Post by jason on Oct 30, 2005 15:37:15 GMT
Corn Snake 'Best of Breed' Show 2005 - Jason's Review
I think Tanya did a great job organising the show, so big respect to her. We had a fun time but left after 20 minutes into the judging process. The problem as I see it was they had 130 snakes and the audience were all sitting there while the three judges took painstaking notes on each snake. My kids got bored after 20 minutes and asked to go home. I think a better idea would have been to score the snakes as they were entered and then select the best during the presentation. I get the feeling they'll still be judging by the early evening!
There were about four or five stalls selling equipment, t-shirts, substrate, mats, stats, books, stickers, toys and other assorted stuff. There was one stall selling hand made hides, which were awesome and original art prints, again awesome.
The kids were very well catered for. 'The Reptile Zone' gals did a fantastic job keeping the little ones entertained with colouring competitions, lucky dip and face painting, which Lee (the crazy dude!) was strangely drawn to ;D Another stall was holding a competition for painting snake money boxes, a bit pricey at £6 a shot though.
Several people had displays, the best being the Reptile Zone display, which had some amazing corns. The Rat Snake Fan Club had beautiful Rat Snakes on display and there was an equally beautiful Royal Python, which I think was also owned by The Reptile Zone. At the top of the hall there were some other snakes, but the viv's were not lit and so all you could see were either hides and substrate or if you squinted hard enough maybe the odd snake, which was a shame as there was a 7ft BRB in one of the vivs and the best thing about BRB's is their colour.
Next years show will hopefully be even better, but they need to do a bit of tweaking to the format and get more traders on the floor. I thought the show desperately lacked presentations on different breeds of snakes. They had that 'stage' area empty most of the morning and it would have been a perfect excuse to have had some guest speakers giving some educational talks. It wouldn't hurt to have more Corn Snakes on show either. The show was mainly about Corns, so I found it very odd that there was so little to see.
Little gripes aside, I am impressed. The dedication from the organisers to get this show to the community should be highly commended.
I would have loved to have seen the results of the Best of Breed competition, but I was on my last legs after a couple of hours hobbling around on crutches in extreme pain, but I did get to meet my pal Ali and her family and see Lees amazing transformation!
I'm installing a gallery on my website where I'll upload pictures to later.
I think Tanya did a great job organising the show, so big respect to her. We had a fun time but left after 20 minutes into the judging process. The problem as I see it was they had 130 snakes and the audience were all sitting there while the three judges took painstaking notes on each snake. My kids got bored after 20 minutes and asked to go home. I think a better idea would have been to score the snakes as they were entered and then select the best during the presentation. I get the feeling they'll still be judging by the early evening!
There were about four or five stalls selling equipment, t-shirts, substrate, mats, stats, books, stickers, toys and other assorted stuff. There was one stall selling hand made hides, which were awesome and original art prints, again awesome.
The kids were very well catered for. 'The Reptile Zone' gals did a fantastic job keeping the little ones entertained with colouring competitions, lucky dip and face painting, which Lee (the crazy dude!) was strangely drawn to ;D Another stall was holding a competition for painting snake money boxes, a bit pricey at £6 a shot though.
Several people had displays, the best being the Reptile Zone display, which had some amazing corns. The Rat Snake Fan Club had beautiful Rat Snakes on display and there was an equally beautiful Royal Python, which I think was also owned by The Reptile Zone. At the top of the hall there were some other snakes, but the viv's were not lit and so all you could see were either hides and substrate or if you squinted hard enough maybe the odd snake, which was a shame as there was a 7ft BRB in one of the vivs and the best thing about BRB's is their colour.
Next years show will hopefully be even better, but they need to do a bit of tweaking to the format and get more traders on the floor. I thought the show desperately lacked presentations on different breeds of snakes. They had that 'stage' area empty most of the morning and it would have been a perfect excuse to have had some guest speakers giving some educational talks. It wouldn't hurt to have more Corn Snakes on show either. The show was mainly about Corns, so I found it very odd that there was so little to see.
Little gripes aside, I am impressed. The dedication from the organisers to get this show to the community should be highly commended.
I would have loved to have seen the results of the Best of Breed competition, but I was on my last legs after a couple of hours hobbling around on crutches in extreme pain, but I did get to meet my pal Ali and her family and see Lees amazing transformation!
I'm installing a gallery on my website where I'll upload pictures to later.
