Maybe I should chime in before this thread gets out of control.
The Traditional Bowhunters Expo West is an offshoot of Great Northern's Expo in Michigan. After a couple of successful years Jerry and Rick came west looking for a place to hold a similar Expo. They looked from Montana through Idaho, trying to keep it in a central location, finally locating the Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario, Oregon. After running the show for two years they came to the realization that the costs of long distance management was just too expensive, especially since Jerry does not fly.
They approached us at Traditional Bowhunter about keeping the Expo alive and we purchased the entire rights from them. Not because we felt it was a great money maker, but because we believe that traditional archery needs to be promoted if it is to grow, and the Expo was a perfect venue to promote our great sport.
The problem with Ontario is that there is not a large local base to draw from and even with the excellent speakers that we brought in every year attendance was stagnant and even in the best year attendance was no more around than 1500 folks.
After the 2005 Expo many of the remaining exhibitors, we had continued to loose a few each year, told me that they would not be returning unless we could bring more people through the gates.We began a renewed search for a venue in and around the Boise area. Remember we are publishers first and show promoters a distant second. After finding nothing that would work and being turned aside by the only hotel in the area that would work, we approached Specta Productions, a local show producers about somehow piggybacking on to their successful Sports Show.
Remember the Expo for us was first and foremost about promotion of traditional archery. After several lengthy discussion and many months, at the last minute, Spectra offered to take on the Expo and agreed to give it is own identity, which was important to promote our sport to the general public. Thus we here at Traditional Bowhunter gave up the show promotion business and became a vendor once again. We knew that the show was very "last minute" in 2006 but believed that all who attended could see the potential of being able to reach 18,000+ people and that by working together as vendors we could build something special in Boise.
We had a few rough spots in 2006, but Spectra will correct those, however we as vendors cannot rely on Spectra to make the sale for us.
With that being said the returning vendors have recognized that it is up to us to improve the show. So we have taken it upon ourselves to offer seminars, within the tent area, specific to traditional archery. Additionally we at Traditional Bowhunter Magazine will be hosting David Petersen, Donnall Thomas Jr. and TJ Conrads all weekend long for book signing in our booth.
As a vendor we can only ask for a clean and dry booth space, and a crowd to sell our wares too. This is what Spectra Productions delivers.
We as vendors must be responsible for holding and attracting our cliental and ultimately closing the sale.
So I encourage all of you westerners interested in traditional archery to plan on attending and please contact myself 208-853-0555
[email protected] or Dave Doran 541-388-8400
[email protected] if you have a suggestion on what type of seminars you would like to attend during your visit. And please encourage as many bowyers, arrowsmiths, and traditional archery suppliers to attend. Where else can you shoot so many bows and meet so many suppliers in one place west of the Mississippi. It would be travesty to let the Expo disappear, forever.
Topic: Trad Expo West (Read 394 times)
