Tampa Show..... Ehhh

[LazardLizard]

Dont feel bad if you missed the Tampa show, cause you didnt miss anything if chameleons are on the brain. With hopes of finding chameleons or atleast someone with something promising coming soon, my wife and I were let down. The show was 65% ball pythons morphs, 20% random imports(more then half look like they will die soon), 10% bearded dragons(scary scaleless ones), and 5% worth while. The few chameleons we found in over packed cages crawling all over each other were almost all imports. Diging deep we finaly did find a handful of CB chameleons. Handful meaning one aquarium filled with panther babies(True CB's, I know the breeder.) and a few small screened enclosers with a few panthers babies in them. My wife and I haven"t been to a retile show in a few years, are all the shows like this now? Because i can remember alot more of a chameleon selection at past shows.

Yeah of course we didn't come back empty handed, drove that far, had to buy something... The panther young'ns were to cute to pass up, and so was a Nosy Be male(only one at the show) who was glowing faint blue already at such a small age.

Sorry, got off subject... So have shows become this way, or is a good show random? Yeah I know small shows are always ehh, but the tampa show draws a large crowd.

 

[Jon114]

Repticon in Orlando has always been my choice of show, but maybe because it's 20 minutes away from me.

It's been awhile since I was at the last show, but I remember a nice variety of animals. It's a large show, not small. Unfortunately I don't remember any chameleons, I was mostly looking at the snakes.

 

[LazardLizard]

Yeah I did the orlando show a few times years back, huge show that was all CB animals.(Best show every year.) The repticon thing is new to me, guess they are the show poeple now around here?

Yeah I was into snakes also, glad I got outta the ball python morph thing when I did. With the prices as cheap as they are, seems like a bust. Flooded market...

 

[Dez]

We try to vend at as many shows as we can in Orlando. It depends on what we have availble at the time .

We have only done Tampa once and it seemed smaler than Orlando's. ALWAYS a lot of snakes . There use to be more chameleon vendors like FLcham but now it seems they only do big shows like FIRE and Daytona

There is another repticon in May we are going to try to vend at.....again it depends on what we have available by that time

 

[c81kennedy]

There is just not enough market for chameleons. I'm tired of the snakes and bearded dragon but thats what seems to sell at the shows. I saw plenty of wild caught chameleons alot more then normal. Saw a huge meller and almost got it. Also a bunch of carpets. Saw some CB vieled's $25 apiece but they were way to tiny to be sold. Picked up a pair of brooksia supers but they were not in the greatest shape.

 

[tzap13]

st louis show

the st louis show in Bridgeton was craptacular as well. It was such a waste of time. The reptiles were like 90% snakes (eww shiver) there was one screen enclosure with about 10 or more chams in it but they all looked meh.
The feeling that you had to buy something hit me too, so I decided to pick up some calcium. When I asked the girl for Calcium, she responded "why get JUST calcium when you can get a multivitamin and have it all." Dangit why do I believe ANYTHING a pretty girl says 8P
All the prices were as high as a pet store.
I will never go to that show again. Apparently there is a good one in st louis on watson road, but the bridgeton one was a complete waste of time.

 

[LazardLizard]

At least its good to here where the good shows are. Can't believe thats considerd more Chams then normal, wow. Yeah i saw the mellers, carpets, and jacksons(they were included in the import %), but i will not buy imports anymore. From past experiance most are gonna keel over in a short time. Hope someone gave them a good home... I would have bought the whole cage of carpets to try and help them, but they were in bad shape and that would just support the collecting of wild reptiles. Its a personal thing, i dont want to support it! Yeah I know it will still happen, but atleast I'm not involved in it.
I was big into buying imports years ago and reselling, even did the baby collecting thing. I collected humanly!!! I saw what guys did to those gravid females
Vields, they are everywhere-hehe

Question, with low Chams at shows why is it that wholesellers are buying all they can get. For that kind of demand you would think the show demands would be higher?

 

[dlegare]

I went to the reptile show in the Tampa area about 2 years ago and I was very (understatement) disappointed. It was cram packed with a collection of the most neglected reptiles I've ever seen in one spot.

I actually felt sorry for the few (3) decent sellers in the place.

I've never been to the Orlando show but want to get there at some point. Just seems to never work out.

I do make an effort to go to the International Breeders Expo in Daytona.
I've seen some amazing reptiles at that show including Chameleons.

Its sad to think that a great majority of reptile enthusiasts aren't as enlightened as we are because I see people snapping up cheap, poorly cared for imports by the dozen (almost literally)

 

[Chase]

I haven't been in a while, but I started giving up on them, because their qualities were decreasing each time there was a show. I started going to most of the Orlando shows, but haven't gone in quite some time, as I have slowly been decreasing my collection for now, but hope to get back into it at some time.

-Chase

 

[LazardLizard]

Poor shows...

Hey, the International Breeders Expo... Is that the one that used to be held in Orlando? The one that EVERYTHING was CB.

 

[Dez]

,

Poor shows...

Hey, the International Breeders Expo... Is that the one that used to be held in Orlando? The one that EVERYTHING was CB.

The breeders expo has always been in Daytona as far as I know...and yes everything is suppose to be CB.... I have had doubts about some animals though so I don't know if they inforce that rule

There is FIRE - Florida International Reptile Expo. It use to be in the Orlando convention center... but last year it was at the double tree hotel across from universal studios . Repticon people now run it

 

[LazardLizard]

That shows I'm getting old, so many years ago I thought I was in Orlando

Yeah, its been some time