Tying some things together. A few years back Lee yelled at us and told us to tone down are comments. We mostly did. But now I guess he realizes we are the majority opinion on the subject.
Worse, NGD used to be the big dog. Everything else was sort of planned around the floating dates. He could wipe out another show just by picking his date at the same time. That's changed dramatically. Most of us weigh the options and often as not, we go to the other show.
Maybe one of the traits that make a gunshow promoter is a lot of self centered personal habits. That can be over done, and the need to run others down to make him feel good is a bad habit. He has the need for power and to wield it at every opportunity. No, I have no idea why he came to Kentucky to run as an Ohio senator. You can give a thousand campaign speeches in Kentucky and not pick up a single vote in Ohio.
On the Jerry Taylor thing, I don't even know if he's still alive. He had a terrible health problem a few years ago. I'd heard it rumored that he lost his FFL, but not why. His venues were pretty small, with the one in Winchester just tiny. It didn't matter, the shows still had enough vendors and customers to get by. And he started a thing that Kenny Woods picked up. Wives and children were free. He knew the only reason they came long was because dad was going. Back then it was bad enough to charge $5, but to try to extort that again from the wife and kids made the show unaffordable. Move that to the current time and $12 per person could easily be why NGD is down so much in attendance. With gun show food costly as all get out, and lousy to boot, it kind of loses its appeal.
On the Kenny Woods thing, he still comes along to most shows. The guy who mans the back door is his brother. Maybe no say in the management but RK does a good job. They put on a bunch of mid size shows. None in the 500-1000 table range, but small shows with a good number of private tables is fun. Offers the opportunity to buy some scarce or never seen items.
