>>1. Patron entry into ANY Reptile oriented expo in the US has part of their payment applied to an organization to support 'The Industry' (say $2.50 to $5.00 per person).
>>
Here is an issue that I see. The fee to enter will merely be raised. Thus a 10 wristband is now going to cost attendees 15 bucks. As others mentioned this may be cost prohibitive to internal spending. The door cost goes into paying for hall rental, paying staffing, paying for tables, etc... There is overhead for these shows. Yes there is often profit for the show promoters, but that is kinda their job.

>>2. Vendors at all of these shows must pay an additional fee (or the proprietor of a show uses part of the table fee already paid) toward the same organization.
>>
This I dont think is that big of a deal and I would venture to say many of the vendors paying for booths are members of ARK or other like organizations. However requiring membership in one sole organization when that organization is NOT promoting the show as their business is hard. Then in turn begging to get free bees from the vendors might be a bit hard.

>>3. A benefit auction is mandatory for every Expo (similar to say the NRBE in Daytona) in some form or fashion.
>>
The vast majority of larger shows do this already. NARBC, Reptile Supershows, Daytona. They ALL have huge auctions. The past few years all the auctions have gone to either ARK or PIJAC/USARK. This is common. Is your local show not doing this? Why not? Ask that promoter. Perhaps they dont have man power or perhaps there is no where to hold it, perhaps they dont have the ability to rent a hall afterwards. These issues all need to be looked at on the local level. Also shows that are say bi weekly. 50/50 raffles may work better as opposed to auction. There are other ways to drum up donations.
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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
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