Greater Nashville Reptile Show?!?! Warning / Potential problems.

We let you live. That's gotta mean something. I had a lot of fun. At your expense, of course. But we still had a lot of fun. It was great meeting(& pestering) you. I'll add your link to my website.
Cricket

boy sounds like another lisa cambell (aka lisa schimmel) and jason campbell here...

Note to future show promoters:

Make sure boasnkc pays for their table in advance.

Steve

Ummmm, guys? If there is evidence that these people actually misrepresented (i.e. lied about) the advertising, the number of tickets pre-sold, etc., then this isn't a bad show, it's bad business. I urge one of you with direct dealings to post this on the BOI.

Also, has anyone emailed the promoters about the existence of this thread? If not, it should be done ASAP so that they can tell their side.

If you read through the earlier parts of the thread they have already posted within this thread. I want to speak with another vendor tomorrow by phone. If it is not on the BOI by then I will begin a thread there. When I left the show on Sunday all their paid help was waiting to get paid. It didn't look like it was going to happen. I saw the promoters loading their vehicle 3 hours before shows end so I'm sure they left early.

Note to all show promoters, I will be more than happy to pay for my table as long as you do your part to deliver any promises you my give. This is the only show in over 35 shows that I have done in three years where I didn't pay for my tables.

I should have known something was up since Kellie was on me Friday night to pay for my tables. Every other show I have done, the promoter didn't ask for table money until towards the end of the show or on the last day of the show.

Sorry guys...I have stayed away from the computer until this morning. When Kellie (who used the last name Whiteboro with us) contacted us about a month ago to get a table, we told her no. Her husband then talked to mine and said they would donate a table to us if we would come and do a presentation with our animals and bring some of our shelter animals to show. She also said she would be doing raffles and they would split the money with us with our "half" being donated to the shelter. We agreed to going on Saturday. A few days before the show, she called and was insistent we be there for the whole three days. I finally told her we would do Sat and Sun but I had another commitment on Friday and wouldn't be there. On Saturday, I was stunned to see so few vendors, especially when she kept saying there were almost 200 vendors and she was almost sold out with tables and had pre-sold 6000 tickets. Fortunately, we live 1 1/2 hours away so we just drove back and forth and didn't have lodging expenses.

Now, where were the newscrews from channel 2 and 4??? A security person came to tell us they were coming through and Kellie told us but I never saw anyone. What I did see were vendors out a lot of money, especially those who had to buy a $275 wildlife permit to sell colubrids and didn't sell enough colubrids to make up even part of that expense, much less the other expenses.

Oh, the raffle money they said they would split with our reptile shelter??? Well, it left with them....all of it. They snuck out way before all the vendors left. We looked for them before we left and found nothing left of them...not even their kids.

Kellie, you didn't rip me off when you stole the shelter's half of the raffle money you promised (by the way, who else did you promise it to???). You ripped off the shelter's residents. But I guess you really needed the money since you wrote worthless checks to a lot of people. Do you realize that writing bad checks is a criminal offense??? I see bars in your future...and not the drinking kind, either.

I met some vendors there that I hope to see at other shows in the future, especially the guys from KC and the cricket man and even though I live near Tom of glasscages.com, we've never gotten to talk before but we had lots of time to talk over the weekend.

Oh, and one of the things that was raffled off was a green annie. My friend won one of the drawings. I went to the front with her. They told her to choose between the annie and a volcano mister. I told my friend to take the annie. My friend, who has never owned a snake, thought I was nuts. She later realized I wanted the annie before a child or someone who has never had a snake before took it. The annie was donated by an individual who lives in Nashville. The annie is at our house right now and at least we are knowledgeable and capable of taking care of the snake. Someone else may not have and the animal would have suffered.

We weren't there to sell animals or products. Unfortunately, the other vendors were there for that purpose and they were lured in by blatant lies and I think it's a safe bet to say that no one sold enough to cover the expenses they put out to be at the show.

I started packing up at 2:00 Sunday, and they were already gone. As for the other post above concerning boasnkc, it's hard to pay for your tables if the promoters have already left. You'd think the people would be smart enough to collect on their tables before quickly leaving the scene. Everyone was already suspicious of Kelli & Troy early Saturday morning when they started spreading out the very few vendors they had to make the show appear larger.
A friend of mine talked to Kelli on the phone last week. She told him that he needed to get his table NOW! They had only one or two tables that weren't already sold. He opted not to do the show. After hearing all the negative feedback, he's glad that he didn't.
Cricket

Originally Posted by ms_terese

Ummmm, guys? If there is evidence that these people actually misrepresented (i.e. lied about) the advertising, the number of tickets pre-sold, etc., then this isn't a bad show, it's bad business. I urge one of you with direct dealings to post this on the BOI.

Also, has anyone emailed the promoters about the existence of this thread? If not, it should be done ASAP so that they can tell their side.

If you read the entire thread you would know that they posted on their site that they had pre-sold 6000 tickets [see the Vendor Info page at: http://www.nashvillereptileshow.city...e/2049269.htm] and would also know that they have already posted in the thread.

Cheers, Michael

Michael,

When I tried to get into their website, it has mysteriously disappeared from cyberspace. Don't know if you heard but she (Queen Kelli, that is) told people that NERD would be attending the show in December. She said they and all the big breeders couldn't come last weekend because of FIRE show in FL this coming weekend and they didn't want to be out of stock. Shoulda seen her face when I told her Kara and Kevin are friends of ours. She then avoided me the rest of the weekend. Gee...make mental note to call Kara and see if she and Kev need a place to stay in December! roflmao