Re: Phila Show

**"* V* <v*@phillynews.com>**

Hi everyone - this is Ginny Smith, the garden writer at the Philadelphia
Inquirer. Attendance this year at the Philadelphia Flower Show, as
reported in our paper on Monday, was 245,000, according to the show's
producer, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

PHS says that is about 10,000 more than 2008, although PHS people have
given me two figures for that year (235,000 and 240,000).

Whichever figure you use, 2009 attendance was UP over 2008.
The 2007 show (Ireland theme) drew 258,000.
Ginny

-----Original Message-----
From: gardenwriters-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[g*@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Noel
Valdes
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 1:15 PM
To: Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum
Subject: Re: [GWL] Phila Show

We were vendors at Philadelphia for the 3rd year.  Obviously attendance
is 
important to us.

Show attendance appeared to be just slightly down from last year.  But
both 
years were down significantly from 2007.  I'm guessing down 30%.  The
only 
bad day was Monday when the storm hit.  Unfortunately that was also the
GWA 
Regional Meeting day.  We still saw a lot of writers we knew.  Sales
were 
actually up slightly for us from last year.

We have done these shows :  Kansas City, our first, but well attended. 
Madison Garden Expo - our 7th - record crowds and record sales for us; 
Hartford, 2nd time - about the same as last year.  We are currently
doing 
Chicago.  Chicago is undergoing a renewal after two very bad years in
the 
suburbs which we fortunately did not attend.

I visited the Chicago show on Monday on the way back from Philly.  It is

definitely under attended, but the garden exhibits are truly
exceptional, 
much better than 3 years ago with a very strong presence from Chicago 
Botanic Garden and the Chicago Parks Department.  The vendor/market area
is 
probably the best looking overall of any of the shows we do.

We will be doing Cincinnati in a month and I'm curious to see how they
do in 
their new location, although I don't think Cincy should be a nine day
show.

So far, we are not seeing gloom and doom at the shows in which we 
participate.  We also heard that Rhode Island did very well this year.

Noel Valdes
CobraHead LLC
W9545 Hwy. 18
Cambridge, WI 53523
608-423-9119 tel
866-962-6272 toll free
608-423-4884 fax
info@cobrahead.com
www.cobrahead.com
www.cobrahead.com/blog

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