Sports Show Recap

Cosmo & I have been busy organizing and preparing these last few weeks and I came across our digital camera. It amazes me how long digital camera’s batteries stay charged. This guy hadn’t been on in months (which saddens me because I have this fear of not accurately documenting our existence) and it clicked right on. Incredible, don’t you think? The last pictures taken were of our sports show booth this winter! I thought I would share them with all of you and reminisce about our first sports show season experiences.

In the picture from left to right is myself, Mary-Jane Owen (very close friend and lodge enthusiast), Mercer Mack (Travis’s sister), and Whitney Mack (Travis’s other sister).

Apparently I can’t take serious pictures, thus the thumbs up & the peace sign. What can I say, we stayed pretty entertained in our fun-filled show booth.

As the proud seasoned owners of Eagle Falls Lodge we looked forward to trying out some sports shows this winter. Neither Travis or myself had really worked a booth at something like this before, so we decided to start with something on the smaller scale to get our feet wet. At the end of January we attended the Fin & Feather Sports Show in Bloomington, IL. This was a good opener for us because we could stay with Travis’s family during the show. Getting input from them was very helpful and after the first day we actually changed some stuff to make our booth more visually appealing and inviting. We definitely felt like a little fish in a BIG pond. There are some very professional set ups in sports show land, but we held our heads high and met a lot of really neat people. It took us about 30 minutes tops to set up and tear down our booth, but its simplicity was a good indication for what we are all about. Also, I think the fact that we were handing out FREE maple creme cookies boosted our popularity.

The show was a huge success! We left feeling very encouraged to try other shows as a new marketing strategy that hadn’t been used in the recent past for the camp. Many of you may recall that in our Christmas letter we mentioned the Minneapolis sports show that took place in March. This show would be much larger than our first one, but we felt that having some experience would help lead to another successful show in Minneapolis. Well…….so much for plans, eh? Fortunately for the Macks but unfortunately for the lodge Travis got a new fancy job this spring that would make it impossible for us to travel to Minneapolis for the five day show in March. We discussed every option of making it happen: me going alone, having some lodge guests in the area help out, Cosmo and his buddies taking over, none of which made the cut. So we apologize for misleading our avid fans, but this job was an offer we couldn’t quite refuse. As much as we like steady paychecks, we were disappointed not to attend. We did get to go to a show in Des Moines that was a Saturday/Sunday show to hit another part of the Midwest. It was the Iowa Bassmasters’ Fisherman Expo show held in late February. This show had a really good turn out, especially considering the winter weather that everyone in Des Moines was ready to see disappear.

These two shows gave us a chance to see what else is out there and what other lodges are doing to ensure their guests have the best week of fishing. That continues to be our priority and we were glad to meet some people that were willing to share their stories and experiences with us. Most of all it brought back that twinkle in Travis’s eye that only talking about fishing and Eagle Falls Lodge can do. I guess I better get back to packing, and I can check the camera off my list. We will need it to document the twinkle in YOUR eye this summer at Eagle Falls Lodge!