Now that the fantasy is over, the truth. We had 300 paid people through the door, not as good as we expected, but better that we were told we would do.
Second, yes the city of St Robert screwed us on the tables, they promised us when we rented the space we would have 60 new 8' tables, we showed up saturday night and we had less than 60 6' tables. Funny the only crew that complained was the Tulsa crew, they reserved 8 tables we let them have 11 for the price of 8. We asked for them if that would acceptable and they were all happy.
We had East Ozark Reptiles there, I did not know they were banned from anywhere, but when Jim ask me the night before if I would make Jim raise his prices, I told him that price fixing was not my bag. Jim said good cause he could sell those redtails really cheap and still make a profit.
Yes Michelle blew a fuse, you know what noone had to move and noone was inconvienced. So that's a dead issue.
We don't hassle the vendors to pay their rent, but when show time is up its time to pay the rent. We have deadlines to meet as well.
We spent $1000.00 this go around on advertising and handed out over 1500 fliers. We advertised on 3 radio stations, reptile magazine, the local weekly trader and through the local vets.
We did everything in our power to make this a good show, we had some vendors no show on us, that happens. We fought memorial day and tornado warnings and still had 300 paid people. If that was a disaster, what wat the last Broken Arrow Show??
I like Jim, but I will not stand by and be stabbed in the back while someone is shaking my hand. OH and yes we lost power, well let see, being the electrical wizard that I am, maybe I should have said let there be light and that would have solved it.
As for The vendor with no sales, she brought very little with her, 2 hedgehogs, 1 pair of breeder ferrets a cockatiel and a used cage. Everyone out there knows the rules for show rentals, yes she paid the rent with a bad check, so we lost out. The fact that she won't be back is a shame, but if ya bring nothin' ya can't make nothin'.
As for the vendor who collapsed the table, we talked with him to make sure all his animals were ok, and from what I remember they were.
So that's it in a nut shell, basically the Tulsa crew showed up early, we busted our asses to help them out and theyhad a chip on their shoulder from the get go.
The other promoter will most likely be out after this show, I cannot speak for her, but I get the feeling she's gone. By the way, her husband didn't sell anything either, but his ass wrote me a check for his tables.
We will be back in the community center on October 24th that should resolve some of the location issues. We will update the website in July to let everyone know the particulars. We are stuck with the 6 foot tables, but we'll adjust for them.
We had 20 vendors show up out of thirty we had committments from. We had 38 tables filled, not including the three we donated to the Herp Society. And yes at 8pm the night before we had only been contacted by two vendors who said they would not be there so we were a little leary about stretching tables, but I stayed there til 5 am trying to round up extra tables to make sure we had enough if everyone showed. One was you Lynn (and that was my fault for misunderstanding you in Feb) The other was Anthony Christifano.
Thank Ya for your time and sorry for such a long message, but it needed to be addressed. I don't own a scanner, but if I can get access to one I will gladly scan the receipts for the radio stations and the weekly trader in.
Thank you again,
Big Jim
