02-01-2008, 03:00 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Seattle Washington Area
Posts: 1,604
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What's the deal with Northwest Frog Fest?
Hi Dendroboarders,
I have been getting a lot of private e-mails about Northwest Frog Fest. I wanted to clear the air and dispell some rumors. Northwest Frog fest is taking a year off. It's not going away, we are not quitting, we are taking a year off.
Putting on a show is lots of hard work. There are a million variables to consider. Finding a venue being the first and hardest. It's sounds easy but it's not. Hotels are not so easy to work with at times. They either refuse your business out of personal bias, and ignorance (Frogs?! Ew! Yuck!). Or they want you to spend an insane amunt of money getting the thing catered. Dart frog specific shows are shows, not chicken or fish receptions. A ton of hotels make a killing off catering and if you are not interested, they give you the cold shoulder. If you DO find a place I can almost guarantee you that the person who you signed a contract with will NOT be employed at the hotel at the time of the show. Employee turn over is high, and the person who was so helpful in the begining, has been replaced by someone who really could care less. This is of course a generalization, but it's been our experience.
Then there is advertising, show promotion has been great thanks to Kyle and Dendroboard, the readers, customers, and word of mouth, but a majority of the attendees are locals. It's getting them into the doors that is hard work. There are two major stressors when doing a show, #1 attendance and #2 Vendors. Erin and I lose 2 weeks worth of sleep when we do our shows. We want our vendors to do well, and we want people coming through the door to have a good time. Both of these things we have little control over. Time of year, weather, the economy, competing venues, all of these things play a roll in turn out. It eats up my stomach to no end. The stress this causes is uncomfortable.
The planning takes up a lot of time as I have mentioned. I use my vacation time to prepare the show before and after. Which is crazy. I should be using my vacation time for vacations. We have kids who deserve a good family vacation, a camping trip, and short trip out, and they are the ones who lose out. We need some quality time when we can get it.
Don't get me wrong. I dont want to sound like I'm whining. In fact I always have a blast doing the shows. But we decided to slow things down a little. Plus, there are some great shows out there that we will attend and don't have to sweat out. Black Jungle, Matt Mirabello, Ed Kawolski, and AZDR are doing a great job putting on the North American Amphibian Conferance (if I forgot anyone I apologize). That is going to be a fun show, can't wait! Chuck Powell is having another American Frog Day I heard. AZDR's and Matt's Frog Day was fantastic. Rich's Mid East Frog Feast sounds like a good time as well. So like our shows, there are plenty of other opportunites to mingle, talk frog shop, promote the hobby, and support conservation.
We are looking forward to Midwest Frog Fest this October, and then doing Northwest Frog Fest again in 2009. We still need to support Treewalker's, and The Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center. Doing our shows everyother year will help create a balance and not interefere with the other great shows that will be going on throughout the year.
We hope that clears up some questions.
See ya in Chicago this October, and see ya in Puget Sound in 2009.
Thanks for your time.
Dave
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