I actually knew about and wanted to go to the downtown Intl Festival trade show. I could not get there because the Lex-WEG shuttle did not stop near my hotel, and my WEG shuttle wristband was for a specific route, so I could not use another shuttle to get downtown.
Basic design rule: Vendors always want and need to be on a direct traffic route, like from barn to show arena, not in a special ‘vendor corner’.
The IEF at the Convention Center had absolutely no connection to WEG. It was run by a completely separate group who just hoped to be able to get some business from all the folks in town for WEG. WEG had absolutely no obligation to provide advertising, or any other services, for the IEF vendors who were not doing business with them. If your friend didn’t even realize she wasn’t doing business with WEG, that’s her fault.
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;5147981]
If the Italian horse clothing company mentioned was the tent in Walnut Grove selling these clothes:
http://www.horseconnection.com/site/pdf_docs/HC_Sept_Oct_2010.pdf
then Yup, that is what I went there to buy… NOT.[/QUOTE]
I don’t believe that was the same company. The person mentioned in the article makes a separate line of riding wear, which quite honestly, I didn’t see anywhere at the trade show.
The Animo Italia tent, which is the link you posted, was pretty much sold out by Thursday. The lady I spoke with told me they sold most of their inventory and were VERY happy. That line of clothing was amazing IMO. All of those gorgeous riding jackets are machine washable and looked amazing on. The breeches were priced along the lines of other high-end brands. People were buying like crazy. If I showed more, I would have loved to have bought one of those jackets.
If you were anywhere near a regular Lextran bus route, you could have ridden the bus downtown for $1 each way. Unfortunately, if you didn’t have internet access to get to the Lextran website, it might have been difficult to find info on bus routes. Perhaps WEG, or the Lexington visitor’s bureau, or the hotels, could have done a better job providing info on transportation options.
The WEG folks were actually not very happy about the downtown trade show, and the expo in Georgetown.
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/14/1347765/weg-accuses-trade-show-of-ambush.html
So it’s not surprising that WEG wasn’t steering people in that direction. But there was a lot of stuff going on downtown (the Spotlight Lexington festival, free concerts every night) that was affiliated with WEG, so it would have been nice to help people find their way around.
After reading through pages of this thread, I kept wondering, “Where is this tent area they were talking about?” When I saw the comment above about the “Big Ass Fans” sign, I thought, “WOW, if that was the vendor area they are talking about, they DEFINITELY have a potential lawsuit on their hands.”
My sister and I were working at the WEG for nearly a week. We must have walked by the “Big Ass Fans” tent 20 times, each time chuckling about the business name and wondering at the fact that a fan company would have such a huge, expensive tent at the WEG. We also didn’t go in the tent because we had no use for a Big Ass Fan.
If I had been a vendor in that area I would have been livid. If we walked by there 20 times and never thought to go in (and we were avidly shopping at the time), you can imagine how many thousands of other people did the same thing.
-Spectrum.
The IEF would have gotten business from my mom twice and me once, expect it did not open until 1pm any day! My mom planned to go down last Saturday, but she wouldn’t have had enough time to get back and go to church at 4pm on Saturday, so she missed it. And then on Monday we had time to kill in the middle of the day and ended up just dawdling at lunch for a long time, because we had to be at WinStar at 2:30, and we weren’t going to pay to go to the IEF for 45 minutes.
The vendors shot themselves in the foot there, and, IMO, at the Horse Park, for not being up and ready at 8am like they were supposed to be each morning. I would have loved to shop before events in the morning, but they were mostly all still closed by 9am.
[QUOTE=SimpsoMatt;5148905]
If you were anywhere near a regular Lextran bus route, you could have ridden the bus downtown for $1 each way. Unfortunately, if you didn’t have internet access to get to the Lextran website, it might have been difficult to find info on bus routes. Perhaps WEG, or the Lexington visitor’s bureau, or the hotels, could have done a better job providing info on transportation options.
The WEG folks were actually not very happy about the downtown trade show, and the expo in Georgetown.
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/14/1347765/weg-accuses-trade-show-of-ambush.html
So it’s not surprising that WEG wasn’t steering people in that direction. But there was a lot of stuff going on downtown (the Spotlight Lexington festival, free concerts every night) that was affiliated with WEG, so it would have been nice to help people find their way around.[/QUOTE]
I did have a Lextran schedule and they stopped about a half mile away from my major route hotel, at a big place of business, not clear directions. But I also wanted to go early in the morning when the trade show was not open, nd the logistics were just too iffy.
I think the downtown trade show organizers underestimated how tired people were after walking around the KHP all day, and how many people had no idea where the Lexington Convention Center was.
I only went yesterday to the driving marathon. It would have been helpful to have a map somewhere where different vendors were located. If there was one, I didn’t see it. I would have visited Driving Essentials or other driving vendors if I could have found them easily, however, I was too tired to walk around too much. :dead:
It’s one thing to have complaints about how things could have been or should have been done. It’s something else to have a legal claim (and no, the fact that some poster in a comment can link words together like “business” and "fraud doesn’t mean there is a legal claim, nor is there a fiduciary duty between contracting parties - there are duties, fiduciary ain’t them).
What I’m not seeing is anyone giving specific contact provision that were breached. Were there?
I’m with Plumcreek on this one - we tried to get to the IEF after eventing cross-country but it took us an hour and a half to get downtown because that was the busiest day at the park and the traffic was incredible. We ended up having dinner and going over to the free concert for a bit until we realized how exhausted we were.
What everyone underestimated in their planning, I think, is the time it took to get in and out of the park. It was a very long slog from Spycoast Farm, where the vendor parking was, to the Equine Village, where my friends’ booth was. Our better-funded neighbors had their own golf cart. Yes, there was a shuttle, but it was faster to walk. On the first night, when the booths were supposed to stay open during the opening ceremonies, everyone bagged early when there was no foot traffic. There were many confused people, and parking attendants. We eventually figured out that we had not walked far enough and were not even in the right parking lot yet. I used my phone’s mapping to mark the truck’s location after that.
Even after getting into a drill, we were getting up at 6 and coming home at 8 every night - even though I was not at the booth except to fill in, I was dependent on them for transportation.
That might be why most of the vendors were not open at the crack of dawn…
Although it was exhausting, it was an incredible experience to be so totally immersed in a world that revolved around horses. I don’t know of another event where we could have met so many top-level riders and professionals in a single place.
[QUOTE=Zevida;5149051]
The IEF would have gotten business from my mom twice and me once, expect it did not open until 1pm any day! My mom planned to go down last Saturday, but she wouldn’t have had enough time to get back and go to church at 4pm on Saturday, so she missed it. And then on Monday we had time to kill in the middle of the day and ended up just dawdling at lunch for a long time, because we had to be at WinStar at 2:30, and we weren’t going to pay to go to the IEF for 45 minutes.
The vendors shot themselves in the foot there, and, IMO, at the Horse Park, for not being up and ready at 8am like they were supposed to be each morning. I would have loved to shop before events in the morning, but they were mostly all still closed by 9am.[/QUOTE]
Agreed! I was with a group, and had an hour or two to walk around downtown Lexington. We stopped at the IEF, but felt to pay admission for an hour wasn’t worth it, if we might have more time later in our stay. Needless to say, we never got back. It would have been better to make the IEF more appealing by not charging admission. People were already feeling sucked dry. Who wants to pay admission to another trade fair when we just paid 4.75 for a drink at KHP?
I agree on the trade fair opening time. We made a point of going early before our event to shop, only to see some of our target vendors closed. AND we saw some of the breed setups during the tractor-drawn ride around KHP on our last night, just before our event. No time to go back, and we never knew they were there in the week of dressage we came to see.
Ya, the Italian clothing tent was pretty, but not comfortable to shop in. Kind of felt that we were profiled as not-likely buyers, so never got a hello, not that I wanted one.
I don’t know about the lawsuit business, but to me, Lexington itself did not promote the Festival downtown very well to the horse crowd. Why not put ads in any of the horse pubs with more details? I remember a lot of ads for WEG, but how we knew that we could get in free to the trade fair by showing our USDF membership card on Thursday (the day there was no dressage events) was pure luck!
I totally understand why WEG would not promote that. Why should they – takes money out of “their” vendors’ pockets. But the conference center could have/should have.
We had a great time at the trade fair. Bought some beautiful sculpture and enjoyed the festival’s street bands. We went downtown a couple of the nights we were there. Really enjoyed downtown Lexington. Everyone was SO nice! (And spent a fair amount with the WEG vendors too.)
I worked at bit of britain for 1 1/2 weeks at WEG and we did an amazing amount of business, BUT we had a great location. We had a large tent next to the main arena and food tents. Most people we talked to didn’t know where the other vendors were. We opened at 8 am and stayed open until the area was pretty empty. Most days during any breaks we had LONG lines with about 6 cashiers working! When I went shopiing though to other vendors it was fairly quiet and they had limited food available and no where to sit. Most vendors were very unhappy with the traffic flow, signage, and facilities esp. considering the premiums they paid.
Wow, I had NO problem finding the vendor area, or figuring out the big tent was full of vendors! Though a map of the booths would have been great!
I just wish I’d bought stuff on Wednesday, when it wasn’t so jammed, instead of thinking I’d wait until Saturday, doh. Couldn’t stir people with a stick by then. The Official Mechandise tent was selling stuff out of boxes, it was going so fast.
In fact we DID go back at about 7 pm on a couple of days to buy stuff, after the events and dinner, and the booths had CLOSED! I’d say so many closing so early didn’t help traffic.
I’m beginning to wonder if I went to the same WEG as some other people…
I was wondering that, too - but apparently at least the two of us attended the same one! :lol:
Honestly, I have to wonder if some vendors think their potential customers were just stupid, because that (or being blind) would be about the only way you could have MISSED the trade fair.
Personally, my lack of shopping had more to do with the majority of vendors being too high-end for my blood than anything else. I did particularly enjoy the BoB tent, and always try to support them because of their continuing support of eventing. :yes:
Clearly I just don’t fit the “lots of disposable income” equestrian stereotype…not to mention that when in the market for things like fancy jewelry or designer clothes, I don’t tend to buy them at horse shows! :lol:
The WEG Website had maps and all vendor booths marked by company and location…Would have bbeen helpful to have it posted around at the park as well, but it was available to print off if anyone looked…
Was I at the same WEG??
Having put down my deposit on dressage tickets 3 yrs ago, I made sure I was ready to go and had scoped everything out. Info, maps, schedules, vendors, etc were all easy to find. I had printed out easily 30 or more pages just about the KHP and WEG, and of course took some ribbing from my friends.
The official alltell/weg website had a great interactive map of all the vendors - you scrolled over a booth number and it showed you who was going to be there. Made it very clear there was inside and outside vendors. And we were definitely ‘routed’ through the trade show to the point of joking about it. We were disappointed that there was not more tack and breeches! Breeches were high on the shopping list and the selection outside of FITS was slim pickings.
With events starting early 3 mornings we were there, I can very much state that not a single vendor was open at 8 AM when we would have done some shopping. We shopped everyday and the trade show was packed - inside and out! And we certainly helped the trade show economy and bought way more than planned. We had to stand in line to pay at every booth we were at.
The IHF was well advertised with just a little online browsing in our planning. We stayed at a B&B in Frankfort and our hosts gave us driving & parking tips…piece of cake. We were disappointed it did not open until 1 PM but we went to the Andre Pater exhibit at the U of K Art Museum in the morning…it was STUNNING. The IHF was fun and we helped the economy there too. And there were lots of folks there as well.
And we don’t have the same complaints about the food and restrooms…we used the one at the USDF building often and with no long waits. And food just took a little planning - first we did bring in snacks and second we didn’t try to eat during the lunch rush…we went shopping instead and just grabbed something on the way to our afternoon event.
And Friday the KHP was packed by the time we arrived at 2 PM. We had fun going through the equine village, the gift from the desert exhibit and doing more shopping before the dressage freestyle.
A plug for Bit of Britian…when their computers crashed on that first Monday, they were so apologetic, held what we wanted in bags so we could come back later and offered me free shiping so I didn’t have to carry it all…I declined and they held it until after the afternoon event. Then when they didn’t have the size/color Rambo cooler I wanted they had one shipped in by Friday. They rolled with the punches and kept a smile on their faces.
And the volunteers & staff were incredible! We found them knowledgable, polite, friendly and ready to help.
Our little group may not have all the insider info but from our perspective, it was a blast…and we did spend 
well call me stoopid then… but the car park we came from was not near the trade village - from the XC course all you could see was the John Deere stand and Visitor information… and around the main arena there was just enough - Bit of Britain, food, some Bahrain thing, Microsoft cafe etc - for us to think is that IT??
OK, so we figured it out but I can see how people might have missed it. In Europe we’re used to the stands being a MAJOR destination.
That includes food and importantly big screens to watch the XC from and… wait for it… something WEG completely failed on… a SCOREBOARD.
Scoreboards are
A) great for giving spectators a clue about what’s going on when and how team scores are looking
B) great for the shops because people gravitate to the scoreboard particularly at the end of the day to see how things have ended up.
I’d have been really disappointed if I was a stallholder - everything was geared towards keeping people out on the XC - ie if you wanted to watch someone over more than one fence you had to be on the course - the screens in the main arena were useless as there was no sound…
You were made to pay per half day. Well, if I’ve paid that much, I’m gonna watch, not shop - in the UK I’d pay for a day of dressage and watch tests I’m interested in then shop in the gaps - keeping an eye on the screens in case I’ve missed something exciting.
I agree that it would have been great to have more screens and places to sit and watch from. Some of the screens that WERE in the eating area were moved out for the cross-country.
Should have had Apple for a sponsor. You’d think Microsoft could have donated some screens, since they had an internet cafe!
But I still don’t think it was that hard to find the vendors!
I was there for dressage freestyle and xc, and I guess I’m confused as to whether somehow some people came in a different entrance? Because literally the second thing we saw - both days - (after the big WEG souvenir tent) was the trade fair.
And, though on xc day we were more interested on getting to the course than shopping (which we’d done already on Friday, anyway), it was open plenty long AFTER xc for us to get in another run-through.
We were way too happy to be watching 4* xc to want to shop in the middle of the day, anyway! The more dedicated (read: crazy) part of our group didn’t even stop for lunch… :lol:
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