My office runs this show, although we are not in charge of this particular park. The conditions were pretty horrendous. Several vendors’ vehicles became stuck, including one Ford Explorer that had the front corner sunk up to the top of the tire in mud, requiring us to bring the front end loader over to pull it out. The grading and drainage work done by the contactor certainly needs to be re-examined although part of the problem was related to the grading work being completed only a few weeks before the show. The grass seed was only beginning to germinate and many areas were entirely bare earth.
As far as the venders are concerned, I received mixed reports. At least three told me that they did so well on Saturday that they did not plan on returning the next day, since they had virtually nothing left to sell. One boat dealer was particularly amazed and thrilled since he normally is happy to sell only one or two boats at the show and sold all six of the ones he brought on Saturday. Several vendors told me they did well on Sunday too. This didn’t surprise me since we have a history of bad weather for this show, including hurricanes, and the bad weather years have never coincided with bad selling years for the vendors. Waterfowlers are a pretty hardy bunch and not easily phased by rain and mud. When the conditions at the show are bad the numbers of public go down but the percentage of them who are serious and there to spend money goes up. The casual browsers of the type who also visit the cranberry festival are the ones who stay home. No great loss for the vendors.
A few of the unhappy vendors were ones who were at the park for the first time, having been relocated from the high school when we decided to not use that site as a show venue this year. It obviously wasn’t the best first impression for them. But several ex-high school vendors told me they did well and would not go back to the high school if it was even offered again. The retrieving, shooting and decoy competitions have always made that site the heart of the show, drawing the biggest numbers of serious visitors.
So, it was indeed a muddy mess, resembling the conditions at Woodstock, but by most accounts of Woodstock that I’ve heard, that was considered a pretty successful event as well.
