Fly Fishing Retailer show heading for a new home in 2010

[Editor]

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: Fly Fishing Retailer show heading for a new home in 2010

Strange that after the fact that the split has been caused by concerns the fly fishing market is too small to sustain a trade show we may end up with 2 or even more if you include Chuck Furimsky's planned new trade show also!

[MoscaPescador]

I heard stories of FFR going to a new location, but to have multiple shows would be insane. The cost to put up one show is expensive. What kind of attendance numbers are expected? My guess is a low number. Many shop owners won't go to FFR because of the cost. Keep in mind that these are small businesses that are happy to keep their cost sheets in the black.

I'm not sure about other regions, but the different sales reps in Northern California have been good to the shop that I work at showing next year's products before it's time to write preseason orders. Because of this, there is no need to spend the money to travel to Denver (from Sacramento County, CA).

My shop manager/buyer made the trip to Denver in 2007. He had some spare airlines miles that he had to use up, so he didn't have to pay for airfare. Besides meeting some old friends, he reallized that he didn't need to attend. Everything would have been covered by rep visits.

MP

[fish_gypsy]

That's basically the sentiment at my local shop- the trade show is nice to meet up with friends and see some products you probably wouldn't see otherwise. But the regional reps are more or less on top of keeping the employees informed of new products and issues, so the trade show is more or less an excuse to get out and do some fishing for a week.

As an aside, I get a fair amount of stuff secondhand from my local shop employees- typically freebies and samples from vendors at the show. I'm not slamming anybody, but alot of the products, tying-wise, are similar to products already on the market, just a different name. In that sense, it's hard for a shop owner to have two of the same items, with different names or manufacturers, competing with each other.

I'd still like to see one of those shows if I get the chance, though : )

[flyguy66]

There is a lot of new thinking that needs to go on in this industry!

FFR was never designed to be good for retailers or mfgs. It was designed to be good for AFFTA and Neilsen. Retailers paid to go and mfgs paid to make it happen. AFFTA netted $700,000 off of the 2008 show that was supposed to be spent to grow fly fishing in 2009. How did that work out? 2008? 2007?

A model that helps retailers and mfgs prosper can't be a big dent in very shallow bottom lines. It was called the Fly Fishing Retailer Expo. The vast majority of them are very small businesses operating on pretty thin margins. An expensive trip to a convention to see the new merchandise isn't the right model.

All of the back-and-forth between AFFTA and Neilsen was about how to keep FFR profitable for THEM, not how to make it better serve fly fishing retailers and mfgs. And therein lies the problem. It doesn't matter where you have it or how many of them there are if nobody shows up because it doesn't fit THEIR business models.