


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Ben, I just received your email. Am very baffled by your complaints but will
adreess each one individually. My response is in red

Benjamin W. Cole
Ben Cole Reptiles
XXX-XXX-XXXX
To: Mr. Cueto:

Re: Tampa Reptile Show March 8, 9, 2003



As you are aware I was a vendor at your recent show. I am also sure you are aware I had several issues arise at your show. However, I do not believe you are aware of all of my concerns. These concerns have caused deliberation in respect to pursuit of future business dealings with you and your major sponsors. I will give the list of events that were areas of concern in chronological order:

Friday:

Once upon the fairgrounds and your directions had ended there were no signs to point me where to go, park, or unload stock. This led to serious confusion because of the number of events that were ongoing and the fair personnel had no idea were to direct us.



My experience and all others I have ever heard about the guards at the fairgrounds is that they are extremely helpfull, courteous and give very good directions from the guard house to the entertainment building. I have never considered placing arrow signs on the fairgrounds as it is a short distance from the guard house entrance on Orient Road and they give very good directions. You mention the fairgrounds staff had "no idea where to direct you". Did you use the Orient Road entrance as instructed on our guidelines? If you did, please let me know at what time and description of the guard so I can inform the fairgrounds management.

After arriving it was almost impossible to get the truck into the arena because parking was allowed right up to the bay door. One person even had his 30-foot travel trailer right up against the entrance. This was a serious bottleneck.
Yes, for the convieience of our vendors, we allow them to pull into the building on Friday during setup. Where was the serious bottlenecking? Around the building? Waiting to drive into the building? Did you not expect with the amount of vendors we have setting up that it would be crowded???We have the rear overhead door where we had the checkin table. Besides that entrance there were two other entrances, one on the side of the building and one in front of the building. Vendors use all entrances, come o the vendor checkin booth and then either drive in or use one of the two other entrances and bring their displays in on carts. If the "bottlenecking", waiting to pull into the building and to your booth was too dramatic, stressfull to you, you could have simply parked and walked in to check in.

I also had to get out of my van and operate the overhead door both ways as your crew stood and watched
We open and close the door as needed to prevent vendors driving in if there is no room for them to get in. You were wrong for taking it upon yourself. Regardless, did pushing the button to open the ovehead loading dock door cause you undue stress or hardship?

When I inspected my table I found that the floor crew had left several cigarette butts and coffee cups on and around my table. I asked for a broom and was told that they did not have one. I had to show my discontent with some expletives to coax one of your workers to sweep my area
.Housekeeping was scheduled to come in the morning but am glad you were able to resolve this crises on your own prior to then

I received information saying how much you spent on pipe and drape. When I arrived my table had no pipe and drape since it was on an end
And was this pipe and drape not at the show? Was in not in your section? It was not directly behind your your table because you were on a endcap. The pipe and drape seperates vendor displays on the front from those on the back of the row. Since you were not on the front side nor on the back side but on the endcap, there is no reason to have pipe and drape there

Winston Tsai when making his table reservations requested to be next to me. I am his friend and I help sell his reptiles, however I do have my own business and items to sell. I was a bit perturbed when I found out that since I was on an end and his booth was the first on a row that the 8X8 area we were promised was the same 8X8 space for both tables. In this instant one of your helpers gave me a free table to fix the problem; which I considered fair
You claim you participate in 50+ shows a year. Please explain to me how any one else makes four 8" x 8" spaces out of a endcap? Vendors love endcaps, realize that because of the natural configuration of a endcap they lose some floor space but it is more than compensatated by the location of the endcap placement. When you broght up the space issue we understood your concern and gave you an additional table free of charge so I am not sure why you are adressing this issue again, I thought we had accommodated you. I would suggest when reserving any show, not to wait till last minute to make your reservations and to specify any special request you have to the show promoter and specifically request to be or not be in a endcap, etc. Your space should not have been an endcap at all but rather a space on a row requiring that your additional table be placed within that space.

The veterinary “inspections” were useless. I have a B.S. in Animal Science with Pre-Veterinary accred. I work in a animal care laboratory. I work under veterinarians for almost 75% of my job. The animal checks that were done in no way could determine ectoparasites. Mites are impossible to see from four feet away through plastic. Most of my animals were not even taken out of the blue opaque tubs they were in. Roughly 30% of the animals at the show were fresh imports. I saw several Guyana boas that were at 50% of their natural body weight. I saw emerald tree boas with subcutaneous tapeworms. I saw ball pythons that were dehydrated to the point of looking baggy. I do not know whether the veterinarian was overwhelmed, vendors hid animals under the table until show time, or that the whole thing was a marketing ploy and never meant to stop the sale of unfit animals.

Ben, I find it very ironic that you mention these animals that you supposedly saw at the show that were not fit to be sold, AFTER THE FACT. WHY DID YOU NOT BRING THIS UP DURING THE SHOW???? The veterinarian cannot do one by one inspection of each and every animal at the show but she inspect each and every booth. Throughout the show, I have "secret shoppers", herp society volunteers, herp society presidents and staff inspect as well and if there is a problem with an animal, they are taken off the table.

Saturday:

I arrived to find 3 of my animals missing out of my display cases. These are sliding tubs sandwiched between ¼ inch Lexan that is bolted with chromed threaded rod. Animals that are almost one inch in diameter could not squeeze out of a 1/16” gap between the top of the tray and the Lexan top sheet. It was also reported to me that other people had animals stolen. The problem I have is that I left at 7:45 pm Friday night and arrived before 8:00 am on Saturday. So the thief is either your security guard or a limited number of vendors. However it took your people over one hour to send someone to my table. By the time your people arrived the number of vendors present had quadrupled so it was impossible to question anyone.

Ben,the missing animals were reported to me right away. However, at that time you had already accused my security officer who is a corrections officer and has worked for me for 5 years and we had many vendors that were still checking in, arrangements to be made, important projects that needed to be completed prior to the show opening so we came over to your booth when we could. I did not know you had planned to question the vendors that were there. How about all the vendors from the evening before? I go out of my way to help my vendors, do anything for them. A new vendor that has never attended my show, has attitude and is accusing my overnight security of stealing his animals is not going to receive preferential treatment over my other vendors. Security is provided overnight as stated, from the time the building closes to the time it opens.

I purchased an albino ruthveni from a spectator on Saturday and it ended up being a stolen animal from Ben Siegel. We straightened out the issue on our own-but another monetary loss for myself.
You didn't question someone selling on the floor who was not a vendor? Signs all over the building state that selling on the floor is prohibited. This is part of the reason no one is allowed to bring animals through the door. If someone is trying to sell an animal, it came from within the building. AGAIN, WHY DID YOU NOT BRING THIS MATTER UP TO US THEN INSTEAD OF AFTER THE FACT????

I have participated in 50 shows as a vendor, over 100 shows as a spectator, and pioneered the Portland Reptile Expo. In 7 years of attending shows I have never seen such a volume of theft.
Only two cases of theft not during show hours were reported to us. In the other case the animals were found.

When lunch rolled around you were out of all but one of the choices of sandwich, which caused me to have to buy lunch for one of my employees out of my pocket. Out another $10
How many other shows even offer you lunch???? Space rental did not increase when we started serving lunch. It was just a little something extra. It is impossible to determine in advance how many of each type of sandwich to order. To help with this, we begin serving lunch in the back on Sunday so people who didn't get their choice on Saturday, would on Sunday.

Sunday:

After all the frustrations of Friday and Saturday I did not know what to expect of Sunday. I received several reports that animal thefts had happened again Saturday night after hours. Due to the lack of customers I was able on Sunday I took a stroll around the show. There seemed to be a serious lack of attendance and interest.
Serious lack of attendance?????? 5,218 tickets sold at the showSaturday plus the 500 advance tickets we sell and 4,774 attended Sunday. HELLO???
I talked to other vendors and I know that several were unhappy about the volume of traffic. Winston Tsai sold less than $100 dollars, and myself less than $250. I finally saw why. You advertised that you were trying to keep the super wholesalers out, but yet I saw ball pythons for $10, corns for $9, cal kings for $15, Green tree pythons for $175, and red-eared sliders for 50 cents. Now I have run a retail store, a wholesale store, and I am now a breeder producing about 200 offspring a year; to me these seem like super wholesaler prices.
And your point is??? Yes, we included notices explaining to vendors not to announce price reductions over the intercom, encouraging vendors not to sell at wholesale prices. However, we can not regulate what a vendor sells animals for. THIS IS ILLEGAL! Ask your lawyer friend about price fixing!!!!!
My overall opinion of the show was that your staff did not care about the vendors, the show was poorly attended, and the variety/quality of animals was average. However I paid well above average prices to participate. Many facets that you advertised where not followed through with, and there was a general lack of organization.
I suggest you talk to all the vendors who come back show after show. Our partnership with the vendors is extremely important and will do anything for our vendors. We are, however, not babysitters and a new vendor that comes in with attitude, accusations and claims to have observed violations of show policy yet did not report anything to us, instead, merely just whines about it after the fact is surly not going to ever be invited back.


and here is the e-mail sent to Tony after these replies to sent to Ben. I am sure Tony will respond to this e-mail as he always responds to e-mails.

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The ground staff in question were working in the one of the other events section. I was following Winston Tsai and when we drove up to them they yelled at us saying we couldn't park; the lot was full. When we said we were vendors for the reptile show they just barked at us to leave. After we turned around a guy in a white police/official security gave us directions.


The bottle neck was right at the overhead door/entrance to the arena. A line of car was parked about 30 feet from the door, which would have been o.k, but someone had pulled up in a thirty to thirty five foot travel trailer and was setting it up for the night next to the door. Between these two obstacles, traffic was one way so you had to wait until it was all clear to get either into the arena, or back out to the lot. This was all done by vendors as your crew was not directing traffic, or parking. I realize that the travel trailer was probably a curtousy for a very important client but it was really in the way, and should have been set up later in evening when unloading from vehicles was done and everyone was inside setting up the actual tables.

First I parked next to the front entrance, as the side entrance was blocked by someone else. I walked around and signed in and found that my table was 165 which was in the very corner next to the rear check-in table. This is why I decided to pull in the van. Because of the wait and the added time I was unable to help out my friends that were vendors, go to the icebreaker, and meet people.


No pushing the button did not cause undue stress however for 140 a table I expected first class service. At my show the portland reptile expo I charge 35 dollars a table, give free tables to large out of state vendors and we help unload thier vehicles, plus serve them breakfast! At my show, the Maine Herpetological Society and I treat the vendor as the number one priority. Without them there would be no animals to sell to the crowd:thus no crowd.

Well, I understand the reason for pipe and drape, however since I was on an endcap you looked over my table and saw a side view of the backside of the rows tables, and all thier storage, personal items, and whatnot. You used advertising and the amount of money spent on pipe and drape as a selling ! item in everything I received. If you were using it as a sellign item I expected to receive it. If looking tidy is a main concern for you, then why didn't you give pipe and drape to hide the backsides of the
tables on the row when view from the endcap?

I have done fifty plus shows as a vendor in my six years vending-not per year. In all instances where I see a floorplan having boxed ends, it is usually used for storage of dolly's, spare chairs, free information tables-manned and unmanned, or is given away to larger vendors, or tank/driftwood people who can use it for items that can be stacked instead of on a table. The only shows I have participated in that use boxed ends are Hamburg, Penn both Walt Loose and David Hess shows, Pittsburg, Penn, New Hampshire, and Daytona.

I did not bring these animals up at the show becuase I am a little guy. I do this as a hobby, and a love for the animals. I do not do this for necessary income, and if I complain to the import vendors ! I get the same old lecture. I have had my vehicle keyed and threats made when I reported unfit animals at one of the venomous shows I attend. How do I place an arguement against someone who has a true business, that may be thier own source of income, or one of the super vendors that uses this to unload the massive amounts they must purchase without getting tempers inflammed? I want to go to a show, sell captive bred and born, and have a good time, not argue to someone that the five year old emerald tree boa that is as big around as a quarter with lumps all over it is not fit for sale.

I have several family members that work for the Department of Corrections in Maine and I have seen some of their coworkers get fired for things like stealing, abuse, and drugs. Just becuase soemone is a officer doesn't mean a damn, they are still people. I posted a reward on Kingsnake for the animals and I have not released their genetics to anyone. I have recieved email for people stating they and mutltiple other vendors had stuff stolen. Yes, I may sound like the asshole from time to time, however I am not alone here.



Ticket sales? Hamburg gets 5k people in and tables were like 50-60 bucks when I started vending at it.




Tony, I am not asking to be invited to Tampa, or any of your shows. I am not asking for reparations, I am not asking for free tables or spots to sold out shows. I am telling you what happened to me in my own words. I am telling you why I am dissapointed and why I will not return. I did report several instances to your people on Friday and almost nothing was done. So if your crew turned a deft ear why would I have continued on Saturday and Sunday. Undoubtably, some vendors loved your show and probably did very well. I am happy for them.

I am not concerned about the money. I did a show in Pittsburg last minute traveling from Boston, only had about 40 corns, 100 dart frog tadpoles and a dozen or so books with me and had to drive straight there do the show and straight back. I sold $62 worth of books, and $0 in snakes but the show was fun, curteous, and I would do it in a heartbeat if I was in that area.

I know that Winston will continue to do your shows because he doesn't like to leave Florida. My employee who sold the cork off my table, will be calling becuase he sold out. But like I said earlier I go to the show becuase I love the animals, and think that others show receive quality captive bred and born reptiles from someone who can actually tell them how to fully take care it. I owned a retail store, and manged two others and there was a reason I left the "industry". I don't want to sound like a bleeding heart but there was no facet of this show I felt good about when I left. Yes, certian things you provided I did like. I liked that I was able to eventually drive my van to my table, it really help when loading back up. Yes, I like the fact that there was a hotel across the street. Yes, I liked the fact that you e-mailed back. However many of your replies are just personal attacks, saying that I am new, uninfor! med, or unrealistic in my needs. I am a proffessional, in my personal life, and my proffessional life and it crosses over into my reptiles. If I had know that all your sales pitch was just that I would have taken my business to one of the local flea markets or pet swaps.

The only thing I am sorry about is the fact that my time is probably wasted becuase you will believe you have done nothing wrong.

Thank you for you time.

Ben

To be fair--If I sincerely believed that I had been wronged and this was the response I got, I'd be pretty upset too.

However, to an outsider, the complaints MAY sound petty and whiny--so the responses sound about right.

Okay, I think we all agree that you had animals stolen and that is a horrible thing.

However, the other things you are complaining about are, in my opinion, trivial and nothing in Tony's control.

The guard at the event is not Tony's responsibility. However, he asked for a description and he would contact the management of the facility. If the facility's security personnel didn't know about the show, that is the responsibility of the facility, not Tony.

The curtains and pipe is another non-issue, in my opinion. Tony provides them for all of his vendors on the aisles. End caps are usually a different situation as there are already space issues, but those are even more compounded when you try cramming a thing of curtains in there, too.

The lunch thing is not his fault, either. The fact that he even OFFERS free lunch to the vendors is amazing. And no, the lunch is not a part of your table cost. Tony provides a lunch to his vendors as a perk of doing business with him. Unfortunately, he can't call up a caterer or whatever and demand an infinite amount of food. He doesn't always know ahead of time exactly how many people will be there or how much staff a particular vendor will be bringing.

When it comes to the show vet, what are you expecting to be done? Is the vet supposed to do fecals? Open each animal's mouth and check for mouthrot? Are they supposed to pull every animal out of every container from every vendor and thoroughly inspect and evaluate each and every animal there in a period of a couple of hours(this is THOUSANDS of animals mind you)? Show vets at just about every show I've attended usually do enough to get a quick assessment of the general health of animals on a table. Again, it sounds like you are just looking for another excuse. But I'm curious, at your shows, what kind of inspection does your show vet do? Or do you have one?

Your parking problem sounds like just another attempt to grind that axe. Although I don't know the setup of the Tampa show, I know at ANY show with alot of vendors that parking and loading dock areas can easily get packed. Having done the 100 plus shows you say you've done, I would think that you would realize parking and unoading can get crowded and hectic. And when it comes to the door that you took upon yourself to open, did it even occur to you that it was closed for a reason? Did you ask the people standing around if you COULD open it or if they could help you? No, you just took it upon yourself apparently.

Cigarette butts and coffee cups on and around your table. Were they yours to begin with? Tony said housekeeping was scheduled to come in and clean the room, but instead you felt it necessary to jump all over his staff about it. And if they were someone else's cigarette butts and cups, that is really crass of someone to leave there, but at the same time, it is up to each individual vendor to maintain the cleanliness and professional look of their booth. I have found errant cups on my tables at shows before and you know what I do? I throw them away, end of story. I don't complain because it is a non-issue to me. No need to go crawling event staff over it unless you actually saw the staff there smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee at your table or putting the stuff there.

On the table space, you complained and Tony gave you a free table, yet you're still complaining about it? By giving you a free table for nothing shows to me at least how willing he was to work with you in the beginning.

If the animals were such a problem, why didn't you complain to Tony or his staff during show hours? Saying that you didn't think they would do anything is a cop-out. You either had nothing to complain about and are trying to come up with another reason to talk bad about the show after the fact, or you were just to lazy to do anything.

And the whole price thing has been shown to be incorrect. You failed to properly explain the situation regarding the super low prices. These were not going on throughout the entire show, but during the last half hour by your own admission. Also by your own admission, you said you made the offer for the $175 GTP. Tony cannot force his vendors to charge specific prices NOR can he police or have anything to do with backdoor deals being made between vendors.

Really, I think it is too bad that you didn't do well at Tony's show. I really do. I hate going to shows and doing poorly. However, I don't complain about the show promoter. It is not the promoter's job to make people buy what you're selling.

I wish you the best in your other shows and in the breeding business.

I disagree. Given the situation at hand (new vendor, etc.) and that he had apparently done nothing BUT complain all through the show, I would have reacted much as Tony had. Unless I misread the emails (and that's possible), Ben appears to have been every bit as antaognistic and condescending in his correspondance as he claimed Tony had been to him.

All in all, I think was a tempest in a teacup and should have been left alone between these two individuals to handle as they saw fit. However, since Ben brought it to the BOI (however the actual path it took came to fruition) and posted it for everyone to see, I have to say that I think less of Ben's whining and complaining at every turn than I do of Tony's providing free lunch and approximately 5,000 potential customers per day!

I'm truly sorry you lost your animals, Ben. All in all, a sad situation, really.

Since the main issue you guys have focused on is the lunch I will ad my comment-you guys think it is free? They why do we pay $140 for a table? 99% of the shows I do are $50-85, Daytona and Tampa are the only two shows I have ever done that cost more that $100 per spot. When I bought a table I was a customer receiving a service and I did not feel that I got $140 worth of service. So that is why I complained. Everybody keeps saying it is free, I had to pay $140 so I don't how that is free?

Yes, I did pick everything part about the show, becuase when I was e-mailing him to make a complaint I didn't want to tell him one or two things, I wanted to say everything that bothered me.

Yes, if the lunch situation or the cigarette butt/cups issue were the only thing that happened they would not have pushed me to write a complaint e-mail. But after getting mad it seemed that everytime I turned around there was something else there.

I would dare to guess that if the animals had not been stolen or I had received what i thought was satisfactory help trying to locate them- none of this would have ever happened.

Yes, I had some issues on friday and they were all minimal, and by themselves seem absurd-but after my animals were stolen I no longer was able to accept any "bumps in the road", which then all built up into that e-mail. If you look at the number of issues I had it was like every 2 hours I had something else tweeking another nerve. And one thing you will agree with me on is that 2 hours at a show can go by in a flash. So it almost seemed like everytime I turned around.

I have said and still say I wish things were different and I was one of you guys, and was continuing to do these local shows.
Whatever it is you guys want me to think, say, do, or be is not going to happen. I have said from the beginning that this was probably a fluke for me and to tell Mr. Cueto that I never wanted to do business with him again was going to prevent me from doing several local shows-and thus possibly a large amount of potential money. So I would not have said the things I said if i did not believe them myself. Losing the chance at thousands of dollars over a sandwhich or a half dozen cigarette butts isn't worth it. But my feelings and animals well-being are.


Mr. Cueto and I have a mutual agreement to never do business together, so I will take my business to other shows in other states and that is that.

ben cole

No matter what the reply or arguement against my opinion or for it. I really do appreciate the fact that no one has lost sight of the most important (to me anyway) issue of the loss of the animals.

Thanks to everyone that has looked at kingsnake, for sale ads, and thier local pet shop for suspicious balls for sale.

ben cole

I hope that you can track your animals down, Ben. That was pretty crappy they were stolen.

But just so you know, the Daytona show costs $500 per table last I heard(and even if not that much, I know it is WAY higher than $140), and this is not to start any kind of fight, but from what I understand, there is no food and the promoters of that show are not as willing to help vendors on issues they might have. That is just rumors I've heard, though, but still something to think about.

Best of luck with your business, and if you have any pictures or info on your stolen animals you are welcome to PM or e-mail me and I will keep an eye out as well.

Rob,

No, Daytona is $200 per table plus whatever electricity is going to run this year. The most expensive (table wise) show that we do is the NARB show in Tinley Park. If I remember correctly, tables are $300 each. I'm calculating that to do that show, we will have expenses of around $1,000. No telling what the price of gasoline may be at that time, so it could be more.