Kansas City

[Allan Gilreath, RPT]

Good evening David and everyone,

First, I apologize to the list for making a non-technical post. I still tend
to lean toward the habits from the early days of the list so I hope you
folks will forgive the response. I'll keep anything else to the PTG-L list.

With a thriving business, there are only so many messages that I can answer
in a day. In addition to pressing a soundboard, making final fitting on a
multi-level pinblock, starting a new intern, dealing with a warranty issue
for a manufacturer and the other normal parts of running a business, I
answered a query about the application of anti-trust statutes, finished
editing a short journal article and helped one of the Regional Conferences
deal with a crisis where they're having to negotiate a new hotel contract
since the hotel cancelled on them. Now I'm not complaining, but I'm going to
finish this reply and then go spend some time with my family.

I understand that Jurgen is going to be sharing a booth space with Kawai so
he's going to be in the Hall. We've already arranged to move several
exhibitors, who have easily securable exhibits (non-tools) to the lobby to
make more room.  The email announcing the availability of booths was sent
out on January 11 to those exhibitors who were in either Rochester in 2006
or KC in 2005.

When we were last in KC, there was a strong, yet polite, request from a
number of Exhibitors to have the Exhibit Hall in a more accessible area than
the location for that year.  The decision to move to a different room was
certainly not easy and not unanimous. In doing so, the intent was to do our
best to look out for the exhibitors and the attendees by trying to provide
an easily accessible, highly attended showing for the wares.

There were a number of exhibitors in Rochester, including the other tool
sellers who were in attendance, who really liked the layout and the
continued efforts to raise participation in the exhibit hall. 

David, I'm personally sorry that you feel underserved by people who are
volunteering their time and talents to work toward the betterment of our
trade. I appreciate the efforts that you, and so many others, put into
making PTG a better organization. I can honestly say that there is never,
consciously or otherwise, any intent to be passive-aggressive or to alienate
anyone. If anything, just the opposite is true and I would love to have an
opportunity to sit down together while we're in Kansas City and, if Council
wants me to continue my efforts to serve the organization, help find some
ways that we can better accomplish these mutual goals.

Respectfully

Allan
Allan L. Gilreath, RPT

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Andersen
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:29 AM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: Kansas City

>
This was sent a few days ago by our friend Jurgen Goering; my reply  
is below.
Kent Swafford, Joe Garrett, Alan Gilreath: please read my reply--- 
it's strong, but honest and true for me---and tell me and us what the  
deal is; communication goes a LONG way to fight confusion and doubt.  
I hope we can pu this on the table and talk about it......
With respect,
David Andersen
Malibu, CA


> Piano Forte Supply will not be exhibiting at the National  
> Convention in
> Kansas City this year. The exhibit hall was sold out in 19 hrs,  
> about 4
> months before the event, and anyone who came later came too late.   
> I among
> others.  I am sorry for the many of you on this list who were  
> counting on
> visiting my booth.  Needless to say, I am also disappointed at not  
> being able
> to show all my new items.
>
> Responding to exhibitor complaints that not enough technicians were  
> making
> their way over to the exhibit hall in 2005, the decision was made  
> to move the
> exhibit closer to the main  convention activities.  However, the  
> only room
> available is 40% smaller than the hall previously used.  I haven't  
> yet fully
> understood how this can contribute to the biggest and best ever  
> 50th annual
> convention.
>
> Home office told me that 120 booths could have been sold, but the  
> exhibit
> hall only has room for about 70 booths. (The size of every booth  
> had to be
> reduced by 20% to accommodate even this small number.)  So, at over  
> $600 per
> booth, that amounts to a lost potential revenue of around $30,000  
> (!) for the
> convention.  I could imagine that with $30,000 a lot of enticements  
> could
> have been afforded to draw technicians across the way into the the  
> exhibit
> hall.  Let me see:  free food? how about caviar canapes, or perhaps  
> a $1,000
> door prize every hour of the exhibit?.... Maybe a grand piano as a  
> prize?
>
> I can't help but wonder if enough thought was given  to the drawing
> technicians to the large exhibit hall, instead of opting for the poor
> compromise of the smallest exhibit hall in years. (The breaks between
> sessions in '05 were far to short, for example) I don't know why  
> there always
> seems to be such a huge problem surrounding the exhibit hall in the  
> last few
> years.  I don't want to bring up past mistakes, but they were  
> surely made,
> and one important lesson doesn't seem to sink in: a good exhibit  
> hall is
> vital for the success of a convention - it draws technicians to  
> attend.  I
> cannot count the number of technicians who were full of  
> disappointment at the
> Rochester convention, saying to me that they would not have  
> attended if they
> had known there would be only one tool and parts supplier from whom to
> purchase. I know many will be disappointed with the exhibit hall  
> again this
> year.  It is a real pity.
>
> Oh, well, here's hoping for Burbank in 2008.  See you there!
> Jurgen Goering
> Piano Forte Supply
> www.pianofortesupply.com

Jurgen----Let's go outside the box and figure out a way you can be a  
presence there, with all your rockin' merchandise.
Email me privately.  It's just not right. I'm positive there are  
other small exhibitors we could work something out with vis a vis a  
suite or something. Let's do a little pushing and see if these guys  
can actually serve their members with some respect.

Why are we always making excuses for and bitching about the national  
convention leadership? Why isn't this, in every way, going to be the  
biggest and best? Who made the decision to----at the BIGGEST and BEST  
convention---
cut the exhibit space in half? It's breathtakingly short-sighted and  
disrespectful, in my opinion; especially after the miserable  
experience with tool-sellers in Rochester.  Do you leadership guys  
have a passive-agressive issue with us, the membership? Do you  
secretly want to alienate us and piss us off?

  I'm  teaching a total of 11 hours class time in KC; plus, at my own  
expense, I'm bringing some hi-def film equipment to interview some of  
our legendary elders before time runs out; my intention was to offer  
the film to the PTG Foundation for museum/archival purposes---and to  
use it for my own marketing purposes, naturally. The point is, I'm  
giving very freely of my time, energy, resources, and reputation to  
shine a light of excellence and positivity on our craft and our  
organization. Why do I feel so unmet, unseen, and underseved by the  
leadership of PTG? Really.
David Andersen
On Apr 16, 2007, at 12:06 AM, Jurgen Goering wrote:

>