Some unfortunate news about the Cincy Flower Show for 2011:
The Cincy Flower Show was cancelled this year due to last year being a tough year for the event. In the introduction/beginning of the event, the cost of tickets were unimaginable (over $25 per person, meals started just under $11 per person) and lots of groups of people turned away due to the costs. A family of 4 would of been $100 with food and drink adding to another $50, a visit of many beautiful sites and many vendors to enjoy products, but extremely costly to those on a budget wanting to enjoy mother nature and its beauty, all who take pride in that tradition.
There was also a fee for parking at the event, $10 per vehicle. If you bought anything along with the time there, it was not unheard of in spending over $200 for your family. We arrived on sunday and the majority of vendors who travelled all across the United States and some from out of the country were both angry and concerned with the conditions of how expensive the cost was to enter the event, knowing that sales would be compromised as a result.
The news of high costs to attend was like rupturing a tire on a vehicle in the middle of a packed expressway, you're blocking traffic and everyone is turning around and going another direction. Given the down economy, the price to enter the event was stifling and the public responded in candor.
By wednesday of this event, prices at the gate were sharply reduced, sometimes as low as $10 to enter and thursday had the opportunity for free after 5pm for those who came. For this to happen like it did, it would be safe to assume that the initial damage was done by all the people who were turned away those first couple days due to price.
By the end of the event, the weekend, heavy rains arrived to all but wipe out the attendance. It would be safe to assume that this had a lot to do with the decisions made for 2011 that caused the shutdown for the first year of this event.
The location was held in Symmes Township and the area it covered was quite large. A beautiful setting indeed with many beautiful flowers and arrangements, including the great assembly of beautiful designs by local landscaping contractors.
In summary,
It is indeed imperative for any longstanding event that utilizes both volunteer and paid time of others to include the scope of interest of knowing the boundaries of your clientell. This event could of managed quite well at $14-$16 per person and kept in mind the pricing of the food (overpriced) to a reasonable level, entertaining the design of volume of people coming to the event.
It is indeed a large undertaking to create an event for the public. There are so many considerations. I do hope this event returns because it offers so much to so many, and hopefully with some interior changes of the way it is managed will recorrect and solve the issues going into 2012.
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Topic: Cincy Flower Show - Symmes Township - Cincinnati Ohio (Read 3054 times)