well, i may be totally off about why he probably doesnt go. I assume that it would be because the shows are small, and dont bring in much biusness, and to take the time, and money to set up a booth and bring all your equipment, ECT. is not worth the rewards or reapings.
but like i said, i could be totally wrong!
im sure he will tell you though =)
-Jake
That's pretty close. Mainly, I got tired of paying their high entry fees only to be stuck in a corner against a wall that nobody passed by. I would sign up early, which with most promoters gets you a better booth spot, but with IRBA, you apparently need to do every one of their shows, good day or bad, rain or shine, reguardless of what city it was in with a smile on your face (like Amazing Blue Reptiles does). Once you miss one, you become a low priority, and that's exactly how I felt. Besides that, if any of you went to their shows back in '02-03, they were so much better as far as traffic in the door and advertising goes. Last time I did Pomona (sometime in '05) I swore to myself I would never go back. It's just not worth my time to prep for a week beforehand, pack everything, drive there, hotel costs, diesel costs, entry fees etc to barely break even because there was only 1500 people there. I would suck it up and call it good advertising, but I think I could spend the same hours doing anything else and be much more productive.
I'd rather throw my time and efforts into an NARBC show (for their good advertising and numbers in the door), Upscale show (because the promoter treats me good, lower booth costs, good numbers in the door, and he bought all the vendors a nice dinner), or hopefully a new show like this. I drove all the way to Chicago last fall for the NARBC show, and it was worth my time more than the 3 hour drive to Pomona is. It's not easy or cheap to do a show, especially when you need 2-3 booths... Setting up 12-15 cages with lights, plants, animals etc in a few hours Friday afternoon (sometimes by myself) to have to tear it all down again on Sunday is alot of work. I've gotta step back and think realistically about which ones I choose to do, and I'm probably only doing 4-5 shows this year, 3 of which are in September.
The Scottish Rite Center is comparitively small, but I guarantee there will be more people in there than the IRBA has in Pomona. It's all about the advertising, which IRBA simply doesn't do (besides mailing you a list of the shows if you've been to a previous show). This show in 2 weeks has some big name people signed up.
. I guess it's true what they say .... You can't have just one .... 
Hopefully this will be a good show with lots of cool critters. Tyler, was it you that said you wouldn't do the IRBA shows anymore? Just wondering why...
I was surprised to see the Kammers there since they've been absent at some of the last few. Long story short, I do hope they take the input of some of the vendors no longer doing their shows but I'm not sure that's in the cards.
