Downsview April Reptile Expo Review

Well, we decided to take a cruise in the WRX and we ended up at the show. It's held in a small empty industrial building in North York.

The highlight of my day was after when we went to Commisso's to grab a Veal on a Bun.

The show had a range of vendors ranging from the smaller basement type breeder up to a few that seemed a bit more professional.

After a quick once around to see what everyone had to offer, we started to look more seriously and even had a few decent chats with the more approachable people.



Rule #1...no prices, no time spent at your booth. I don't know you, I don't trust you and I have no idea if it's a $500 item to a person that would pay $500 and $200 if $200 gets offered. At least the ones who put a price down, I know what to look right past and which ones I might want to negotiate a price on.

There were a few that when we left just after 1:00 who had made quite a few sales and had empty spots in their display. The ones that has no prices, were still in their cage...I see I'm not the only un trusting person in the crowd.

A few booths were just spiders, frogs etc...zero interest in that stuff so we just stopped to admire for a second and moved on.

We saw a few snakes that may have made nice additions to our collection, but I didn't have a tank heated and ready at home. There were plenty of nice Ball Pythons to be had in the $40-$80 range, most common pricing was 100/150/200. Again I'm not a breeder, so their value just doesn't extend into this range for me.

There were a few nice people there, we made a few new friends.

Didn't buy anything and to be honest, it was a waste of $10 to get in. A $2 admission would have been more suitable for the size of the event.

The only stuff we even considered buying were items we can just go to our local pet store and buy for $1-$2 more. So it's just not worth buying stuff I wont use for 5-6 months just to justify the trip.

The event was a bust...

But the Veal Sammich after was awesome. Also hit SVP Sports on the ride home and got a great deal on some shoes. So the day wasn't lost.

I think I like my snake...but I don't think I will attend any more of these events.

Yeah. I'm glad you wrote a review because now I'm not disappointed I didn't go lol

If you want to go to an expo worth the admission fee you need to go to the CRBE. It's much bigger and some of the animals are breathtaking so even just going to look around is 100% worth it. I am a breeder so the larger price tags don't bother me as much but there are always a few selling cheaper animals as well.

Yeah after talking to the gf...

We're going to check out the CRBE show.

But as for the smaller expo's, no chance we're gonna pay 10 bucks a head for a half filled 7500-10000 square foot room again.

Live and learn.

We didn't have very high hopes to be honest, so we're not disappointed, we did meet a few nice breeders.

As I said, I had a hand full of stops in the area I wanted to make anyways. I spent a good amount of my sales career selling stuff in North York anyways :)

I enjoyed myself and ended up spending 2 hours looking over booths (I'm horribly indecisive though lol), but it was a smaller expo than I was expecting. I did pick up a double rex rat for a decent price and some heat tape though :)

It was the first expo I've been to that I didn't end up bringing a reptile home. There wasn't much (in terms of BPs anyway) that caught my eye

Haha yeah that old dude with the heat tape was helping jump start the next batch of basement breeders, was quite the line.

I was actually going to pick up that cheap imported battery operated temp/hydro gauge for $20 bucks, but I couldn't get close to his table. Hopefully his margin on that heat tape is huge because that's all he was doing the 2 times we walked by.

We did the same thing, walked around once to take it all in and then re visited the people we wanted to talk to and check out the stuff we wanted to see.

I'm not trying to say it was a total waste of time, just saying I expect a lot more for a $10 admission fee.

One thing for sure, the people who organized the expo...they made out like freaking bandits at $10 a pop.

There was a really pretty young woman there selling candles though...hope she's at the next one :)

I am the same way on pricing. Whether it's a gun show, antiques, or cars. I was in retail for 13 years and vended at shows 2-3 times a year. I know how that no price game works. :rolleyes: