|
Our shows usually cost about 125 for the first table and 100 each for additional tables. Smaller shows like Birmingham's monthly one day event is 40 a table. If it's a local Atlanta repticon show, I have them ship me a big box of fliers and I put them out. I will spend on gas about the cost of the first table doing this but they give me how many ever tables I want. I'm not greedy and I do it more to make sure we have a good show than to get free tables. I just take 3 and am willing to shrink down as needed if they run out. I don't pay anything for the tables at the Atlanta shows. Also, the venue is just a few miles from where I live so I don't pay hotel either. I have a great relationship with the promoters. I help them in any way I can. And they go all out to help me. Some of the other shows outside Atlanta, I pay for one table and usually end up with 3..sometimes 4. I always give them a couple of nice hooks to give away as door prizes. I have on many occasions brought an air mattress, sleeping bag and a gun and camped out and helped with after hours security for the show...If there are no showers at the venue, there are plenty of fellow vendors that will lend me a hotel key, and I slip out and go take showers at their room. I have plenty of people that will watch my table while I'm gone. In the 4 years or so that I've been doing these shows, I've made some very close friends. I've also of course had the opportunity to see up close and behind the scenes of how some dealers work and know that I'd never do business with them. It cuts both ways. Lot of good and a lot of bad. There are a couple of guys that buy large wholesale lots...tons of animals and what doesn't sell at the show stays delicupped till the next show...and continues there till it sells or dies. They buy them so cheap that it's cheaper to replace the unfortunate dead than it is to feed and house all the hundreds or thousands of little mouths. Now and then, they get high end stuff and will send it to various petstores after the show on consignment so it will get kept alive and if not sold at the petstore between the end of the show and the beginning of the next, they bring it back..rinse and repeat. That's the ugly side of these shows. These are the guys I will not deal with ever. There are others for other reasons but those are the main ones. For the most part though, a LOT of the vendors are indeed hobbyists just like us that are all giddy about having the best quality animals...some are naive and ignorant about ethical issues like inbreeding and unhealthy traits like spider balls and green burms but they mean well. I wouldn't buy any ball python from someone dealing in spiders or any python of any kind from anyone who even has a green burm in their collection...but I might buy heat tape or a temp gun...or maybe even a bullsnake or something that can't possibly have any chance of picking up or having genetic exposure to these known diseased animals. anyway...I look forward to these shows. I can't wait for Columbia in June. It's always a great one.
Oh...sharing tables. I don't have it come up much but now and then if a friend has a few animals or some cages or something they need to move, I don't mind. If they take up a significant amount of table space, I let them pay for half a table or at least buy my dinner that night. I wouldn't let someone sell handling equipment ...not because I fear competition but because it's my banner flying and they will bring it back and yell at me when it breaks. I don't sell many animals...now and then I'll pick up a few after show deals, bring them home, get them feeding and then resell them at the next show. Why? because though hooks and supplies do well. There are a lot of people that won't stop and even look at what I have unless there are animals to look at.
__________________
|
