Gunshow report, Louisville

[rburg]

OK, it was lousy. Not like me to flower up a report with lies. Surely not worth getting up before 6 and driving over a hundred miles. Just no body there except bored vendors. Its dangerous for us old guys to sit around and think about it, too. The most frequently heard question was "I wonder when the promoter is going to let the paying customers in" Except there nearly were none. Another joke was that there were only 3 people inside with any money, and one was the promoter (he had ours.)

OK, the food was terrible. I had a thing they said was a burger, but I wonder if it was even edible. My wife had a chili dog, but there were only traces of chili near the mini dog on the bun. As far as things I never thought I'd see, my table partner Joe decided against the awful meat named products and went outside for ice cream. It was so bad he threw it away! $5 out the door.

So it wasn't all bad. Matt Fugate of the Fugate Brothers brought along his wife. She's one of those girls/women that everyone seems to like. A while back I gave her a promotion here, from being a pretty girl to a very pretty girl. And she's nice to talk to . The used to show up as an entourage. There were the brothers, the pretty girl, the big guy (who was at least 6-6 and probably 300#, not fat. And then the little guy or his preference, the old guy. That was the bright spot of the show.

I did sell a clunky old knife I'd been hauling all over for a few years. And I found and bought a box of 32 Colt shorts. No, not S&W. I even paid the sellers price of $35, not expecting to ever see them again, or at least at a reasonable price. I bought 3 LED lanterns for grand kids on one side. And a few credit card knives for stocking stuffers for my sons. And some genuine gold chains for my grand daughters (I know they're genuine because I bought them from my table partner.)

A while back Lee even told us to back off our criticism of the promoter. We had been on his case for ruining his shows. I guess its his to ruin. The deal always was we had to pay dearly for our tables, bring in good stuff, show up on time, etc. His job was to bring in enough paying customers to make it all worthwhile. No, I don't know how to run a good gunshow. Apparently he doesn't any more either. Over the years he's run off a bunch of good vendors. Its coming back to haunt him.

And there is an old rule. Never give a preacher, a salesman or a politician a microphone. He gets on the thing and demands everyone be quiet. That only works for a few minutes of his extended speech. Then the dealers figure its going to go on forever and go back to selling. No one wants bad accustics and someone droning on. Maybe he doesn't know we can't understand a word he says.

And our friends Paul (bengals fan) and Dave didn't show. They were the lucky ones.

 

[bengal fan]

Dick,
Well, I guess I'm glad I didn't make this one. I would have been there, but I've been in Tennessee on business & just got back tonight.
Hopefully the next show will be better, maybe RK's Lexington show in November??
Sorry I missed you guys.
Paul

 

[brigham33]

I was there for 2 hours in the morning... Nice to walk the aisles, not much traffic. Bought an British Enfield revolver just as a proof I'd been there. Did not see anyone I knew, but I don't know anybody so that figures.

 

[ky wonder]

I gave up on him a few years back, I had set up at his shows many times in the late 90s and early 2000's, sold some nice stuff, and bought some good guns.

But I saw him treat a disabled veteran awful one day.in the dining area, the guy had laid a rifle on the table so he could set down his over priced soda and sandwich, and before the guy could take his seat, our promoter was talking to him like a dog, the veteran stated he was sorry, he was just trying to get set down and did want the rifle to fall off while he was setting down.

Our promoter told him very nasty like he did not care get the gun off the table

The guy took his rifle off the table and said be was sorry
I walked over to his table and offered to let him set at my paid for tables, and told our promoter what I thought of the way he had treated the guy, and told him he could feel free to rent my 3 tables and remove my name from his mailing list.
And after packing up that evening I have not been back

 

[doublesharp]

Best thing about today's show was the traffic jam after closing. Took 20 minutes to get from Ring Rd to Crittenden Dr at gate 1. Reason was all the tailgate crowd for the Louisville- Clemson game. ESPN was there for Game Day so the crowd formed early and the booze was kicking in at 5:30. Cute college girls everywhere you looked, high spirits and optimism abound.

Point spread UofL +3. With 6 minutes to go Clemson's up 26. Ouch... that sucks as bad as the gun show. Not really, UofL is prime example for academic excess and fraud and they are too damned cocky. One sleazy scandal after another. Well 2 years in a row now Clemson has turned UL every way but loose.

Gun show schedule is goofy. This is too early for a fall show and now there won't be another NGD until mid Jan 2018.

KY Wonder, do you set up at Cave City? I think that's the best show in Kentucky but it's been a couple years since I've been there. Oct show is same w-end as Court Days so I've got a shot at a table. Show is normally always full w/a waiting list but Court Days are a Big Deal and most vendors will choose to set up at CD and get a substitute to take their Cave City table.

 

[LVSteve]

OK, it was lousy. Not like me to flower up a report with lies......

...And our friends Paul (bengals fan) and Dave didn't show. They were the lucky ones.

So you won't be setting up at one of "his" shows again?

 

[ldausmc1369]

Show is going the way of the dodo bird. Why would the Lexington show schedule the same weekend? Think they did this once before with the same results. The definition of insanity.....? Vendors who were stalwarts of the show keep disappearing and he's putting more distance between the aisles to compensate for lost tables. Rent and bond on that venue has to be steep, what with the competition for exhibit space at KFEC. Guess we will see how the fall Woods show turns out. They only have this show in 2017. Think they know something that NGD promoter doesn't?

 

[Jack Flash]

Dick Burg admits that some gunshows are bad?????

Wow, what was that pink thing with a snout and curly tail that just flew past my window?

 

[rburg]

Hey, I really like to tell it like it is. It was about as poor a show as I can remember. The Lexington show wasn't a gun show, it was a prepper show. No, I don't know what that means or is. If I hadn't been so bummed out about yesterdays show, I might have attended. But we were warned by the nice lady in Iowa that we might not be happy. And we couldn't have our normal table along the front wall unless we paid about double. Well, that wasn't going to happen.

It was an attempt by the promoter to defuse the conflicting dates problem. It still exists because the Cave City show is often scheduled opposite the Lexington shows. I've decided I can't get to Cave City from where I live. No roads.

The time will come when we don't have gun shows. And the promoters (plural) will be the ones to blame. This has been going on for a long time now. The stronger shows conspired to run Jerry Taylor out of business. They pretty much succeeded. But a lot of us long for the good old small shows.

And a few years ago Dickson decided to put his muscle up against Court Days in Mt. Sterling. That was sort of economic. We had to choose between a show that charges $8 to park and $12 to get in against one that was free or $4 to park and free. Guess which won. Better still, at Court Days you see a bunch of guns that never appear at gun shows.

Paul are you familiar with Court Days? Its about the 3rd weekend in October.

 

[doublesharp]

I pulled out at noon and there was 1 table left in the D1 block of 16 tables with guns on it. Hall was 2/3rds empty and the vibe was bad. Rumor was the Lex show was a joke. Some asked for their money back loudly and others said it took less than 30 minutes to see it all. RK still uses Kenny Woods name but I heard KW was no longer in the gun business at all. He was the best promoter I ever worked with but my opinion is he's smart enough to read the writing on the wall and realizes that gun shows are fading.

Since it's practically in my backyard I'll continue to set up at NGD simply because I like gun shows and gun show people but even a diehard like me needs to see a little money change hands.

 

[rburg]

I like gun shows and gun show people but even a diehard like me needs to see a little money change hands.

OH come on. You're not in the gunshow business, you're in the freight business, hauling the same old guns from show to show, for years on end! Worse, you keep adding in freight charges to each show, so the prices seem to be going up from where they were 5 years ago! I understand you living close because I live "far". Front door to parking space, its 104 miles.

What ever happened to the Tri-State shows, the ones that rented the Holiday Inn on Hurstborne?

 

[walter o]

I think it might be a sign of the times . Up in Indiana the shows have dropped and we have a tough time making table rent .Seems that is happening across the country now that we don't have the threat of gun confiscation looming . It is a vicious circle ,No patrons = fewer vendors, few vendors =less buyers .Old timers passing , new people have found the internet to buy from.
THINGS are a changing . It is always enjoyable to see old friends but wonder when they don't show up.

 

[Ben_hutcherson]

Forgot about it, but it sounds like I didn't miss anything. I need to try and make the next Lexington show...

Hearing R.D. on the loud speaker all day is enough to turn anyone off...

 

[Bekeart]

Poor Acoustics and Poor Microphone Useage

And there is an old rule. Never give a preacher, a salesman or a politician a microphone. (snipped) No one wants bad accustics and someone droning on. Maybe he doesn't know we can't understand a word he says.

Do not remember any gun show where there were GOOD ACOUSTICS for the room and the sound system provided decent/acceptable.understandable intelligibility.

The most common cause of poor intelligibility is the person speaking and using poor microphone technique. A twenty dollar microphone CAN produce GOOD sound - when properly used. An expensive microphone does not insure quality sound - unless used properly.

 

[brigham33]

Well this is all very interesting to me. I had heard about Court Days 20 years ago when I moved to KY, now I see where/what it is. My wife will enjoy the festival and I'll enjoy seeing a few old guns! Thanks!!

The week before is the CCA in St Charles, my first one of those.

I see all these posters from KY maybe one of these days I'll meet one of you.

Rick

 

[ben_g1]

All this makes me appreciate the shows that Big Bore Enterprises puts on in my area. Lots of room between tables, decent food, and best of all veterans are admitted free .

 

[Walking Dead]

RK Show - Lexington

The Lexington Show was great for me. Not too big of a crowd but they were spending money. Sunday was better than Saturday and Saturday was pretty decent. I sold 4 guns and some other stuff and the guys on both sides of me did very well too. Sure am glad I didn't do Louisville and have to put up with Dixon and the Louisville Ballgame Tailgaters....RK Lexington 5 Stars .... Walking Dead

 

[gunzo]

rburg is not exaggerating about the promoter.
A few years back, I was standing in line at N.G.D., a long line. One ticket taker, one gun inspector, a couple hundred people in that line, another hundred in the ticket line. Two ticket sellers, another hundred in that line. Some guy close to me says with slightly elevated volume, for what we're paying to get in, you'd think they could hire some help.
Here comes mr. promoter with that wild as usual look on his face, tells the guy that if he didn't like it to get out a go home, offered to give his ticket money back. I wanted badly to remind him that the poor guy may have driven a hundred miles to get there, just like me. But didn't say a word, knowing that if mr.promoter talked to me like he did the other guy....................I had driven a hundred miles, I grit my teeth & kept my trap shut.
After finally getting in, seeing, smelling all those hundreds, thousands of guns, my blood cooled & I enjoyed the day. But my memory of mr.promoter has not weakened. That was my last NGD.

 

[ky wonder]

KY Wonder, do you set up at Cave City? I think that's the best show in Kentucky but it's been a couple years since I've been there. Oct show is same w-end as Court Days so I've got a shot at a table. Show is normally always full w/a waiting list but Court Days are a Big Deal and most vendors will choose to set up at CD and get a substitute to take their Cave City table.

I have set up many times at cave city, as I get older and my knees hurt all the time,a lot of times I will just fill tables on Sunday .

I like the cave city show, Steve keeps out the yard sale junk so it is really a gun and knife show, he has a couple of vendors who are only there on Saturdays, and he lets me fill some empty tables on Sunday it helps him and me as well

I am not there to make a profit but to enjoy the day visiting with gun folks, but have made some great deals there as well, I usually take most of everything back home, unless I have a chance to upgrade my collection.

I know about court days since I have a daughter in law and grand children who live in Winchester but were raised in Mount Sterling, but I have never made it to the gathering

 

[LVSteve]

rburg is not exaggerating about the promoter.
A few years back, I was standing in line at N.G.D., a long line. One ticket taker, one gun inspector, a couple hundred people in that line, another hundred in the ticket line. Two ticket sellers, another hundred in that line. Some guy close to me says with slightly elevated volume, for what we're paying to get in, you'd think they could hire some help.
Here comes mr. promoter with that wild as usual look on his face, tells the guy that if he didn't like it to get out a go home, offered to give his ticket money back. I wanted badly to remind him that the poor guy may have driven a hundred miles to get there, just like me. But didn't say a word, knowing that if mr.promoter talked to me like he did the other guy....................I had driven a hundred miles, I grit my teeth & kept my trap shut.
After finally getting in, seeing, smelling all those hundreds, thousands of guns, my blood cooled & I enjoyed the day. But my memory of mr.promoter has not weakened. That was my last NGD.

Sounds like your gun show promoters are like music promoters, legends in their own minds.

 

[Ben_hutcherson]

Sounds like your gun show promoters are like music promoters, legends in their own minds.

It's not all of them in this area. Kenny Woods is really a good guy.

Ron Dickson, however, is just generally and objectionable person. He's the one in charge of National Gun Day.

Gunzo, I'm surprised he offered to give the guy his money back and didn't just tell him to get lost if he was unhappy with things.

 

[gunzo]

It's not all of them in this area. Kenny Woods is really a good guy.

Ron Dickson, however, is just generally and objectionable person. He's the one in charge of National Gun Day.

Gunzo, I'm surprised he offered to give the guy his money back and didn't just tell him to get lost if he was unhappy with things.

Agree, never head a cross word from management at a Kenny Woods show. The old Hurtsborne shows, smooth sailing, miss 'em. Jerry Taylor was mentioned, small but good, with no drama. Dickson had something to do with the demise of Jerry's shows??

Dickson, a generally objectionable person, agreed again.

The refund offer, surprised me also, but it was only after he told the guy several things is such away that I was more surprised he didn't get hurt.

 

[ldausmc1369]

Dickson is an Alpha Hotel in spades and that's being generous! Surprised someone didn't take the microphone away from him and shove it up his......! Maybe someone wil buy him out and bring back decent shows. Hurstborne was always a favorite and the vendors and promoters were good folk.

 

[doublesharp]

Could not have a shabbier sound system if they tried. 2 self contained 12" pa speakers mounted in the 40 ft rafters. Nothing but garbled noise. The crowd got quiet for Dicksons pre 9am pep talk but sound was so bad I was lucky to understand a single word much less follow a train of thought. I think RD's staff must be scared to tell him what he sounds like.

I've got a couple of cool old 1st gen Colts with fancy stocks. I like owning them so I've got them priced to keep. I just bring them to the shows to make my table look good but they are priced realistic.

Burg has been drooling over my ivory handled Bisley for 3 or 4 years now but I think he's waiting for a stale merchandise sale and here I am thinking that I haven't raised the price in a few years so it's about time for a cpi price increase.

 

[moosedog]

For me, it was a better show than we have up here in Michigan, except for the Michigan Antique Arms Shows.
I sold 5 guns along with a bunch of smaller items and picked up a mint M-1 a1 Paratrooper, a S&W Victory model along with a book I was looking for, A shoulder stock for a 1911a1 and some Civil War stuff.
I ate the pulled pork from outside the arena. I brought my own coffee from the hotel we stayed at as the show's $3.00 a cup stuff can be used as bore solvent.
I may try the show in January or February and make some side trips along the way. Those 9 hour drives are killer.

 

[doublesharp]

Good choice on the Kentucky Pork Producers food booth. Their boneless pork chop sandwich is very good, too.

Last year the Jan show was very ordinary. Christmas bills are due and tax refund checks aren't out yet. The Feb show is traditionally the best show of the year, by far.

Just checking the NGD schedule and looks like the 2018 fall show is a much better date, Oct 27, 28. That misses Court Days and is before Tulsa so should be better than this last one.

 

[rburg]

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.

 

[daddio202]

A lot of vendors in my area (Florida) have pulled out of the gun show that is at our convention center holds quarterly. I noticed that all the area stores that do attend- just scoop up all their inventory and just bring it there to sell at the same exact price. Makes no sense at all. If I can come in your store and buy something any time I want, why would I attend a special venue, pay $11.00 to come inside and buy the exact same thing???? Speaking with the area business's they say forget it. a lot of trouble to move everything twice if everybody else is not even going to change the tags on the guns and try to sell them there. I found a total of 11 Smith and Wesson revolvers in the entire show last time. One guy I bought my highway patrolman from had 9 of those said revolvers. He is just a non dealer so no wait for me, no tax for me. The only reason I would ever go again is to find that same ordinary citizen. He had a like new 4 screw model 58 I would like to look at again!

 

[doublesharp]

Kenny Woods had natural marketing savvy and he wasn't greedy. Instead of threatening his vendors with loss of table location if they left early on Sunday, he gave vendors a reason to stay. He held a drawing at 3pm Sunday. Winner got $200. 2nd got $100, 3rd, 4th 5th got $50 each and then next 3 places got a free table for next show. Catch was you had to have your guns on your table at time of drawing. It worked and Sunday was often better than Sat.

I've had KW say pay me for 3 tables and take the 4th free. He never fails to thank his vendors usually by just saying "I appreciate you"

I don't know what happened to the Hurstborne Lane show at the old Ramada Inn. A group of Patels bought it in mid 2000s and were too cheap to put light bulbs in all the ceiling recepticles. They hit about every other one. The last show I set up the light was so bad that vendors were bringing in trouble lights and extension cords. I've heard the place has changed hands and improved but as far as I know there have been no gun shows in about 5 years. Too bad because it's a perfect size (room for 4-500 tables) with easy access and ample free parking.

 

[keith44spl]

Dick,
I'm saving my nickels and energy for Tulsa.
Dave