Mississippi Wildlife Federations Extravaganza Expo; not what they hoped it would be for 2021

Mississippi Wildlife Federations Extravaganza Expo; not what they hoped it would be for 2021!

How disappointing it must have been this year for Mississippi Wildlife Federations Extravaganza Expo when the crowds did not flock to the new location like they did in previous years at the Trade Mart Center in Jackson. Even bringing in stars from the TV show Swamp People didn’t help bring out the crowds for this year’s Ganza. After all the hard work they put into the new show and the new location based on images and videos posted by the Ganza Staff no one too show up for the 2021 event! While the staff did make an effort to advertise better than they had in previous years, it was not promoted in a way to help the vendors and showcase who all would be there other than the main highlights and the vendor list was not published until less than 24 hours before the show making it impossible for some to schedule time off to go to the show. I am not going to name names, but besides us, major key vendors were not at this show for one reason or another. Maybe, like us the Ganza staff made no effort to contact them like they did us! Many still have a bad taste from the 2019 show and were hesitant but I will give the folks at Ganza credit for making an honest effort at putting on a new, better show but it still has a ways too go! Not only did people not show up for the event like in previous years, the staff did not event make an effort to capture images of each booth nor videos of the so-called crowds inside or outside like they did in previous years leading people to believe the show was not worth the drive to go out too. Social Media (Facebook, Instagram and other channels) are great free tools anyone can utilize and for someone looking to help promote a fundraiser show, it only makes sense to use these tools too your advantage and Ganza did not and it is obvious it hurt them! Hiring a professional photographer and videographer would not have hurt too on the day of the event to capture action shots to post during the event would have also been worth it. What little they did capture thru what I assume thru cell phone video shows no one showed up Saturday during the day for the indoor or outdoor events. Very few people walking around at 10am & at 3pm on the 31st (Sat).

I hate this happened to the Federation as I believe in them and what they stand for and only wish and hope in future years to come they get someone in their that can turn the organization around. Even though the event staff made no effort to invite us back, I think we made the right decision in not participating in this year’s show and not reaching out to them and saving our booth money for expos in 2021. This show has a long road to recover from before vendors should participate in this show and pay full price for booth rentals!

If you want to look at images and video from Ganza 2021, check out their Facebook page and look at the few things posted and you will see what I mean. Click on this link: Mississippi Wildlife Federation

Hope they have better luck in 2022 and hope they reach out too us before then!