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Fl.International Reptile Show?

This is even more messed up than Atlanta. Anyone planning on going to Clearwater,
to vend or attend, call the venue. Please. I am going to do so myself and confirm
what's going on, and post what I find here (though I will not be attending).
 
I spoke to Andrea just now (8:30 AM ) And the show is BACK ON.

As of NOW, the Clearwater show is back on. Still, I'm not going to be there. As much as I could use the money.
 
I just spoke with the people at the Harborview Convention Center too, the show is back on, BUT still may be cancelled yet again. The deadline for Tony is next Wednesday. So, I was told if I wanted to know for certain to call them back again on Wednesday 29th by the end of the day.

According to the Convention Center, the only reason they extended the deadline for him was because its to late to try and sell the venue to someone else.
 
Previously Cancelled show - Reinstated - The show was officially called off (removed from Harborview and Sun Festival's websites) for a variety of reasons that I will not discuss. Louise did however attempt several times to sell the promotion to Gila Productions and myself since mid last week. Gila turned it down for a variety of reasons and I turned it down because it is too close to Gila's highly successful "Tampa Mania" show at the fairgrounds (wouldn't want the 200 mile limit enforced lol) But seriously these shows are about the vendors and the attendees. Money was already collected from sponsors, vendors, and attendees and it is out of consideration for them, and them alone that the show has been reinstated by the fine folks at the Harborview Center. I hope all of the sponsors, vendors, and attendees do well for they, and they alone are the lifeblood of our industry. Here is the email sent to me this am by Harborview's Marketing Director.

"As of my meeting yesterday with Tony, the show is back on. He has promised to have everything straight with us. The date is so close that I am unable to sell the venue to anyone else. I know that he has a lot of vendors and they all want the show to go on as well. I am not at all happy with the undue amount of work that this has caused for the staff and we would all like this to turn out well."



Louise LeClaire

Director of Sales

Harborview Center

300 Cleveland Street

Clearwater, FL 33755

727-462-6778, ext. 226

727-462-6798 fax

[email protected]

www.harborv.com

"Celebrating 10 years of serving the community
 
I think it is very important we all understand that this is a CONDITIONAL reinstatement of the dates. Rourke is quite correct that it was simply too late to sell the dates.
Make no mistake. The posts of cancellation were not lies as Tony is telling people.
When you call to confirm you can also confirm that the show had been cancelled.
It was their words "100% cancelled"
Take note it IS NOT back on their calender. They will not put it back until Tony has paid in full.
He has until next Weds to do so.
Do not believe the hype. You need to be very cautious here.
Note also that there was no full page ad in this month's Reptiles Mag.
The only attendees will be Sun & Fun folks who will have no way of keeping a purchase as they attend other aspects of the show.
If you give money and it does not happen you know you'll have a pretty slim chance of ever seeing it again.
Good Luck,
Gino
 
It seems that the event in Clearwater Florida has been moved to Sewerwater. We'll have to wait until Wednesday to see if he flushes. :toiletcla And all this bad publicity is going to hurt the show if it is held. I sure am glad that I'm not going. Attendance will probably be poor, & some of the vendors listed as confirmed will not be there.
 
I also called the Harborview and it is on their recorded calendar and Andrea did say that it was definately going to happen. For the sake of everyone that has already paid, I hope so. But as with everything we will see.
 
I hope the show does go on. Not for Tony, but for the people that have already paid. It can be a real hassle getting jerked around like that.
 
It is not on their calender yet. Not until next weds.
Check it out for yourself:

http://harborv.com/
(click on informational calender.)

Take Care,
Gino
 
Gino said:
It is not on their calender yet. Not until next weds.
Check it out for yourself:

http://harborv.com/
(click on informational calender.)

Take Care,
Gino
Click to expand...

The event is listed on the Harborview's RECORDED calendar. The one you can listen to when you CALL the venue. Again, for the sake of the folks that have already PAID, I hope that the event goes on.

On another note........for the sake of this industry, I wish everyone (Tony included) would quit trashing everyone else and focus on BETTERING this industry. Not gloating on whose show is cancelled/rescheduled/sucks or whatever. That just makes EVERYONE look like that they are in it only for the money or the "glory" of having a show. There is a reptile show almost every weekend in Florida, why isn't anyone trashing any of those??? I'm not on ANYONE'S side here, trust me I'm only on MY side. I am going to go where I can make some money, be it Tony's shows, the Upper-Works Marketing shows, Cathy's shows or Joe Blow's show in Timbucktu. If I want to sponsor a show I will, I don't care whose it is. It's my money to do with what I want. That is the way it should be. I know that has not been that way in the past with Tony, but folks live and learn (or at least we can hope they do). This industry is growing and we ALL need to band together to make it better.
 
I can tell you that Alex never once published one negative word about Tony to my knowledge.
Still Tony called him names Rich would fine me for repeating here.
He threatened to shoot the man. This was no joke and it was made very clear.
I took sides when he used my name in an E-Mail to thousands that I would verify an outright lie. I couldn't even eat my supper that night because I was getting calls asking for the truth. You are correct. We should not be bickering but it wasn't Alex who trashed anyone.
Tony hurt that show with his false claims of an injunction.
A call to the lawyers he mentioned revealed they had no cases in Florida and do environmental law not business law.
I do feel bad for vendors who may lose money here. The truth is as long as folks continue to enable this man the shady tactics will continue and the Tampa Show Wars will go on.
As far as sponsors doing any show they want.
Tony blasted Armstrong's loyalty for doing Alex's show. Jeff and Debbie have been great supporters of this industry and were treated like crap after all they did just for doing Alex's show.
I'll shut for now,
Gino
 
OBES said:
I am going to go where I can make some money, be it Tony's shows, the Upper-Works Marketing shows, Cathy's shows or Joe Blow's show in Timbucktu. If I want to sponsor a show I will, I don't care whose it is. It's my money to do with what I want. That is the way it should be. I know that has not been that way in the past with Tony, but folks live and learn (or at least we can hope they do).
Click to expand...


Yes, most of us have lived through Tony's shows and we have learned not participate in them in any way, shape or form.
Not only will he lie to achieve is goal (what ever that may be), but is ethics as a promoter is the worst I have ever seen and heard of for that matter.

Why would any one would want to support him or his shows for any amount of money?
 
Sometimes, if the money's right in front of you, it's easy to look the other way. I've done it, working for Tony for a few days for some quick, easy money when I needed it. When I look at it, it seems there's a bunch of people that are doing the same thing. Nobody approves of what Tony's been doing (I've even talked to him about it), but so many people are not willing to DO anything about it. I even ended up working at the Columbia show after I said I wouldn't. I REALLY needed the money. But who doesn't?

In all seriousness, Tony's always paid me, and treated me relativly well. But last week, he was trying to ge tme to help him promote this show when it was cancelled - and he knew it was cancelled! That was un-cool of him to say the least.

It pisses me off that I cannot work his shows, because associating myself with him is bad for my reputation. I WANT to work reptile shows because I want to have a good reputation, and a good network of connections! But because of HIS actions, I'd be shooting myself in the foot.

The only way to fix the situation is for Tony to straighten out, for for the industry to expell him. If he keeps up with the libel, and slanderous remarks about others, it's just a matter of time before he is simply finished. It's amazing that the harbor view gave him a reprieve. The vendors that unwisely paid for spaces already should take this to heart. They might not be so lucky next time.

If Alex and Roark are putting together better shows, in enough locations, there will be NO reason for vendors to bother doing Tony's shows. With no vendors, he's done, and will have to straighten out to have ANY hope of making a comeback.

For now, he's digging his own grave, and it pains me to see it. Tony really was cool to me for a while, and allowed me to meet up with some of the best people in the industry. But for his own good, in the long term, he needs to stop doing shows like this. After behaving as he has, he has no future in the reptile show promotion industry. It's just a matter of time. Such a shame.
 
Yeah, it looks like he is finished. Maybe he can get a job at McDonalds. They are always hiring. Oops! Forget the McDonalds thing. They drug test.
 
in response to OBE

The reason I personally am not up on a soap box bashing "someone else's" show is because they don't need bashing!!!

I have done over 100 shows up and down the east coast, and even owned the permit for and promoted the Maine show(now fully run by the Maine Herpetological Society). I have had zero dollar shows that were super fun, and I have done shows that 10 grand wouldn't have made me happy. So it is definately not always about the money.

Organization, politeness, and honesty are the first three things I look for in a show.
Guess what?-Tony has none of these traits linked to his show. We-the vendors- historically had to wait hours to even get our table assignments once we showed up for a show, and usually didn't recieve our parking passes until the next day. And how many times when an issue arises is tony readily available to assist-NEVER-he goes and hides so no vendor can find him.
Politeness-I've had tony stand in front of me and tell me to shove it up my )(* when I had animals stolen from my booth Friday night after setup. I've had tony "ban" me from his shows after complaining about this same topic, but then sell me tables a month later as a sorry. I've had Tony stand and front of me and tell me to (*^^^ off when I stepped in for Winston Tsai (another vendor) who had to suddenly fly to Tiawan due to his grandmothers death but I was supposedly "banned" again after 3 years. I once showed up to one of his shows and my table space was covered in coffe cups and cigarette ashes from the setup crew-I asked for a broom and was laughed at in a mocking way, and I ended up having to clean the booth area myself. I've seen tony fly off the handle at his workers, the beer vendor guy, the fire marshall, his vendors, and the fairgrounds staff.
Honesty-I saw on four occassions where tony tried to claim someone had purchased less spots than they had really bought. I was one of the unfortunate ones who never thought to bring a receipt and he scammed me.
He has now refunded the money but it took over four months to get $200.

Tony is a liar, a cheat, and a scammer. This has been proven over and over again.
We see a number of posts here about "Joe blow is a scammer-I bought an adult cb XXXXXX-input animalhere and it is a subadult wc". Tony has promised all this advertising claimed he sends flyers for a 2 hour perimeter, that he gest 10,000 people through the door. Same deal- Tony's sales pitch to vendors is not what the vendors really get.

WE see about 20 post a week about "joe blow scammed me-I sent money and never got the critter".Tony has done this with the tables to me and attempted it with Underground, Homegrown, Glades, etc etc.

So when are people finally going to wake up and realize that he just like the rest of the scammers that we see on here on a regular basis. He just sells tables instead of livestock.


Thanks
ben cole
 
At his Atlanta show last year, he promised to pay $50 back on one table, and $100 back on two or more if you showed him the receipt for the $200 Georgia permit dated the weekend of the show. However, none of us got any of our money back. He disappeared. He also promises refunds of ALL table spaces if he can't prove all the advertising he promises in the marketing section of his website. Well, there were no live broadcast of any kind at the last Greenville show. But even after mentioning it, there was no refund of money. All the crap he is pulling with Alex is pretty much the same type of BS that he put the promoter of the SERC show through. Trying to make other promoters look bad with vicious lies & slander is definitely not the way to conduct business. Unfortunately, some people are in it just for the money.
 
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