The Western Pool Show has been a reliable industry event since 1975, starting with a few trade and service pros sitting at a table. It grew from there, says event director Eric Neilson, and for nearly 30 years has been held in Long Beach, California. A nonprofit organization, the show is run by volunteers. The only paid staff member is a part-time accountant, brought on a couple years ago.
This year’s show will be the 44th, and the first one in person since the 2020 show, set to start March 12, was shuttered with no notice.
As March 12, 2020, approached, show directors received notice of essential protocols due to a “flu-like bug going around,” Neilson recalls. Adding hand washing stations and sanitizer were among the main changes, but Neilson says there was no real talk of masks. “Cleaning bathrooms, having signage to tell people to wash their hands — the basic things you do for trying not to get colds or whatever,” he says.
The weekend before, there was a large fishing show open to the public in Long Beach, with upwards of 40,000 in attendance. With no reported COVID cases from that event, the Western Show team’s concerns were minimal.
Set up began that Tuesday; some exhibitors chose not to come, but most were there and everything was going well, Neilson says. Seminars started that Thursday around 1 p.m., with about 600 people in classes. Meanwhile, exhibits were finished and the exhibitor party was kicking off in anticipation of the show floor opening that evening at 6 p.m.
Neilson had been meeting all day with convention center staff and the health department, and there was no indication anything was going to change. He was talking with the band at the exhibitor party, who had just plugged in their amps and were starting to play. Then, Neilson was handed a cease-and-desist order.
“It was really abrupt, to say the least,” he recalls. “It’s really tough to tell everyone to shut everything down and then have to deal with that. They allowed us the remaining hour of classes, and then we had to let people go. We never did open the show floor.”
It took until the next day to get everything broken down, and in that time Neilson says Long Beach quickly became a ghost town. About a week later, the directors were informed that the convention center would not be refunding their money since they occupied the space, despite the event disbanded as it was only beginning.
“That was very disappointing,” Neilson says, adding that they attempted legal action, but it didn’t pan out. “We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars gone. And there were people that backed out at the last minute, so we didn’t receive their money. That put us in a bad position. We don’t budget to make money, and we didn’t qualify for any government assistance. Basically, 42 years of any reserve funds we had were gone.”
The Western Show is back March 10. “We’re going all out and trying to put on the best show we can,” Neilson says, adding that some things had to change; there won’t be a truck giveaway this year. “We’ve had a great relationship with a Dodge dealer for years, and they’d come and exhibit at the show and would give us a discount on the truck,” Neilson explains. “But trucks are very expensive.”
Instead, the big prize will be $20,000 in cash, and $15,000 of donated prizes given away every hour on the show floor. Additionally, the Western Show is bringing back its golf tournament, hosted by CPSA, on March 9.
Neilson remains proud of the Western Show and what it’s accomplished through the years. “We get people who have grown up coming; it’s been a long tradition for them and then they want to bring their kids,” he says. “The show is something we’re very proud of and something we do to give back to the industry. We’ve been blessed, and we’re hoping things work out.”
