Why do you suppose the climbing gear wasn't there? I saw email from TreeStuff that they weren't there either. In their own back yard! I figured they'd have had a bigger than normal booth because of that. Covid? Lack of interest from customers at the show? Not enough staff to both attend show and maintain operations at the mother ship???
How was show attendance overall?
As for me: I wanted to go...have family in the area, so lodging would have been free. However, a few things came into play:
*We are swamped right now, so it is tough to take 2 days off
*When early registration deadline was approaching, Covid was really spiking across the midwest (both my kids had it around then...), so I was thinking it might get cancelled and I didn't want to pay and be left holding the bag
---nor did I want to be exposed to a lot of people indoors for 3 days straight
---nor did I want to wear a mask for 3 days straight.
All that added up to me skipping it, unfortunately. Wonder how many others had some of the same calculations? I'm guessing staffing issues (not only for those 2-3 days, but being behind because of short staffing all season) is a widespread challenge for conference attendance???
