For critters and humans alike, these are the quiet months, time for hibernation and rejuvenation — a little down time after the holidays and before the yellow perch run.
Traditionally, it’s also the time when many of us buy new toys so that when temperatures moderate and days get longer, we’re ready to go. That’s why hunters and anglers swarm “The Shows,” armories or convention centers or pavilions packed to the rafters with the latest must-have gear.
But these aren’t normal times. The curtain is falling on many shows, a reflection of an economy with bad reviews.
In the Baltimore area alone, the Fly Fishing Show in College Park left town even before the bottom fell out. The Chesapeake Fishing and Outdoors Expo in Upper Marlboro announced in November that it was pulling up stakes. After nearly five decades of docking an armada in downtown Washington, D.C., organizers of the Washington Boat Show said Friday that they will skip 2009 and reopen in 2010.
The Fishing Expo and Boat Show in Timonium, Md., which began its silver anniversary run Thursday through Sunday, is a shell of its former self. Walking the floor of a show that used to be nearly three times as big and attract celebrities such as Ray Scott, founder of BASS, is as depressing as the news from Wall Street.
“Everybody’s looking for value for the dollar,” says Chuck Furimsky, owner of The Fly Fishing Show, which still appears in eight cities across the country. “Instead of a $700 rod, they’re buying two $150 rods. … There’s still a light at the end of the tunnel for us; it’s just not as bright as it once was.”
The story is the same elsewhere, with promoters skipping cities, downsizing exhibitor space and reducing show days or hours.
“Basically, we’re in a survival mode,” one Ohio outdoors show promoter told the Dayton Daily News.
So we’re all in the same boat, as it were, waiting for a rising tide. Small comfort.
An island among the high-end vessels at The Baltimore Boat Show, opening Jan.21, will be the “Affordability Pavilion,” filled with boats that cost less than $250 a month to finance.
“Instead of shrinking or going away, we’re saying, ‘Let’s talk affordable, something the whole family can enjoy together,’” show spokesman Todd Scott says.
Organizers of the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show in Harrisburg, Pa., (Feb. 7-15) are banking on three things: 53 years of tradition, a quadrupling of celebrity appearances and, says spokeswoman Debra Tressler, “by February, the need to beat cabin fever.”
Tradition is not enough to stave off economic reality, as the Washington Boat Show’s Tom Stafford learned.
“We agonized over this,” says Stafford, who has owned the show for 30 of its 47 years. “But I don’t see a lot of people buying boats this year. We have our dates for 2010 (Feb. 11-15), and we’re moving on.”
But much as we would like, most of us can’t leapfrog 2009. It seems we’ll have to make our own fun this winter.
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