Daytona breeders expo

Is there anyone else that is going to the expo in Daytona August 18-20th?


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Yep! I'll be helping out at Travis Whisler Reptiles. Stop by and say "Hi" to the gang (Travis, John, Jeremy, Jud, Joe and Don). A great group of guys to spend time with and amazing animals too! It doesn't get much better than that.:crazy02:

Terri

I regret not approaching you at Tinley last fall, Terri. I didn't really know you outside of this forum, so I got all shy and just chatted with Don since we had talked a lot previously. Every time I considered it, you appeared to be in conversation with someone else.

I wish I could attend Daytona. It's too expensive to just go hang out. If I were looking to buy stuff or vend I'd be there.

There is always Tinley this year....

Terri

I'm planning to attend. If I never get around to shipping this pair of adults to Don I can always bring them to him LOL.

I am planning on going. I have never been to the Daytona expo, or any show of that magnitude. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding the number of vendors with corn snakes has greatly diminished. From what I have heard it is starting to become wall to wall displays of ball pythons and bearded dragons with a handful of boas, gekcos, and turtles/tortoises. And when it comes to colubrids, the hognose seems to the chosen breed. Please don't get me wrong, by no means is this fact, I can only go by what I have been told by someone who has gone the last 4 years. I will still be going, as corn snakes are not my only interest. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on whether this is true or just someone's opinion.

I think the large venues have a hard time attracting any vendor who needs to sell many modestly priced animals just to break even. Ball Python breeders can sell a single animal and cover their entire trip, (table $300, electricity $80, Hotel $120/night, food $75/day, airfare $350, and the cost of getting your display and animals to the show and back home again $$$, not to mention 3 or 4 long days spent working for what amounts to peanuts.I'm not even going to get into how long it takes to prepare and then restock once you get back home.) If the average corn snake sells for $40 to $100, a breeder needs to sell a lot of animals before they even begin to see a profit. It helps if the vendor lives close to the show but it is still a big expense that is tough to recoup. Most people go to Daytona, Arlington and Tinley to "look" at animals, meet up with online friends and chat with the big name breeders. If you were to ask some one like Walter Smith who used to do Daytona every year and has a great selection of animals for sale why they no longer vend, I'd bet they would agree that it just doesn't make fiscal sense.

Terri

We used to do a lot of shows at one time, but eventually I had to take a look at the bottom line and I determined that if instead of doing any one of most of the shows we did, we just stayed home and ran a "50% OFF" sale, we would usually come out ahead. And without the hassles of doing the show, and without having to stretch out the feeding schedules of all those newly hatched babies. Quite honestly, I think most people who have a decent online presence these days have probably come to the same conclusion.

I once got into an argument with someone who felt that I should do all the shows I could, just for the opportunity to meet up with people and talk with them. Yeah, that's all well and good if I were only paying the walk-in ticket fee, but how many people would be willing to do that if the entrance fee for being a vendor was more like $1,000+?

Haven't been to Daytona for a few years now, and not sure Connie and I will make it this year neither. Quite honestly, the description of Daytona being wall to wall ball pythons has been pretty accurate. And not being an aficionado of the species, quite a few of them looked pretty much identical, regardless of the price tags and labels on them. So I got burned out pretty quickly just looking at them. And there is the solar eclipse taking place on 08-21 that we are toying with the idea of running up to South Carolina to experience first hand. Daytona comes around each year, but solar eclipses, not so often.

I'm going! And leaving Sunday to go to Charleston to see the eclipse.

BTW, I checked motels and hotels around Santee, SC, and they are ALL sold out.

Of course, I also checked the long range weather forecast and they are calling for afternoon thunderstorms. But that is the every day forecast in the southeast this time of year. But there is likely a real good chance that I won't even be able to see the sun through the clouds, so I'm not sure I am going to risk a wasted trip.

You know, I remember experiencing at least as partial solar eclipse when I was much younger, but I didn't know anything about it at the time. All I knew that it got much darker outside and yet it wasn't cloudy. Can't recall actually looking up at the sun, but it seems to me that the sun was much more yellow and not nearly as bright as it is now.

Katie Haluska and I rented a house from Home Away (really cool app on the phone has all the details!!) in Beaufort. We're hoping to go to that serpentarium up there. I'm not sure it's necessary to see the sun. That isn't what draws me to it. I clearly remember a total eclipse when I was about 20- I was making a mid-day deposit at the bank, for the business I worked for, and while in line at the drive-through- it got dark!! Super cool. I did buy eclipse glasses and binoculars and a filter for my phone's camera. And a T-shirt. It's not happening again for quite a long time.

Looks like we won't be going anywhere. Connie is up in Delaware and came down with the flu or something. I don't want her driving all foggy headed so she is going to be stranded up there with her sister for the duration. I would be scared to death thinking she was driving down route 95 with the brain fog that normally comes with a cold or the flu. Not sure how long the symptoms will be for her, but highly unlikely she will get home before the weekend anyway. She says that her sister has been sick as well as her sister's boy friend, and it seems to linger for quite a while before at least her sister started feeling better. Actually Connie's sister's boyfriend is going to the doctor today because he has been feeling sick for so long. Not sure where Connie picked it up, because she said she felt like her throat was a little scratchy when she drove up to Delaware on Monday last week. So maybe there is now a mixture of Florida germs and Delaware germs up there. But the timing, to me, seems to indicate that what she is experiencing right now is from germs she picked up either along the way, or when she got up there to her sister's house. Her sister called before Connie left to warn her that she was feeling sick. I'm kind of leaning towards thinking that way, because I feel fine, and had Connie started getting sick here, I likely would have been exposed to the same germs too.

So that means no solar eclipse for us too. I don't think Connie is going to feel up to any sort of trip when she does get back home. Probably just as well, because it appears that the weather in the southeast is really disturbed and going to be that way for a while. The long term forecast for coastal South Carolina on 08-21 is 40 to 50 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms. So what are the chances of clear skies where we could even see the eclipse? We are getting rain and thunderstorms every afternoon, so I imagine South Carolina isn't going to be much better. And, of course, the eclipse there will be in the afternoon roughly between 1 and 4 pm, which is prime time for thunderstorms to develop. So I imagine I'll just have to be satisfied with watching videos of the eclipse that others were able to capture.

It is what it is, I guess.

What a bummer. I cringe every time a snowbird friend says he or she is coming down for a quick visit. Half the time they come in coughing and we run around the house with Lysol wiping everything down except the dogs.

Back in the day, this was always the worst week of the year. The dreaded "WEEK BEFORE EXPO." Babies still hatching out, pretty much the peak of babies already hatched out, trying to get last minute orders out the door, trying to get EVERYTHING cleaned and fed before we leave for the weekend, trying to pick out which animals will be going to Expo, doing pre-packing for the show, answering phone calls (one year I actually had to take the phone off of the hook for a couple of days), getting all the mouse cages cleaned and water bottles filled to the top, etc., etc. All the time thinking, about the only thing that will make matters worse is if we completely bomb at the show and wind up bringing most of these babies back home with us. I still have mental scars of some of the Tampa shows we used to do. One of those shows we only sold one leopard gecko and one corn snake the entire weekend. I would actually walk out into the aisle and look at out tables thinking "what is wrong with our setup?" I don't know about others, but something like that is pretty crushing to you. I can see where some people might just throw in the towel after a smack in the face like that.

I remember one year some friends dropped into visit THE WEEK BEFORE EXPO. And they were reptile people too. Yet I think we offended them because while they were sitting on the rockers on our front porch, Connie and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get everything done that needed to be done. :hair_on_fire:

Ah, the nightmares............

Anyway, haven't heard from Connie since yesterday afternoon. Man I hope she is feeling better today.

I can sure remember the days when the reptile shows had lookers, but no buyers. Some days it seemed that whatever leopard gecko morphs we were selling, the buyers were looking for something else. Then there were vendors who checked out your prices and reduced theirs by an amount to undercut you. GRRRR! One time the only thing we sold out of the hundred snakes, geckos, and tortoises was a normal leopard gecko a guy wanted for his granddaughter. I let her pick it out and gave it to the guy for half price. My son was really griping because I didn't get the full price, so I asked him how many reptiles he sold, and the answer was none.

Hope Connie is feeling better.

The way it works now is all the cool stuff is sold to other vendors Friday during set-up, and the gen pop never gets to see it. :-(

Heck, I stopped pricing my animals at shows until right before the doors opened. Well except at the show the year I decided to retire. When other vendors saw the low prices I had on things, I think some of them almost had a coronary. I heard griping about that for a LONG time afterwards. Well, except for the other vendors that took advantage of the sale prices themselves. Yeah, like they all wanted me to keep my prices high until AFTER they had sold their animals. :laugh:

That was the only year we sold out completely. And that was only because Mark Bell offered to buy everything left over when I made him a really sweet deal. I'll tell you what, it was a great feeling to be driving home without a bunch of animals that needed to be put back on the shelves and into the feeding schedule.

Anyway, I heard from Connie. She will be heading back home tomorrow. She said she wasn't really going to feel like going anywhere over the weekend, and I told her that was no surprise to me. Her voice did sound a little bit better, so hopefully she is on the mend. Odd thing is that I have felt a little congested and even had a little bit of sore throat yesterday. How those bugs got transmitted over the phone lines, I'll never understand. But hopefully I won't get knocked on my butt with something. I should go out and work in the yard, but I think I'm going to take it easy today to allow my immune system the reserves it needs to fight off any bugs trying to get a foothold in me.

So take pics and video of Expo, please. At least I can see how it went that way afterwards.

Nanci said:

The way it works now is all the cool stuff is sold to other vendors Friday during set-up, and the gen pop never gets to see it. :-(

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That isn't new. Every show I have ever vended (20+years) worked that way. Some of the deals at the NARBE happened way before Friday even. And it's not just the vendors. The overseas people pick through and buy the very best before it even makes it to the table. I have guys taking stuff out of the box I'm working on before I can put it on display. I remember the first year Travis Whisler Reptiles set up at Tinley a person bought everything that was on two whole 8 foot tables. We had to scramble to spread out what was left so as not to look barren. Travis was a little bummed at how the booth appeared and I had to remind him that the show, for him as a vendor, was about selling snakes first and appearances second.
There are still some amazing animals on display for the public who didn't splurge for the VIP passes though. Last year at Daytona I found a Mandarin Stripe on Sunday when I finally got to walk the show. That boy should have been long gone at his $40 price tag.

Terri

I would break my no more new snakes rule for a mandarin stripe! Heck, I just moved 19 snakes out today, and didn't even have to vend ;-)

I can't wait to go window shopping and socialize and I'm sure I'll find some wine glass or T-shirt or book or whatever, so I don't go home empty handed.

Books? That reminds me. I guess I should sell off my herp library. Maybe some year Connie and I will get a table at Expo and lug all these books there to sell them off. Might be easier that way than to take pictures of them all and put them up on a website to move them out. That would take FOREVER to do.

I will likely keep a few of them, but I can't see any reason to keep the more technical ones I have. And the old ones. I think I have one that was written in the 1800s, if I remember correctly.

Of course, figuring out what they are worth will be a challenge. Certainly some of them will be collectibles as they are long out of print.

Or does anyone even read books any longer? oke: