And out of the darkness has emerged Show Sleuth.  Some of you will love me.
Some will hate me.  But I'm here out of pure intentions.  I love a good
ferret show.  I go to as many as I can.  Some are great, some aren't.  But
nobody puts on a show with the idea that it will stink.  Sometimes things
go wrong.  And even really good shows sometimes do things that need
improvement.  Many show attendees don't feel comfortable about speaking up.
Look at me, I'm not exactly giving out my name here either, I don't want to
have them lock the doors when I show up at a show.  So Show Sleuth was
born.  Show Sleuth will report on shows, and hopefully rather than create
bad feelings or controversy, Show Sleuth will only create bigger, better
shows with the feedback that is offered.  And I welcome replies!!
Something I saw or overheard may not be what someone else felt.  And there
will be no personal slamming.  I'm not here for that junk.  Just general
observations about shows.
 
So here s'the first report  Columbus Ohio show this past weekend.
 
Overheard at the show was a lot more negative comments than positive.
It's a shame.  Last year's show was great, maybe a little hot but overall
the show was first rate.  To go from that to having mostly complaints is
disappointing.  The layout and size of the show hall was the biggest
problem, and honestly was the root of nearly all other problems.  It was
very difficult if not impossible to really enjoy wandering the vendor
tables, the aisles were too narrow and if you stopped to browse, people
behind you would run into you or growl that they couldn t get by.  A number
of vendors said that sales were not good and thought that it may be for
that reason.  The fact that the show hall was on the 2nd floor of the hotel
was also not a good move, as general consensus had it.  A cage company was
there, and the workers for it had to carry all of their cages up the steps
as the elevator was not working.  Even small vendors were disappointed that
they had to lug up the steps all of their things.  People with multiple
ferret cages had to lug up their cages.  And then there was the issue of
exhibitor space
 
There were far too few exhibitor tables.  Lines formed just after 6 am of
determined people wanting to reserve space for their ferrets and
belongings.  Many people did not get a table and had to keep their ferrets
in their hotel rooms, IF they had a room, and if it was close enough to the
show hall that they could run back and forth for classes.  That is crazy -
there should never be too little room for the exhibitors that were paying
for the show hall that was too small in the first place.
 
The show was carrier style like other shows that are championship but that
apparently had problems, I'm not sure exactly why this didn't work out the
way other shows did, but I heard that one exhibitor sent his ferret up and
after judging picked up his carrier and discovered that it was not his
ferret.  Apparently it all worked out but after that there were no more
carriers, which when that announcement was made, everyone in the show hall
cheered an amazing hooray.
 
One other major problem with the show I can't really fault the Ohio folks
for.  They tried something new that if it had worked out as planned, it
would have been an incredible first for shows.  Rather than tabulate show
scores by hand, they had computers set up so when judges finished their
scoring sheets they gave it to data entry people and the scores were put
into a database, and the idea was then that comments and scores would be
printed out on stickers that exhibitors could pick up and see how they
did.  Well, the database had many problems, scores wound up being manually
calculated anyway, and everyone complained.  But I would say that this idea
is worth revisiting again in the future for anyone willing to give it a
shot, the bugs just need to be worked out.  However if they are to try to
print out the scores and comments, Show Sleuth has one big suggestion - do
it by class, then sort the results by entry number, and print them all out
at once.  Don't try to print them out as they are done.  The result was an
eight foot long table with little stickers printed out in absolutely no
order, and piles of people trying to look for their ferrets number to no
avail.  If they d been in order, by ring number, that would have been
great.  But as it was, it was awful.
 
Show Sleuth is not evil and is not here to judge any show unfairly.  There
were good points as well as bad as there are in every show.  Show Sleuth
certainly does not want people to stop going to ANY show; the whole idea is
to improve every show so that they re all so terrific that everyone wants
to go.  Among the good things about the Ohio show: The two people that it
seemed that were putting on the show, Pam and Lori (don't know the last
names) were amazing.  Much more pleasant than most I ve seen at other
shows.  Also, if not for the fact that the show hall was too small, there
was an amazing selection of vendors that many shows would only wish for.
The hotel that the show was in was nice, and a major major big plus is that
the show was held in the hotel that people stayed in.  As mentioned above,
Show Sleuth gives an A for effort for the database idea of scoring, it
turned out badly but still is worthy of mention.
 
Furthermore it must be said that this organization put on a terrific show
last year and it was overheard that next year the show will be held in a
hall the size of two soccer fields.  If this is the case, then I sure think
that this will be a show worth going to.  Based on last year's show and the
fact that most of the serious problems of this show were rooted to the size
of the hall, then I expect to see a first-rate show next year in Columbus
Ohio.
 
Show Sleuth report: done!
[Posted in FML issue 2789]