It's been a few years since I have attended, but Congress has always been a great place to see a lot of really cool stuff, so I scheduled a server upgrade in the Columbus office on one of the weekends that Congress would be going on...specifically the reining. I've also been toying with getting a new horse trailer, so being that Congress was where I bought my 2003 Exiss, I had high hopes that a lot of manufacturers and a lot of trailers would be on site.
After paying the $25 entry fee, I headed toward what I anticipated was going to be a shopping mecca or at the very least some happy window shopping. I wandered through the aisles and my shopping desire balloon was quickly deflated. Like most big equine gatherings, Congress was obviously feeling the tough economic times. Over the last 10 years I've watched some of the most incredible shopping venues either disappear (Equitana) or fizzle down into nothing but Wal-Mart quality vendors selling in mass (Rolex, Equine Affaire). No longer are the custom leather booths, unique horse products, or items that make you go wow, available. Sure there was enough bling to blind you, but bling is a fad. I wanted to see products that made me really want to have it because it was beautiful, super useful or perfectly stitched or woven. Maybe I put blinders on after the first few rows, but I just didn't see any of the quality vendors of the old days.
So with a pair of jeans as my only purchase in hand, I wandered over to the horse trailer area and sat down for a talk with Featherlite. After good initial talks, they hit me with a $3600 estimate on a custom door so I politely told them thanks for their time and walked away. I also looked at their trailers a little closer...just not the quality I was looking for. So I wandered over to Sundowner and sat down for a similar and much nicer discussion with them. I liked their trailers and the pricing was fair, but still not quite the quality I was looking for.
So despite good intentions I wasn't able to contribute to the economic recovery this year. I miss the old Rolex, Equitana and Congress days.
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