The wealth tag discussion always gets a little philosophical. The primary org sponsoring this expo is not going to do anything unless they are sufficiently moved to do so (just curious, is SFW now BGF or ??). When a reasonable debate was discussed between org leaders they bowed out. They have no incentive to crawl out of their cocoon. This thread is really more informational, maybe even practical. With 90,000ish deer hunters (draw tags) and 50,000ish elk hunters, a whole bunch of people are being impacted by the sad tag situation in Utah. If you estimate that AT LEAST 80% of Utah hunters are against wealth tags, and the elk and deer hunter population is AT LEAST 100,000 people. You have AT LEAST 80,000 potential customers in Utah alone that will be turned off by the stigma that participation at the expo would bring. When the Arizona tag theft attempt was happening I looked into the Utah expo and concluded it was a bad deal for vendors anyway. Here is an excerpt from some of my research from earlier this year.
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I went out to the "SFW" Western and Hunting Conservation Expo website and pulled down a list of their exhibitors from this year, I got the list from this link
http://www.huntexpo....ibitorList.php. With all the talk about AZSFWC wanting an Expo in Phoenix, what better way to know what the impacts would be than to take a look at the exhibitors that participated in the SFW Salt Lake City Expo this year.
Many exhibitors had multiple booths in different parts of the Expo area. I counted companies rather than booths since counting booths would vastly overstate the actual corporate participation at the expo. After removing duplicates, there were 225 entities on the list to be classified by business type. Here are some interesting statistics.
- 48% (107) of the businesses/organizations at the Expo were guides/taxidermists (and there were only a handful of taxidermists). Of those, over 63% were either international (Canada 19%/Africa 17%/New Zealand 1%) or from Utah (15%) or Montana (11%). The largest outfitter presence was Mossback from Utah, they had a 1500 square foot booth next to the raffle stage.
- The (non-Utah) four corner states outfitters had a TOTAL of 8% of the guides at the SLC Expo (Arizona 3%, Colorado 4%, New Mexico 1%). Not much participation from Utah's neighbors.
- There were only 11 outdoor retailers, 8 were from Utah, 2 big ones from Alaska and a huge one from Nebraska (Cabelas). Outdoor retailers only comprised 5% of the groups at the expo.
-There were 6 non-outdoor retailers, they represented about 3% of the total organizations at the expo. These businesses sold anything from perfume to furniture. Kind of a swap meet kind of thing.
- There were 59 outdoor equipment manufacturing businesses at the expo, this represented about 26% of the orgs at the expo. Some big names include Christensen Arms, Hoyt, Browning, Remington. Of the 59 outdoor manufacturers, almost half (25) were from Utah. No other state had more than 6 manufacturing companies represented.
- There were 13 non-outdoor manufacturing companies at the expo, this represented 6% of the orgs represented. The products offered varied from artwork to dog food. Since art is produced and sold by the artist, I classified these businesses as a manufacturers.
- There were at least 8 groups directly linked to Sportsman For Wildlife (SFW) represented. They accounted for 4% of the total orgs represented but they had far more square footage allocated to them than anyone else.
- There were only 8 regular non-SFW related wildlife organizations represented, of this, 6 are based in Utah and only two were outside the state of Utah (Boone and Crockett in Montana and the North American Bear Association in Minnesota). I was surprised to see so few Conservation organizations outside of Utah participating at an Expo with Conservation in the title.
- There were twelve organizations that I classified as government. Some were state or federal government but others were native American tribal government. They represented 5% of the total overall orgs.
So after looking at this I have come to some conclusions and still have a few questions.
1. With nearly half the businesses represented being guides, why would a family pay money to attend an Expo like this? My kids would be bored in about 5 minutes if all they had to look at were grip and grin photos and stalking videos. I saw almost nothing for kids.
2. How does the state of Utah make money when over one third of the outfitters are actually located outside of the United States (and the majority of the others are outside the State of Utah) . I can see how the non-profit SFW profits by renting booth space, I just don't see how the State of Utah or wildlife benefits from outfitters being hired through this expo.
3. With only 8% of the organizations being "retail", how are people at the Expo going to spend money? Especially when almost half of the retail businesses are not even outdoor related. How many hotdogs, slushees, camo hats, and antler stickers can one person buy? Especially when there are at least a couple more similar Expos every year in the same city.
4. Why were there so few outdoor retailers at the SLC Expo and why were the few that attended from only 3 states (and one is Cabelas which doesn't really count, the others are from Utah and Alaska). Were outdoor retailers from other states even welcome? If so, why did they decide not to participate?
5. Why was so much floor space allocated for promotion of the groups that hosted the Expo (MDF/SFW)? Why didn't someone use this space for a fish tank or some other youth engagement activity?
6. Were the government booths provided for free in exchange for auction tags? It sure seemed like a bunch of government groups were there, some tribes even had two booths.
7. With 26% of the organizations being outdoor gear manufacturers (guns/gear/optics etc), how does all of this add to the bottom line for the State of Utah. I challenge the notion that consumers are more inclined to purchase a specific brand because they saw a sign for it at an Expo (full of other colorful signs). I view this as a ploy to artificially inflate the "impacts" to cities outside of where the actual Expo would be located.
8. Why did so few wildlife organizations choose to exhibit at the expo, with the exception of two (B&C and the Bear Org), all the rest are sponsored or affiliates of SFW? Aren't non-SFW wildlife organizations allowed to attend?
Bottom line, I do not see how the Expo makes money for anyone other than the SFW. The booths are expensive, space isn't allocated fairly, retail opportunities are of low quality and very limited. There is nothing to lure Average Joes or families. If anything, the raffle and subsequent "hunting license" verification only serves to pad the post-expo numbers for the Expo sponsor (which will then be used for more outrageous projections about economic benefits to the state for future Expos and more auction tags). The average amount generated by each raffle tag is less than $4,000, which isn't much more than the average value the State would have earned collecting over many years through the fair public drawing.
In my opinion, this Expo makes no sense at all. I don't even think the outfitters that pay big money for the booths are even getting a good deal out of it (since some of their competitors are being strategically placed to have better access to auction bidders). Speaking of auction bidders, most of the big dollar guys bid over the phone through an onsite proxy bidder, the rich guys aren't even onsite to throw their money around....AND...most of these guys have their guide BEFORE they even win the tag. Once again, everyone loses except the wealthy auction winner and the group sponsoring the expo.
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I wrote the stuff above about four or five months ago, I have seen nothing to change my opinion. Fot those wondering, Trisate is not some kind of plant we convinced to spew outrageous comments, I think he is actually a real person with real thoughts that seem to mirror those of some of the expo coordinaters. I agree with him on one thing though, the groups that sell these tags should share the financials, unfortunately up to this point the dog ate their homework. Alot of CUSTOMERS seem to agree this is unacceptable.
Ryan