Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Attendance off at Salem expo
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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Was it the lagging economy?
High gas prices?
The huge NASCAR race in Bristol?
Whatever it was, there was no missing the reality that attendance was awful at this past weekend's Virginia Outdoors Sportsmen's Classic at the Salem Civic Center.
A year after the debut show attracted nearly 8,000 people, this year's expo drew maybe a third of that number.
Some vendors were so unhappy they packed up and left before the show even ended. That forced show organizers to stop selling tickets in the middle of Sunday afternoon because some attendees complained that they weren't getting the show experience they were promised.
Waynette Anderson, whose company Sponsor Hounds put on the event, was crushed and couldn't help breaking her self-imposed rule that there's "no crying in hunting and fishing."
"I was in tears most of the day Saturday and Sunday," she replied in an e-mail to me Monday afternoon not long after I sent her a list of frank questions about the event. "Every time I talked, I cried.
"I'm obviously in shock right now. I'm emotionally and financially devastated."
Those who know Anderson wouldn't be surprised by her candor. She's not someone to back down from a challenge or hide when things get tough.
Sunday afternoon she made the rounds talking to vendors, thanking them for their support and apologizing for the low turnout.
"I hate it for our vendors who didn't do well more than anything," she wrote.
The show wasn't a disaster for everyone.
Mike Puffenbarger of Maple Tree Outdoors in Highland County said the show was decent for them, thanks in part to the sale of some larger items, including custom furniture.
Chris Ward told me that the auction he and Drury Outdoors partner Eric Hale held Saturday raised $6,000 for the Catch a Dream Foundation.
It was a good show for me, too.
All three days I manned a booth to promote the outdoors coverage in The Roanoke Times and on roanoke.com and stayed busy talking. In addition to pitching our "product," I picked up a few good story ideas and even garnered an invitation to an opening day dove hunt.
Still, as I watched the grim expressions on some vendors' faces, I was glad I was just giving papers away and not trying to sell anything.
So what went wrong?
"I wish I knew," said Anderson, who said her marketing budget was 25 percent higher this year than it was in 2007.
It probably wasn't a single thing.
High gas prices and the sluggish economy sure didn't help.
It's hard not to be nervous in the wake of all the scary news that seems to pummel us daily. The fact is money just isn't going as far as it did this time last year.
Still, that didn't stop a small army of folks from making the trip to Bristol -- attendance was about 160,000 -- and that also likely contributed to the outdoor show's woes. After all, there's quite a bit of crossover in the demographics of NASCAR fans and hunting and fishing enthusiasts.
Another difference is that a year ago the show was a novelty for the region's hunting and fishing nuts, who were starved for a one-stop outdoors shopping mecca. And now we have two.
No, you can't go to Gander Mountain or Sportsman's Warehouse to find a hand-painted turkey feather like the ones Brian Aliff from Bluefield, W. Va. was selling -- or trying to sell -- in the booth next to mine. But you can find just about anything else.
I think people got spoiled fast.
Other than one-of-a-kind products, outdoor expos also have their speakers going for them. This year's line-up wasn't bad, with a mix of local and regional fishing and hunting experts, as well as several up-and-coming video celebrities.
Would a really big name or two made a difference? Maybe. But some of those guys don't come cheap, so that's not a simple answer.
As for upcoming shows, a second winter version is planned for the final weekend in January.
Anderson said many vendors told her they plan to attend future shows. Those who stuck it out for the weekend will get a break on fees for the next shows, she said.
"Those who packed up, which is against our company policy and extremely unprofessional, will not be welcomed back," Anderson said.
Anderson said she expects to have to replace 35 vendors who won't come back. The work is about to start.
"We are dusting ourselves off and getting back to it on Tuesday," she said. "All event companies encounter a decrease in attendance at one point or another.
"It's how you respond to that adversity that makes the greatest impression."
That impression stands to be made between now and January.
