I attended my 24th consecutive Penn National Horse Show this week. Back when we lived in Harrisburg I attended every day either as a spectator or as a volunteer for a horse rescue. Once we moved to to Maryland I cut it down to a few times per show but still made the trek. The Penn National Horse show is DYING. The decline has been coming on for years but it really hit home last night. The vendor spots used to be completely full, now they are maybe 1/4 full. Grand Prix night used to be so crowded you could hardly move through the hallways. Last night the halls were virtually deserted. So few people attended that the Kiwanis volunteer ushers didnt even bother to show up. The vendors were in the process of packing up as the small crowd arrived so the crowd couldnt shop if they wanted to. They were gone by the time the Grand Prix ended. Contrast that with the Pennsylvania horse expo that aside from a few clinicians is nothing but shopping, mostly for cheap crap, but shopping nonetheless and the place is so packed they have to bus people in from the parking lot of the community college. With the exception of last night when they jacked the the general admission up to $20 from $15 the price is exactly the same as the expo. The vendors that were there were clearly catering to the exhibitors with tons of disposable income as they made no effort whatsoever to keep their prices even remotely in line with Dover, Smartpak etc. The farm show building is one of my top three places on earth and it saddens me to see the steady decline. As near as I can tell the amount of exhibitors is roughly the same but I dont know if they can survive on exhibitor income alone.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:47:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015