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

[Suncoast Herpetological]

The show took place on April 21 - 22 and I have not heard a whisper of feedback. I do not know many of the vendors listed and have not found anyone who actually attended.

The show was an attempt by Repticon to rescuscitate the old show that Southeastern Shows and Tony Cueto had pretty much run into the ground.

Anyone have any comments?

 

[brucestephenson]

A friend of mine, Richard Sullivan, went and said it sucked.

 

[INSANE CANES]

Got my flyer the Friday before the show, great advertising.
Sure glad I didn't go.

 

[bcherps]

Hey All,

As a vendor had one of the best shows ever. Sales wise it was the third best show I have done in ten years. Some of this was part of my planning and holding back animals until this time of year so I still had dozens of female balls, about a dozen morph balls, a handful of boas, and a wide selection of colubrids. You can't do a repticon as a specialty booth.

Some of it was also due to repticons smaller number of vendors. There was about 2 dozen of us. You just have to be able to compete with the "Wholesale to the Public guys"


Thanks
ben cole

 

[Suncoast Herpetological]

Hey All,

As a vendor had one of the best shows ever. Sales wise it was the third best show I have done in ten years. Some of this was part of my planning and holding back animals until this time of year so I still had dozens of female balls, about a dozen morph balls, a handful of boas, and a wide selection of colubrids. You can't do a repticon as a specialty booth.

Some of it was also due to repticons smaller number of vendors. There was about 2 dozen of us. You just have to be able to compete with the "Wholesale to the Public guys"


Thanks
ben cole

It is good to hear from someone who was actually there. You are right though...sometimes if you are one of the few vendors with animals sales can be great. I received a few emails in response to this thread and your response is, by far, the most (and only) positive. Apparently the show was not in the actual Sundome Auditorium but in one of the smaller staging side rooms.

Any idea what the gate was? Some of the comments I received made it sound a bit dismal.

 

[bcherps]

Yes, I agree that I had a much better show than several than attended. Amir did 0 and went home after saturday. Neil Golli had a few rack sales, I bought several of the racks he is selling but he noted that is was far below his normal level of sales.

The show was at gate three and we set up in the woman volleyball cort. They were doing a recruiting, incomming freshmen show in the main auditorium of the sun dome. I think they probably had about 750-1000 people through the door

Part of doing successful shows is knowing what the audience is going to want. When I do daytona I bring all my breedstock quality stuff becuase you can sell $500 baby male normal boas, as long as it is a stunning representation of the locality. However, at a repticon your boas need to be under $65 to sell them, but can be as butt-ugly as a sun-baked cottonmouth.

I also think that many people are being overly judgemental of repticon becuase of the bad taste that Tony left in our mouths. Tony got away with far more than repticon has ever done

Also not everyone will do great at every show. For example I have done the FIRE show 3 times now. My grand total for all three shows combined is about a negative grand. I have brought in only $300 for all three shows combined even though Shawn gets 5000 people through the door and some vendors claim to do 30-50k at his shows. Is shawns show a sucky show that should be shut down? No. Is it a show I should keep doing-probably not but that doesn't make it a bad show.

I just took the same type of stock that I had in tampa to the north carolina show, and did decent but only about 1/3 of what I did in tampa, even though NC had 10x the people through the door, I was more competively priced, and it is more established, and more advertised.

that is how the ball bounces sometime.

thanks
ben cole

 

[Repticon]

For what it’s worth, here are some comments from our perspective as the event promoters.

Overall, we were very pleased with the show. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that this was our attempt to “resuscitate” the show that we bought from Tony Queto, and that is actually very much how we looked at it. This show has a great history, but in our opinion, the decision to relocate the show to Clearwater last year was very damaging to the show. Our goal for this show was not to immediately re-establish the standing that the show had a few years ago, but rather to take a first step in the right direction in what will be a long process of re-building the show. We feel that we accomplished this, and the show actually exceeded our expectations.

Regarding your specific questions:

Our total paid attendance was right around 2,200, split almost evenly over both days. I was at the ticket area for most of the show, and heard many of our guest comments directly. Although no show pleases everyone, the majority of the guests who took the time to talk with us upon leaving had positive comments. (Although there were several people who complained about the show being in Clearwater last year.)

Regarding the venue details, the show was in the Auxiliary Arena at the Sun Dome (the “Corral”). We had the venue listed on our website as the Auxiliary Arena, until the Sun Dome management informed us that all advertising needed to refer to the venue as “The Sun Dome” or “Sun Dome, Inc.” We had about 15,000 sq. ft. total to work with, and filled every inch of it. The Sun Dome floor is 20,000 sq. ft, which is obviously not a great deal larger than the 15,000 sq. ft. that we had. Going into this show, we honestly weren’t sure how vendor response would be, so we were conservative with which space we booked. Going into the next show, we may try to add more space to accommodate more tables.

We feel that we put together a stronger show for vendors and guests than last year’s show in Clearwater, which is a big part of what we were hoping to accomplish.

If you have other questions that I can help answer, I’d be happy to, and I’ll answer them as honestly and directly as possible.

We’re also in the process of planning our 2008 calendar, so if anyone has well-rationed feedback that they’d like to share, we’re always happy to listen.

Billy Healy
www.Repticon.com
www.ReptileShows.com
[email protected]

 

[Gino]

Well... I saw the end of Sunday and spoke with a few that attended and sold.
I didn't hear from one person who thought it was worthwhile.
I understand Repticon's point of view about "returning" the show however:
THE SHOW HAS ALREADY RETURNED in fact it never left.
Alex has kept the show going at the fairgrounds and I challenge anyone to report that this Sun Dome show was anywhere as near to the "original" show as Alex's have been.
My problem is that many of these disappointed guests will judge all reptile shows by what they saw in April.
And I'm sorry if I offend someone but it was a pitiful display.

I've worked a Repticon show and think they're fine people but Tampa will not support both Gila and Repticon shows.
They ruined the Tally market and I fear the same will happen in Tampa.
Their smaller shows belong in a smaller market.
There are many great cities without shows why can't they establish one there?
I feel this is doing a disservice to the reptile community and will cost all of us in the long run.
Tampa does not need them to rescue us.
We've been doing just fine since Tony left, thank you very much.

Take Care,
Gino

 

[Repticon]

Gino,

I have to respectfully disagree that Tampa isn't a large enough market to support more than two shows a year. And legally, it's important for me to make clear that this show, the show we bought from Tony, has NOT returned to the Fairground in Tampa. If Alex's new show there can be operated profitably long term, given the rising costs of the Fairground rental, more power to him. But let's be honest - Alex obtained that venue by booking it out from under Tony. He did not buy the show.

I do agree with your overall sentiment that we'd both be better off if our shows were not in the same markets as Alex's. Unfortunately, I only control one side of this equation (our shows.) When Alex scheduled an Atlanta show last December two weeks after the Georgia Herp Society show, and six weeks before our Atlanta show that had been publicized for months, that wasn't good for anyone, (I would think including Alex.)

In the past, we've cancelled three shows and lost money on venue deposits in an attempt to accomodate Alex's team. (Tallahassee in 2003, Jacksonville in 2004, and Virginia Beach in 2005.) If Alex is respectful of our markets in return, that's good business. If he is not, it's not.

Prior to finalizing our Tampa plans for this year, I called Alex, spoke to him at length, and offered several ideas to help keep our shows out of eachother's way. I OFFERED AT THAT POINT TO KEEP THE FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL SHOW OUT OF TAMPA if we could work out a larger agreement. He seemed interested, mentioned that they had been researching Atlanta, and said that we might be able to work things out to avoid duplication in Atlanta and Tampa. Two weeks later, with no more communication to me, he had his Atlanta show posted on his website. I e-mailed him asking about it, and his response was "I had to do it, I had too many vendors asking me to." When he posted his initial list, there were three vendors on the list.

I mention all of this to illustrate this point: I am more than happy to work with Alex or any other promoter to avoid saturation of markets, but in order for that to happen, they've got to at least communicate with me. I've got Shawn's FIRE dates for 2008, and we will work around them (we cancelled our July Ft. Myers show that was scheduled on his dates this year.) I've got Wayne'd dates for 2008, and OBVIOUSLY we'll work around those. I e-mailed Alex about two weeks ago telling him that we're working on 2008, and asking if he had time to talk. He said "after Raleigh". I e-mailed him again after Raleigh, and I'm still waiting for a response on when we can talk.

We're in the business to do business, not to have petty personal disagreements or drama. It makes no business sense to me to unilaterally stay out of Tampa, a market that is 45 minutes from my home and which we just had a successful show in (that we purchased from it's previous owner), and instead pursue markets further from our base, if Alex is going to arbitrarily enter those markets as he did in Atlanta, a market that Gila Productions never promoted a show in prior to the one mentioned above. If Alex is going to provoke head-to-head competition, I'd rather do it in my back yard than further away. Again, it's not personal, and I'm more than happy to shake Alex's hand, set down together, and roll up our sleves to see if we can worksomething out. If anyone on this board has influence with Alex, feel free to contact him. If it works better to exchange ideas openly in this forum, I'm fine with that too. At least it'll keep us both honest.

As a footnote, I think you've got some bad information on Tallahassee. Alex's last two shows there performed well below his first show, and we had not done ANY shows in Tallahassee at that point. We did NO shows in Tallahassee until after Alex's last show was done. We in no way contributed to the success or failure of his last shows in Tallahassee. We picked that market back up after his last show, started small, and our shows have been growing in vendor participation and guest attendance with each show. The show is smaller than Orlando or Tampa, that's true, but based on the size of the market, any SUSTAINABLE show in that area will probably have to be a smaller show.

Again, I do appreciate Gino's feedback, even if it's not entirely complimentary. We are working on 2008, and the more information we have to work with, the better our schedule will ultimately be.

If anyone else has feedback they'd like to share, questions to ask, or suggestions on cities they'd like to see us in in 2008, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

Billy Healy
www.Repticon.com
www.ReptileShows.com
(407) 230-7217

 

[Gino]

Billy,
I have to take exception to the statement that Alex bought the venue out from under Tony.
I was there when all of this went down.
Alex did not book a show there until he was assured by the Fairgrounds that Tony was not returning.
He already owed them a ton of money from a previous show so he would not have been able to return even if he wanted to..
Alex made a huge point of making sure Tony was out.
I was still mediating between them at that point so know both sides of that story quite well.
While it is true he did not buy the name you can not deny he did rescue the tradition of the Tampa Show. Let’s be honest. Your Sun Dome show looked nothing like the “original” show.
Can anyone tell me one thing this show has in common with the “original” show?
What Repticon bought was the name only and let’s face it the show had already been run into the ground.
Unfortunately for you guys you also bought Tony’s baggage.
I’m not sure it was a wise investment considering Tony’s reputation.

Another statement I take exception to is the one that states Tony decided to move the show to Clearwater.
I was still working with Tony when he was looking for a new venue.
The Fairgrounds wanted nothing more to do with him.
In fact, I made several calls on his behalf to find another venue.
Clearwater was the only place within his budget that would even have him.
He had no choice but to move.
Even with that the show had been cancelled at least twice.
I know this for a fact directly from the Director of Operations at the Harborview.
The Harborview was even soliciting me and Alex to take over that show.
He missed at least 3 deadlines on his payments and was bailed out at the absolute last hour.

As for Tally. You are correct Alex had no shows after yours but the reason was your small show ticked off many of the area’s reptile enthusiasts.
He did indeed have one on his schedule when Repticon came in.
Check out the Cornsnakes thread on the show and you will see what some of them had to say.
Many of them are still my customers and were very unhappy with your one day show.
Alex had every intention of continuing but decided the market was no longer salvageable.

I am not trying to pick a fight with you guys.
I did the Miami show and was very pleased and impressed with how you guys did things.
I have no complaint against your team at all.
I would gladly participate in a 2 day show not in competition with another promoter.
(although at this point I'm sure I won't be getting any red carpet invites)

Still. I strongly disagree that Tampa can support what is really 4 shows a year. (2 by each of you)
I also agree if you and Alex could sit down and work something out it would be better for all of us.
It would be a shame if this descended into the same kind of show wars mentality that existed while Tony still operated. But as long as the 2 venues are competing I will do my best to educate the public on the stark differences of these 2 events.

Take Care,
Gino

 

[Repticon]

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
[email protected]

 

[Gino]

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

 

[Alex Russell]

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.

 

[Suncoast Herpetological]

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

 

[Repticon]

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
[email protected]

 

[bigsnakedaddy]

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!