Fly-fishing Shows Crossing Fins

It all started with two fly-fishing shows in Denver.

One, The Fly Fishing Show, is a consumer event held each January since 1999 at the Denver Merchandise Mart.

The other, Fly-Fishing Retailer World Trade Expo, is a trade event owned by Nielsen Business Media and held each September since 1998 at the Colorado Convention Center.

But now they're going to have competition — from each other.

The American Fly Fishing Trade Assn., the sole sponsor of Nielsen's September tradeshow, is launching a consumer show, The Fly Fishing Expo, at the Colorado Convention Center — 5.5 miles away from the Denver Merchandise Mart — on the same dates as The Fly Fishing Show, Jan. 4–6.

That's not all.

Chuck Furimsky, owner of The Fly Fishing Show, formed a new fly-fishing trade organization, the United Trade Assn. for Fly Fishing, which is launching its own tradeshow. The World Fly Fishing Trade Expo is scheduled for the first time at the Denver Merchandise Mart Sept. 16–18, 2008 — overlapping by one day Fly-Fishing Retailer, scheduled Sept. 14–16, 2008, at the Colorado Convention Center.

Furimsky said of AFFTA launching a consumer show head-to-head with his own, "It's dividing people in the business." The rift, he added, is forcing long-time exhibitors in The Fly Fishing Show to choose one public event or the other, to have smaller booths at both shows or to refuse to exhibit at either.

Robert Ramsay, AFFTA president, said because the two shows would be in competition no matter what, the board decided "ultimately ... we'll just have to compete with them directly."

"It's not really our place to judge AFFTA's business decision," said Drew Simmons, public relations director for the Nielsen-owned Fly-Fishing Retailer. He said Nielsen wasn't concerned about the competition, but wondered if it was prudent to compete in an industry drawing from such a small buyer and exhibitor base.

Furimsky claimed his launch of a new tradeshow wasn't really about competition.

"My whole theme is to bring everyone together," he added. Furimsky said others in the fly-fishing industry asked him to start a tradeshow to compete with Fly-Fishing Retailer, because they felt AFFTA wasn't fulfilling all their needs.

"I'm trying to direct my tradeshow to the people who have been ignored," Furimsky said.

Ramsay labeled the announcement of the new fly-fishing trade association and subsequent tradeshow "interesting."

"The timing of those announcements was very much, in my mind, a response to our announcement that we were entering into the consumer show (arena)," he added.

And while Ramsay maintained that launching the consumer-targeted Fly Fishing Expo is "nothing personal," Furimsky said that's exactly what it was.

"It's obvious that my show's going to shrink just because of the people on the board that can't go to my show," Furimsky said. "I know I'm going to lose people."

He called it "dirty politics" and said some distributors who are AFFTA members were trying to prevent exhibitors from attending his show by threatening the supply chain. "Because they're the big players in fly-fishing, they're forcing some of the dealers from my show ... to go to theirs," he added.

Those big distributors might not be exhibiting at The Fly Fishing Show in Denver, but they have signed contracts to exhibit at versions of the show, Furimsky said. The show is produced in eight other U.S. cities; the series includes four shows east of the Mississippi River run by former Furimsky partner Barry Serviente and five shows in the West run by Furimsky. The partners owned the shows together until this past spring when they announced an amicable parting.

"Neither of us had the money to buy the other out," Furimsky said.

It's that division of the shows that he thinks caused AFFTA to decide to launch a consumer show.

"A house divided falls, I guess they think," Furimsky added.

Serviente, though no longer involved with the Denver show, agreed with Furimsky that AFFTA was out of line launching a consumer show.

Ramsay took issue with the complaints that AFFTA was competing with the fly-fishing industry itself.

"We're competing with one show promoter and one show," he said.

Meanwhile, Furimsky and Serviente don't plan to change anything they do.

"I'm confident that we're going to come out stronger," Serviente said. "We have such a following out there; they're only going to get a portion of the people."

Furimsky estimated he'll lose about 20 to 25 booth spaces, which sell for $895 each, to AFFTA's consumer show. His show attracts between 5,000 and 6,000 people each year, and Furimsky said he expected little attrition next year.

But as far as the new show is concerned, he added, "I think they'll get about 1,500 to 2,000 people."

Ramsay's estimate is higher: "The goal that we have is in the neighborhood of 10,000."