*PHOTOS* Report from the 2008 International Orchid Fair in Santa Barbara

[wetfeet101b]

Here is my report on the 2008 International Orchid Fair in Santa Barbara.

Some of my personal comments about the fair:
1. Crowd turnout.
The crowd turnout is noticeably lean for this caliber of an orchid fair. Perhaps the overall economy has taken a serious bite out of the orchid customers.
The recent fires in Goleta may have also scared off some people who were planning to go.
We only went there on saturday, July 12. And the vendors also mentioned that they saw less people on friday.
I hope (for the vendors' sake) that the crowd turnout on sunday is much better.

2. Vendor selection.
This was deceiving. The arrangement of the vendor booths made a large (detrimental) impact on marketing their products.
There was a large array of vendors but they were all packed into a small section of the fairgrounds. Most of the vendor booths were set up touching the adjacent booths. This resulted in the booth only having one side open to the customers.
Distributing the booths farther apart, with crowd walkways in between would have given the vendors 2 or more sides of display space to attract customers.
With their setup, most booths had the unfortunate "hole in the wall" feel to them and most people did not feel like squeezing into the claustrophobic booths.

However, there was a group of vendors who were assigned to a "block" of booths (about 6 or 8 booths per block) who were probably on the same wavelength as me. They banded together and set up one "mega-booth" so that there are no partitions between their individual booths.
All the vendors in that group gave the crowd the impression that it was just one large, airy and accessible booth.
Having no partitions between their booths also resulted in all four sides of the mega-booth being open for display with no interruptions of view.
Kudos to them!

3. Weather.
The weather was excellent on saturday and sunday. The Goleta fire was mostly contained and no smoke fumes could be detected on the fairgrounds.
It was a bit cloudy towards the afternoon, but no rain or drizzles.
It was a perfect day for shopping.

4. My wallet.
I am proud to say that I stuck to my budget of under $200.00!
I would have stayed under $100.00 had my wife not told me to go ahead and splurge a little. "We drove all the way here after all"

Here's a list of my haul:
Encyclia prismatocarpa x Anacheilium baculus (two plants - I had to get two!)
Brassia Eternal Wind
Brassidium Fly Away
Blc. Magic of Mishima 'Volcano Queen' - This one called me from 100 feet away.
Maxillaria elatior x arbuscula
Maxillaria tenuifolia (I had to get one of these too!)
Cyrtochilum serratum x revolutum
Grammatophyllum scriptum var. citrinum 'Hihimanu' 4N
Encyclia prismatocarpa

Juvenile Vandas (3-4 years from blooming)
* These were from a vendor in Thailand, so not all crosses might be RHS registered.
V. lumpini x Dr. Anek (3 plants)
V. Charles Clark x Kultana Gold (2 plants) - I am not so sure about the name - hard to read.
V. Gordon Dillon x coerulea (3 plants)
V. Dr. Anek x Varut Fuchsia (2 plants)

Pictures to follow