http://www.easternsportshow.co...=1867&appname=100280

Eastern Sports Show Feb. 7 thru 15

Who is going and when???

Have been there before and will see how it is this year...Going to do maybe 4 or 5 days..


Mike

Going down this Sunday, will have Brenda's youngest son with me. He has been hooked on SCI, he won a rifle at last years Allegheny Mts Chapter banquet.

I will be there both weekends , working at
The Hunt of a Lifetime Foundation booth in the west hall. If I am not there I am visiting our outfitter friends, who have donated hunts for our children. The ones from Africa are Agarob Safaris,Nhosab,Motsomi Safaris,Sportsmans Safaris., East Cape Safaris etc etc.
I hope you guys will stop by, would be great meeting you both.
Mike , you have to know Grant Fritz as he rep. us at the Lehigh SCI banquet.

I'll probably be there either Friday 13th or Saturday 14th. I'll be wandering around looking for a reason to spend way too much money.

I will be in booth 4608 main hall, my first year on the forum and would be great to put faces to names.

J.L

I'll be there for the whole show at the Goex booth. It will be good to put some faces with the names.

Ed, I will see you there Sunday.. I will be coming there for multiple days and will stop and see you guys...


Mike

Ahhh, to be retired. . . . .

Mike, I'll be there Monday, Feb. 9th. Thanks for the event in Dallas, and hope to see you in Harrisburg.

I'll miss the first weekend but will be there the following Saturday. Good show last year.

You guys who are going please look for Warthog Safaris and tell Tienie and Ananja Bamberger hello from Fred...would appreciate it...

quote:

Originally posted by John Luyt:
I will be in booth 4608 main hall, my first year on the forum and would be great to put faces to names.

J.L

Hey John. Hope the PA weather isn't too cold for you and Roelof! Hannes has once again brought cold weather to AK...it's been below zero at night here. We're meeting him for dinner on Sat. He gave me your cell. I'll try remember the time diff, and not harass you guys at 2AM.

Jeff

I will be working booth 3426 in the NorthWest hall. I fly out in the morning. Stop by and introduce yourself if any of you make it there. I'll be signing the Little Sportsman books.
Rob

Guys, give us a heads up on how it went, we are thinking of going there next year!

I spoke to a couple of my friends whom marketed in the States....the report is not good. Apparently PG hunts is down to a bare min. but DG hunts sold good.

Some guys were over there for a month now without booking one hunt??!!

Charl,
If you do go , make sure you can get in the MAIN hall or at the very Least the WEST hall.
settle for nothing less and only get one booth.
It will also help your expenses if you can find a local client who would store your booth table , chairs, skins,mounts etc. and also help at your booth.
Having a saisfied local client working in your booth helps at this show. just my $.02

Got some family issues that have my schedule screwed up, but will probably be a couple days, through the week.
Will try to look up AR folks!
Maybe we could do an AR breakfast? Any thoughts?
Bfly

Mike et al,

I will be going on Saturday to help out Keerweder Safaris, Bennie Beukes is the PH to help him set up his booth (#5023) and probably hang around for a bit for the day. I’m still undecided if I will go back on Sunday probably depends on the traffic on Saturday. If anyone is interested in a great Namibian plains game hunt stop by the booth and say hello. I hunted with them in 2006 and we are going back this year in May. Brandon, my son, is going along on his first safari. I have no financial interest, just helping out some great people and the chance to talk all thinks Africa for a few days. Brandon and I will go to the show on Thursday afternoon and we’ll help him close down the booth on Sunday.

I am also pretty sure that another one of the safari outfits I did my first safari with, Africa Bushveld Safaris, will be exhibiting at both 2822, they are listed as exhibiting but I have not been able to get email confirmation. They are good bunch of guys to do a South African plains game hunt with.

I have been going to the show for nearly 30 years; it will be interesting to see what the attendance is like this year. As was discussed in another thread the show has a lot more than just hunting so it might be hard to judge because of the mixture of hobbies. I’ll look for fellow AR Colleagues to say hello, will be great to match up faces and names.

Paul

Paul--Africa Bushveld Safaris will be there. I spoke with Marius the other day. I have hunted with him twice, and you are right--he gives you a great plains game experience. Be sure and see him and look at his new DVD.

Well my first day will be Sunday Feb. 8th and coming back on Monday the 9th and will be back a few more times next week also...


Mike

Well guys will see you at the Eastern sports show starting my visits tomorrow..

Mike

Mike,
Keep us up to date as to what you find.

Rick

quote:

Well guys will see you at the Eastern sports show starting my visits tomorrow..

Mike

Mike, please stop by booth 4608 and say hi to John Luyt for Irene and I - and ask him how his wrestling match with a wildebeast at Roelof's farm turned out.

quote:

Originally posted by Ej:
Charl,
If you do go , make sure you can get in the MAIN hall or at the very Least the WEST hall.
settle for nothing less and only get one booth.
It will also help your expenses if you can find a local client who would store your booth table , chairs, skins,mounts etc. and also help at your booth.
Having a saisfied local client working in your booth helps at this show. just my $.02

Thank you Sir, that sounds like good advice.

Well guys, got home from show and have lots more to see..

On the way in met Sally's Dad going to hunt leopard with Karl Stumpfle...
Fred talked to Tenie..
Talked to EJ he will be in RSA hunting chui... Had great time speaking to him and his wife...
Will make the rounds tomorrow again..

John Luyt you are not in 4608 but # 6408 found you...Thanks Palmer...

Crowds were there... Talked to many outfitters and some were slow and one guy told me things were going great...
Will post again tomorrow...


Mike

Mike ,
was a plesure meeting you and will heed your advice. Many thanks.
Sat. was a busy show with some bookings made according to outfitters i talked to.With our foundation we found 5 youth in need of our services and took steps to grant them a Hunt of a Lifetime. Today was a slow day . I will be back Fri. thru end of show.

Didn't think I'd make it today, but had the chance and went. Glad to meet Retreever on the way in, nice surprise!
Lots of people there, got a bit bottlenecked, I'm sure weekdays would be better, but...
Jetdrvr- I stopped by the Warthog booth, said hi from Fred and they said I was the second one to say howdy from you.
I kept hearing how the African outfitters were doing well at the show.
Hope you have a good time if you go, that place is a maze to get through!

Mike, missed your call. Met sharpsguy andf saw pictures of his sucess on plains game game with his Sharps. Nice putting faces to names. A few hrs was enough for another year. Too many baby buggies etc. Oh let'er fly for that comment.

Jim and I were at the show on Sunday. We had a wonderful time and will be heading back there on Saturday and Sunday, the 14th and 15th.

We were there ALL day and only saw a fraction of the show.

Well day two and make the rounds and spoke to many PHs from Africa to Rocky mountain hunts... Seems some are booking and some slow...
During the final days I am going to see in the Main Hall What African hunts were booked DG or plains game...
If you are interested in getting your children 4 or 5 years olds a book about hunting and not a tree hugging book Filmit has the Little Sportsman Books... being a librarian I thoroughly looked them over and alot of thought and creativity went into them.. Great illistrations by great artists...I purchased the African one and will be given to my grandson on his birthday in two weeks... A young boy following in his grandfathers steps hunting with a double rifle...

Met with some fellow AR members did find John Luyt at 6408 and he was correct the office transposed the first two numbers 46... Great Guy..

The crowds were as large as the Sunday attendence

Mike

Retreever,
It was great meeting you and your wife today. Be sure and stop by again. I want to talk more about lion hunting. And thanks for the plug on the book.

Filmit,
Will you be there Friday ? If so I will see you then.

Ej,
Yes I will be there on Friday. Swing by for sure so we can meet.

I would say of all the shows I've done this year, this one has the biggest crowds and the worst for sales. No one seems to be buying much. I last did this show five years ago and after four days have barely done in total sales what I did on my slowest day the last time I was here.

One funny thing I noticed is that normally my sales are about 60-70% credit card sales and 30-40% cash. Now they are about 80% cash and 20% plastic. So maybe everyone who was living on credit has been maxed out and cut off or possibly (hopefully) just more frugal.

Slow sales seem to be the general consensus here with all the other vendors I've talked to. Most say they won't even make their booth costs back. So I think the recession is definitely in full swing and seems to be getting worse by the week.

I've never seen such discounts and good deals at a show before. For instance camoflauge wool woolrich coats for $40. I looked up the same coat online and it's $165. Prices seem to be getting cheaper by the day. So I'm definitely going to pick up a few things before I go. The down side is, I flew in so I don't have a lot of room.

So if you guys want some good deals this seems like the time. I'm pretty sure haggling would be quite effective about now.

I'm not trying to sound pessimistic because I'm not. There's just been a lot of threads lately about the shows and thought I'd throw out my observations.

My wife, nephew and I went to the show yesterday and had a great time. One of the highlights was meeting Retreever and his very nice wife for an interesting and entertaining lunch. Retreever plugged one of Filmit's books, and my nephew bought one for his son.

It was a large crowd, but there was a lot to see, and to my inexperienced eye, there did seem to be some good discounts. Working on a pronghorn hunt this year - return to Africa will probably have to wait a couple of years.

Thanks, Mike, for all the good info.

Rollyshootercpc, Thank you and got the email again thank you...

Filmit will be back Thursday....For round three...

Mike

Mike,
I'll see you thursday.
Rolly,
I don't remember who your nephew was but I hope they enjoy the book.