Make a Trade Show Exhibit worth the Time and Money

We attend a bunch of trade shows each year, not only for promotional products, but for embroidery and for clothing apparel of all descriptions. We also attend and exhibit at the International Council of Air Shows in Las Vegas each December. I have been a performing member since 1978, and recently we have begun devoting our time to promotional gifts and giveaways.

In the 400-odd pieces of email we receive each workday, I came upon a valuable, informative piece from Skyline Exhibits. May I urge you to take few minutes and read it:

"10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Exhibiting At Trade Shows"

September 20, 2009 | by Mike Thimmesch, Skyline Exhibits' Director of Lead Generation and Industry Relations: Skyline Trade Show Tips

1. You won’t succeed at trade shows if you just show up. A trade show first-timer may think that because they’ve paid a couple of grand to rent a 10 x 10 space for a few days, they automatically will reap the whirlwind of leads and sales from the show’s attendees. If only. Surprise: you’ve actually only paid for access to this great audience of buyers. Now you have to do your part, such as train your staffers, create a promotion that attracts qualified prospects, and design your trade show display to entice the right visitors to your booth.

2. Trade shows are not as glamorous as they looked from the outside. To the uninitiated, this is what trade show marketing looks like from the ouside: Flying around the country to sunny or metropolitan locations, staying in top-tier hotels and meals on the company dime, and access to top-level company execs. But seen from the inside, trade shows are not so glamorous. Trade shows themselves are very hard work with a lot of stressful moments before, during, and after exhibit hours. There are so many details to master, and so many vendors you are depending on. You can sweat more during exhibit set-up than a month of work outs. And while travel can be exciting, it gets old fast when you are repeatedly away from home and your family.

3. Inertia determined much of your company’s show schedule. In the many years before you were handed the reins to your company’s trade show marketing, your company cobbled together quite a list of shows. But are they all still worth it? Were some trade shows chosen because your target market was there, or because your competitors were? Has your client base evolved away from the demographics of some of the shows you exhibit at? Have some shows eroded their attendee base by not reinvesting in strong marketing and educational content? Are there new vertical markets that you have yet to find good shows to market to? It’s up to you to break the inertia — and create some new momentum

4. Trade show labor is way more expensive than you think, and sometimes it’s even worth it. It’s a eye-opener to find out how much you will pay someone else to set up your booth, hook up your lights, or rig that hanging sign, especially if it’s on a weekend, or God forbid, on a Sunday. The union rules in most venues require that you pay labor a wage that adds up in a hurry, even if they don’t. You can minimize labor costs by getting easier to set up trade show displays, trying to schedule your set up for straight-time labor, and by lining up dependable contractors. I’ve found some Exhibitor Appointed Contractors are worth it, as they work hard to earn you business, show after show.

5. You will blow your trade show budget if you don’t plan well. You can never plan too far ahead, especially for overseas shows. Your budget was likely set with the best-case scenario for your trade show expenses, without room to pay for late fees and rush charges. That’s powerful incentive to quickly master the show book. Fortunately, after several shows you learn what you really need to order (electrical, leads machine, carpet) and what form pages you will likely skip (plumbing, signage, security). A pad of Post-It Notes or a good electronic scheduling software helps you flag your most pressing deadlines.

6. Everybody wants to help you pick the trade show exhibit color. No one wants to help you track the leads. When it comes to exhibit design, everyone has an opinion. And in the time leading up to the show, they will all clamor to offer their ideas, making it harder to get the booth built on time without rush charges. Yet after the show, you will have a harder time getting similar participation in tracking the leads from the show – ostensibly the reason you designed your exhibit in the first place. Remind your colleagues that if you can’t prove the results from this year’s show, you won’t be exhibiting at the show next year.

7. The 10 minutes after the show closes is when most damage happens to your trade show exhibit. The show ends with a voice booming over the loudspeakers saying, “The show is closed, see you next year.” But to impatient booth staffers, it’s as if they had actually shouted, “Drivers, start your engines!” Booth staffers hurry to win the race to the taxi stand, hotel, bar, restaurant, or parking lot. And if you have a portable trade show display that your booth staffers pack up, this is when they break it, by shoving it in its case as fast as they can. Close that expensive window of time by getting a more durable display, getting better packaging, or just by having a frank conversation with your staffers before the closing bell. Or, if you’re the one who wants to win the race, take a deep breath and slow down before you make a costly mistake.

8. Drayage is the most expensive way to move your exhibit the shortest distance. As a trade show newbie, one of the biggest surprises is that you have to pay to have your exhibit moved from the shipping dock to your booth space. Even more shocking is just how much you’ll have to pay — about the same to move something across a convention center as it does to ship it across country. Drayage rates have risen by double-digit percentages in some of the last few years, probably because more exhibitors switched to lighter weight trade show booths like Skyline’s. To offset the lower weight of exhibit properties, drayage charges per pound have increased. If your exhibit is still made the old-fashioned way, it’s a double-whammy.

9. It’s hard for booth staffers to take their very first lead at a trade show. In our lives we go though various, potentially scary rites of passage: learning to ride a bike, going to your first day of school, asking for a date to the prom. While all of these have been immortalized in film, no movie has yet to bring to the silver screen the epic tale of a first-time booth staffer engaging and writing up their first trade show lead. What would yours have been, a horror film? A comedy? A tragedy? Whatever kind of movie it would be, it would also be a drama, because it’s you’re likely filled with nervous energy as you go out and ask a perfect stranger face to face if they’d like to do business with your company. Just remember that your booth visitors actually paid to visit the show, and many are shopping for solutions to their problems that your products can solve. Practice the process of engage, qualify, present, and close, and you’ll be more comfortable taking your first lead.

10. Trade shows can be addictive. With the hard work, long hours, and time away from home, some people can’t wait to return from their trade show. But for others, trade shows are a calling. They get jazzed by the performance aspect, the blitz of direct client contact, and the relationships built before and during the show. They like the ability to create a successful marketing program in a medium built upon the value of face-to-face interactions. And that’s when trade shows really become addictive: when you master the medium and drive serious revenue to your company’s bottom line.


Before you begin your planning as an exhibitor, determine your purpose for exhibiting. Is it to give flyers away? Or to collect email addresses?

Immediately after the show, follow up by email, that night if possible, just to say, "Hi, thanks for stopping by." It is surprising how few business do this after putting all the effort and money into their exhibit!

We put our names in for 30 to 40 prize drawings when we go to tradeshows and hear back from four or five, and perhaps one within 48 hours of the show. The iron gets cold very quickly.

By the way, at a terrific trade show two years ago, we won an Apple iPod, a $300 AmEx gift card and a high-end Garmin GPS. Entering those booth contests can be very worthwhile.

Identity Theft: "Surprise! I'm You!"

It doesn't take much smarts for someone to become you, to swipe your identity either with a credit card or a check or both. That ought to scare you. It certainly scares me.

You know all those credit card bills you pay off, then tear the bill up and throw away? Or the credit card offers you get in the mail which you toss without opening? Or ANY old checks which you don't need any more which go into the trash can next to your desk? Any one of those thing can lead to some unscrupulous person cleaning your financial clock.

I am leading up to a link to my friend Kim Komando's website. Kim, known worldwide in print and in broadcasting as "The Digital Goddess", sends out three newsletters each day, plus an extra on the weekend. In one newsletter from Labor Day, she has a link to a service which she hosts called "Protect My ID."

We got involved with identity theft through contact with Frank Abignale, who most people know as "The Great Imposter." Two things which he suggests anyone do to help prevent identity theft are (1) buy and use a shredder for ANYTHING with your name and/or any information on it, and (2) only write checks with a gel pen rather than with a typical ballpoint; the gel ink imbeds itself into the paper on a check so what you write cannot be removed.

We actually became involved with the art of "check washing", and we were amazed at how easy it is to do. Using a simple household chemical, all ballpoint information on a check can be lifted, removed and dissolved in a matter of minutes. The check can then be dried and it ready for reuse. The person(s) who steal the check and wash it may not be the ones who reuse it, either. "Clean" checks are sold for a lot of money to others who can write themselves enormous amounts, even above what's available in the account.

For that reason never leave outgoing checks in your mailbox. Post them in a big blue iron box which notes that it is property of the USPS. And write all those checks with a gel pen; if someone DOES get ahold of a check, unless his name is City of Scottsdale - Water and Sewer it will do him no good.

Yes, SHOWLINE does handle gel pens as well as some of the newer pens with non-erasable ink. But that is for another time.

Those Special Deals Just Keep On Comin'

There are times when I wish I were traveling more. Since cutting back on announcing airshows [see an earlier blog entry] to Spring and Autumn, I am seeing MANY special travel deals I just can't use. JET BLUE has a special flash-sale Fall fare of $29 and up (each way) via Travelzoo. I read about Jet Blue and Airtrans specials, but from Phoenix, most are red-eyes and are not real appealing to me.

In Las Vegas the 4-Diamond hotel, Monte Carlo Resort and Casino is currently running a special at $40 - $49 per night. Not bad.

Another special from Travelzoo is $137 for a Paris 4-Star hotel with breakfast and Seine Boat Tour. The Hotel Concorde La Fayette. Yes, the "Paris" in France, not Las Vegas.

I just this moment received an outstanding offer from the Harrah's Hotels. This has to be one of the best offers I have found if you want to get away from everything this summer and return in the cooler weather for more riotous fun. Book a quickie vacation NOW and get a free night or two from November through January. The hotels include Bally's and Rio from $49 a night, Harrah's from $39 a night, the Flamingo from $45 a night, Caesar's from $110 a night, Imperial Palace from $25 a night, and Paris [Las Vegas] from $69 a night. The deal is book two nights summer, get one free winter; book three nights summer, get two free winter. If you deserve a few days off, you can't beat this deal with a large stick!

Flash Sales on Cotton

It's the time of the season when cotton growers and cotton clothing manufacturers want to move a bunch of product out, quickly.

In the past two weeks, we have received short notice of three day sales from seven different T-shirt and fleece manufacturers. WHITE T-shirt blanks (unimprinted) are selling for as little as $2.25 for the 5.3 ounce promotional weight and two dollars more for the 6.1 ounce heavyweight, in white. Gildan, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom. It's hard to think about fleece in mid-July but special offers are coming through for shorts, pants, long and short sleeve jackets, pullovers, hoods, caps and BLANKETS. Most of these are available in a variety of colors; last year in the colder climes, high schools and colleges were buying these things for football games and other outdoor activities.

We got this one special offer for large quantity Ts, 5.4 ounce (promotional weight), sizes Large and Extra-Large, WITH 4-color imprints. $2.78 each, a one-time setup of $185, and a minimum of 2,000 pieces. And this is FULL COLOR! This is ideal for a mob! One of our suppliers is offering free freight on orders over $200; that's like seven dozen T-shirts.

If your group, school, college, fraternity, sorority, civic organization or club is planning anything in the cooler weather, now would be a good time to consider fleece. As for T-shirts, they can be stored until next spring, if you don't have an immediate need for them. But like airfares, these flash sales happen with little notice and are gone in the blink of an eye.

School Starts WHEN!?

When did school begin fall classes in August? EARLY August? It used to start the day after Labor Day and run until about 5th of June. Beginning about Memorial Day weekend, kids would start to pound the pavement to look for summer jobs. Growing up in Philadelphia, most kids would head "down the shore" anywhere from Cape May to Long Beach Island, NJ. New York area kids would hit everything from Tom's River and Seaside Heights, northward. You just knew if you landed a job (and most did) that you would have a good ten weeks of paychecks to get you into the following school year.

I was big for my age, so I could pass for older. I had a job working the kitchen and pulling the dumbwaiters in a summer residential hotel, I cooked and beat fudge (starting at 4:30 AM each day), I crewed as a first or second mate on a charter fishing boat, and my last three summers before Penn State, I worked as a line boy at the Ocean City, New Jersey, municipal airport. In each case, I knew I could work from mid-June until Labor Day. In some cases I was asked back for several weekends, as my family commuted between Ocean City and Philadelphia on the weekends, not wanting to give up the great south Jersey weather.

Point is, now kids barely have 5 weeks off, if that. Who is going to hire summer help for five weeks? They are barely trained in a job, and they have to leave to go back to school. It's like military pilots who do their contract time, then leave the service to look for airline work. [Not so much TODAY, but the airline jobs will come back. Really they will.]

I bring this all up because we (Showline Promotional Products) are being swamped with back-to-school promotional specials. Every time one arrives, I shake my head. For a kid, summer vacation was part of growing up. Now there is very little summer vacation. In my opinion kids are being robbed, at least short-changed, of part of their youth. At Penn State, I elected to go through summer terms to get my BA in June of 1965. I had spent ten months on the road performing with a hot band, and I wanted to get my degree on time. In college, you grow up pretty quickly. But come on, NOT in school.

What was it I said yesterday?

You KNOW merchants are in trouble when they are running WINTER sales in the midst of summer.

Toys 'R Us is running a "Christmas in July" Sale beginning this weekend (July 19) and running for a week. This is not unlike hotels offering deep discounts (with a deposit) now for bookings in winter. The hotels are REALLY different in that many of them are offering SUMMER prices for Fall and WINTER stays when their prices are higher.

Last evening (July 15), well after my last post, Southwest Airlines announced a flash sale. Purchase travel by July 30th for travel August 16th through November 18th, '09. Travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Southwest has to put bodies in the seats, and according to good ol' Yield Marketing (which is something you learn about when you study for an MBA), if you have a product and it doesn't sell at the MSRP, let us say n dollars, then see how it sells if the price is adjusted to n dollars minus r dollars. If demand increases, the price may be increased to just below the point of diminishing returns, let's say r dollars plus ten.

Basically if you have a plane with 136 seats and 50 of them are empty, it costs almost as much to fly with the empty seats as with them full. So FILL THEM UP. And if you are looking for deals, watch very carefully for other airlines to follow suit on the same dates with the same restrictions.

Good hunting.

Where there ARE airline travel deals

You just have to BE there when they happen!

With my reduced summertime travel schedule I have been simply watching the travel industry from the sidelines. The "flashdeals" come and go everywhere, especially in Las Vegas. Some hotels in Reno, NV, namely the Grand Sierra (which used to be the Reno Hilton) have some outstanding deals... really hard to believe. I am most familiar with the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino; that's where many of us stay during the Reno Championship Air Races in September.

It's the "Getting There" part which is usually what hurts. Most of the major airlines have had "flashdeals" of their own, beginning with one airline and spreading to most major lines within less that a day. There was a spectacular deal the week of July 6th which lasted just THREE DAYS for travel through most of the autumn months. Fares most people could afford out of pocket... that cheap.

The airlines have their own bills to pay. LARGE bills for fuel, maintenance, all those people, loans for the airplanes, rent for airport facilities, taxes, etc. Revenue, money coming in, is really really important.

The WALL STREET JOURNAL always has an interesting spin on travel. Earlier this week, there was a piece about the U.S. airlines flying into a credit squeeze. They all need cash. (duh.) the WSJ simplifies it this way:

• The country is in a terrible economic slowdown.
• Businesses are cutting back trips and the number of people taking trips.
• Airlines count on business travelers for the big bucks, like, buy a ticket this morning to travel this afternoon.
• Business travelers just aren't there.
• When this happens, the airlines try to attract vacation travelers.
• If people are not making money, they certainly don't have a load of jack to spend on airline tickets to fly the family to Six Flags.
• Therefore, marketing departments will try lowering fares on select routes. If other airlines follow and lower fares on other routes, pretty soon you have a "flashsale", and you HAVE to be right there when one starts.

If you were going to have to go to a meeting in Las Vegas in December, and you have known about it since last January, doubtless you kept an eye on airfares and hotel rates and jumped on the best you could find, probably last March. But now, you just want to get out of town. ell, your good pals, the airlines, want to help. Be watching the websites of your favorite two or three carriers, and when it seems that something up, and suddenly there are some great fares, do NOT sit around thinking about it.

Think "Money I don't have to spend." That will get you motivated.

I am NOT abandoning Airshows!

There has been loose talk floating around that Ol' Frank has left the business of announcing airshows. But having announced shows since 1977, there comes a time when a line has to be drawn. Linda and I have a thriving Promotional Products business, and I still lease my voice to various businesses for commercial voice-over work and narrations. There are only so many hours in a week.

Summer in the southwest is always a challenge, especially when the electric bills come. Here in the Scottsdale-Phoenix metro area, Arizona Public Service changes electric rates in late May for six months; the daytime rate (9 AM to 9 PM Monday through Friday) increases by about 45%. This happens just as the need for air conditioning becomes painfully obvious. When is it hottest here? In the daylight hours! Running the A/C in the house and in the separate office building is a necessity and becomes painful when the bill from APS arrives.

After having announced airshows since 1977, standing out there on the announcing stand or on the ramp for what has become six hours or so each show day, I decided a couple of years ago that I just didn't want to stand there in the heat through the months of June, July and August. So with very few exceptions, I decided to announce only in the spring and the autumn. The exceptions? I will go to New England at any time of year to announce a show, having lived there for 23 years and missing it terribly. The other exception is a show which really is a product demonstration as in a trade show. I am under cover with fans, or inside a glass-walled air-conditioned studio with all the cold water I could ever want.

Of course I continue to function as lead race announcer at the Reno Championship Air Races. Although the races are in mid-September, I have so much help in the form of spotters, timers, the local "99s" putting my spotting boards together, my "Pit Bull Pit Boss", and representatives for each class of racing plus Steve Stavrakakis to help with the unlimiteds and Danny Clisham to announce the civilian aerobatics, I don't mind it still being summer, technically. I say "technically" because we have worked the races in perfect beach weather, in dreadful heat, in wind so bad that dust obscured the course, and four years ago, we flew the final race of the week, the Breitling Unlimited Gold Race, in fairly heavy snow. So that week is always a challenge.

Yes, I am still announcing airshows in spring and fall. Just do not think that I have turned my back on the business of airshows. Too much fun, too many friends, too many memories.

Happy Independence Day

Just a link to something which is timeless. The boss at GoDaddy.com is a former US Marine. Please click here, and watch this.

What kinds of Cars DO Americans want?

I tend to store things up, then get to the keyboard and rant. This is one of those times.

Earlier I was listening to the NPR station in Phoenix. The lady was repeating the oft asked question, "Why don't the American carmakers build cars Americans WANT?"

That's about the thousandth time I have heard that. The fact is, American carmakers seldom do more than react to what they see as a possible trend. When "Ahnold" was presented with the first HUMMER off the line, people with too much spare money wanted one. Then other folk wanted the same thing, but with a little styling. Thus was born the SUV rage. That was 1996. When gas prices went through the roof last year, NO one bought SUVs; they all demanded fuel-efficient smaller cars. Oh, that was until gas prices collapsed, and the small fuel-efficient cars were left wanting on the lot. The main reason SUV sales didn't shoot up was there wasn't much bank-owned money to lend to people.

Go back to 1972 and to 1979 when the Arabs reset the pumps. Both times, people whined that they needed more mileage out of their cars. Jimmy Carter (remember 13% inflation?) coined the term "gas-guzzler" and created a fine, although he called it a tax, for cars which didn't deliver - I can't remember - 16 miles per gallon? Is that close? Both times the industry began offering VERY small cars, many foreign-built and imported under a domestic nameplate. However the domestic manufacturers continued to make their muscle cars, hedging the bet that the fuel-efficient car market would be temporary both times. it was.

In 1979 I was working at a radio station in Boston, and we expressed a certain indignation that a gas station down in Charles Circle had the gall to charge a dollar a gallon. But if you think about it, every time, with the exception of summer of '08, when fuel prices have spiked, if they leveled at something reasonable, we got used to it and accepted it. Humorous sidebar: I had a Cadillac, and people accused me of driving a "gas-guzzler." So with 13,000 miles and 11 months on it, I traded for a smaller Pontiac something. The Cad gave me 19 mpg; the Pontiac gave me 17 mpg. But people stopped calling me names.

Manufacturers, in order to meet the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, imported more and more cars. My wife's ex-truck, a Mitsubishi, was imported as a Dodge Ram 50. The carmakers could continue to build the big ones as long as they met the CAFE mandate by selling enough of the little ones. That's called "eyewash"; as long as it looks good on paper....

So now the government is going to mandate a much higher average mileage. If the American public really wanted little cars, we would be awash in Smart4Twos. That, as far as the American public stands, is a true novelty. The Prius, which in its fifth year last summer was such a hot item, could be found in rows on lots this past winter. "Gotta have a hybrid!" The US manufacturers answered the problem by bringing out its own versions of hybrids, including the VOLT, a plug-in car. Do you see the continuing trend? React; don't innovate.

My Mercedes 300D is 24 years old. It has been serviced regularly, had things replaced as needed [I have now spent more on maintenance than the car cost new] and driven carefully. I get 28 mpg. I own it. There are now diesel cars which are cleaner and get even better mileage than the hybrids. There are gasoline cars which get even better mileage than the hybrids.

In 1957 (for those of us who can remember 1957) the Chrysler Corporation unveiled its new car lines by saying, "Chrysler is three years ahead!" Remember that? Seeing the doldrums which were settling in in the auto industry, they threw out three years of design changes and mods and brought out the 1960 lines as 1957. Ahhh, yes. TAILFINS. Within two years GM was lousy with... TAILFINS. And lotsa chrome.

Personally I do not want a little lightweight car which I can plug in and get 40 miles on a charge. (Oh, THAT'S convenient.) I want a car I can get into and drive to the mountains up toward Flagstaff, or drive over to Vegas, or drive to the foot of Santa Monica Pier. If it requires hydrogen fuel cells, let's develop those. If a solar array on the roof of my car can help it, let's get going. If I could have a gas turbine which I could light off once on the freeway, one which would power electric motors for the front and rear axles [gas turbines are most efficient if operated at a constant vehicular speed and RPM], then why not?

This country has been based on the internal combustion engine forEVER. No amount of legislative demands is going to change that.

Las Vegas in the News, AGAIN

Las Vegas is hurting. You knew that.

In an effort to get ANYONE new to come to Vegas, marketing had gone to an image of "Las Vegas is for everyone," meaning that as long as someone had a few bucks for fun, Las Vegas doesn't care if you are a hog farmer from Montana. Just come to Vegas, and bring money.

Someone smart decided that was the wrong approach, so now, they are going back to the "What Happens Here, Stays Here" thing. If you haven't seen the TV spot yet, watch for a "TV news reporter" walking along the edge of an abandoned swimming pool, saying no one is coming to Vegas, and you can have the place to yourself. When her "take" is complete, she rips off her TV reporter suit to reveal a swimsuit, as people who have been hiding all dash out to the tables, chairs and the pool. Vegas is still kinda "hip", and the spot seems to be saying "If we can convince the world that nobody comes here any more, then we (who know better) can have more of the place to ourselves."

For folks who would like to TRY las Vegas on for size, TravelZoo, one of my favorite newsletters, notes that The Palms (speaking of hip) has a special deal through June of $79 a night Sunday through Thursday including a $50 dining credit plus other goodies. This is not the lowest price in town, but if you want to see how "the other half" lives, this place is a killer. The Malloof brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings, didn't want any beds that were too short for any of their basketball players. Just gives you an idea.

I recall observing, while staying across the street from the Palms at the Gold Coast for $25 a night, that I could be staying at the Palms for another couple hundred a night. It IS a beautiful place, and at the special price, it is well worht it. Even if you DON'T stay there, go to one of the bars and drink in the atmosphere. Even try the PLAYBOY Club.

So, why are we blaming the pigs?

"Swine Flu" is so misnamed. The H1M1 influenza is not the fault of pigs, nor do pigs carry it. You won't catch it from eating pork or bacon. It could have been as easily named "Bovine Flu", and people would avoid beef and milk.

A lot of years ago, maybe 20 or 25 years, there was developed a technique for preparing food for long term storage without refrigeration -- food which would otherwise spoil in a day without refrigeration. Beef, chicken, pork and dairy products among others could be rapidly heated to a very high temperature, but not "cooked" in the classic sense of the word, then vacuum sealed for later meal preparation. The unfortunate term given this process was "Irradiation."

At the time this term came to be, I was living in Massachusetts, where anything which included the word "radiation" was feared as being somehow related to nuclear reactions. When a nuclear power generating facility was proposed, then designed and built in Seabrook, New Hampshire, a very noisy group calling themselves "The Clamshell Alliance", whose apparent motto was "Our minds are already made up; don't try to confuse us with facts!" picketed every day for YEARS. At any opportunity one of their number would get onto television and say: "Newkewluhr power is no f**king good; we're gonna shut it down." When this group heard "irradiation" in terms of food, they went ballistic. Once again, "...don't try to confuse us...." I had eaten irradiated meat and milk in 1990; it was very tasty and I am still reasonably healthy.

In the early 80s, I caught what was called "Russian" flu. We blamed an entire country for the outbreak in terms which suggested that it was some kind of plot.

The H1M1 flu seems to have started in Mexico -- not the cleanest, healthiest place on earth. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta says that the H1M1 flu is transmitted person to person or through an intermediary, such as by handling money, touching a door handle or knob, or pushing the push bar on a shopping cart. More directly, shaking hands can help transmit H1M1. These thing can help transmit ANY flu. So the doctors all suggest you wash your hands frequently and perhaps use an antiseptic spray or wash on your hands. And what do they suggest you take if you thing you are coming down with something? TAMIFLU! That's stuff you can buy over the counter.

Our resident loose cannon, Vice President Joe Biden, managed to scare a lot of people when he gave his opinion about the flu outbreak on NBC, saying he didn't want his family to fly or take a subway. (?) Remember sheets of plastic film and duct tape in 2005? Oh, right... then an airliner enroute to New York from Europe diverted to Boston because one of the passengers complained of "flu-like symptoms." If anyone is on an airliner for six hours, you will develop "flu-like symptoms."

Meanwhile people, even entire cruise lines, are avoiding Mexico in droves. This is "Cinco de Mayo" in Mexico which approximates our Fourth of July. Mexico City was called "a ghost town" by ABC News. There are reports of many deaths in Mexico, but upon further reading, one finds that many of these deaths have other root causes -- a bad traffic accident, for instance -- wherein one of the victims had earlier reported "flu-like symptoms".

So let's stop blaming the pigs. Wash your hands, use a sanitizer, and if you cough or sneeze, cover your mouth and nose, and wash your hands again!

We as a people have become masters of creating irrational fears. We really do have to knock it off!

Challenge Coins on a Budget. (REALLY?)

We have been fielding inquiries about challenge coins, and with the current cost of brass, we have been going deaf from the sound of peoples' jaws hitting the floor. The usual question is: "What do brass challenge coins cost?" That's like asking, "How long is a piece of wire?" The more appropriate questions to ask is: "I am not a close friend of Paris Hilton, so can you help me out with challenge coins on a budget?"

Challenge coins do not HAVE to be brass (which, yes, has become very costly.) My friend Dan Arakawa, with whom we do our majority of coin and pin business, suggests zinc alloy coins.

Zinc alloy is not aluminum; it does not make a namby-pamby "tink" sound when it hits a table. As a substitue for brass, instead of using the traditional spin-casting technique with cheap lead-based metal, Dan uses a super high-grade zinc alloy material in a rubber injection mold. This technique creates the same high quality look of traditional brass coins, but the cost is lower. The only difference is a barely perceptible difference in weight between a zinc and a brass coin.

And if you want a cutout inside your design, with the zinc coin they are free; with brass the charge for a cutout is $40.

Included in pricing are two-dimensional molds for both sides, a high polish or antique finish, and FREE artwork from your sketches. (If you have artwork already, Dan is happy to create the coin from that.)

500 of the 1 1/2" diameter coins at 3 mm thickness (about an eighth of an inch) are $2.86 each (plus tax and shipping, of course.) You can add up to four inlay colors for an additional 20 cents per coin per side. Again, interior holes are free.

Car Rental - REAL TIME

Saving Money - LOTS of Fun

I am one who enjoys saving a buck or so. Just checking my reservation for plane and car at BWI in May, and I thought, "$322.89 seems like a lot of jack for a Chevy Aveo for five days." This, from Alamo from whom I have rented cars for a long time, and with whom I have some kind of discount through an affinity deal.

So I punched into CarRentals.com and entered my dates. The website came up with a LONG list of car rental outfits, including DOLLAR, which has a deal where you get to the lot and pick out the car you want, mid-size or larger. The same dates with free mileage costs $157.89. Hmmmm.

Same dates, probably the same distances, a larger car (I hope) and for half the price! SOLD!

Wherever you are going, for business or pleasure, REALLY check CarRentals.com before you make a decision.

Safety at the Track? Oh?

I am one of those who watches NASCAR racing to see crew coordination during pit stops. That is a fascinating 14 seconds!

In 1996 while announcing the airshow at what used to be NAS Miramar, I was invited to go on the JATO ride on "Fat Albert", the Blue Angels C-130 Hercules. That was five and a half minutes of superb crew coordination, and as a pilot I appreciated their work.

I watched both the Saturday and Sunday races at Talladega, Alabama, this past weekend. On Sunday with maybe a quarter mile to go to the finish, there occurred a spectacular accident which sent Carl Edwards' #99 car into the air and into the safety fence which separates spectators from the track. As the crash was replayed and replayed, pieces of automobile could plainly be seen flying into the grandstand. It wasn't until the FOX TV coverage had signed off that we heard there had been seven spectator injuries plus one other "medical issue" not directly related to parts of car striking someone.

In the airshow industry there are rules providing safety margins between spectators and performers. The most common is the 500-foot separation between performance line and the spectator line. If a pilot crosses that "deadline" he (she) risks being cited for unsafe operation and suspension of airman's privileges.

Personally, I like to be as close as I can be to the flying action, if I am not announcing the show. It's the same thing with being a railfan, a fan of railroading. Yes, I watch and photograph trains. I want to be as close to the thundering locomotives and trains as I can be, even standing at the base of the rock ballast on which tracks are set to be eye-level with the rails. I want to feel the deisel power, hear the air, smell the brakeshoe smoke. THAT is excitement. I tend to ignore the fact that a piece of ballast may be picked up by the rushing wind and hurled at me, that a piece of equipment could fall off a passing car, or that there might be an actual derailment which could render me immediately past tense. There is a danger, but I choose to ignore it.

I never ignore the danger at an airshow. I am always aware of it, but the legal 500-foot "deadline" keeps me an appreciable distance from the performers. Jets, like the F-16 or the F/A-18 E/F, are kept out at 1,500 feet when performing any aerobatics. And no aerobatic energy can be directed toward the spectators. If something falls off a plane (and historically, it has happened) it should not imperil me or any of the people watching the show.

So how come NASCAR doesn't have this kind of regulation, one that would move the cars out (or the grandstands back) to give more separation? I may have answered my own question earlier; NASCAR fans want to smell the exhaust and the rubber and feel the pounding of passing power on their chests. But, as with monster truck shows, about which I opined in an earlier BLOG entry, there really should be something other than a fence to separate spectators from a ton and half of metal flying through the air at 180 mph.

Unfortunately, reality dictates that the tracks are not going to be rebuilt to move grandstands further away, and the race course will not be shortened. New tracks, when they are built, should have more spectator safeguards included. Perhaps depressing the track an additional 10 feet below the grandstands, or raising the safety fence and making it double or triple thick might help. The problem there becomes that it will affect the spectators' views. Some design engineer, somewhere, must have an idea.

Driver Carl Edwards, who was seconds away from winning the Aaron's 499, says he saw the fence going by while he was airborne and hoped he wasn't going into the crowd. When the #99 car stopped rolling and bouncing on the track, when he was sure he would not be hit by another car, Edwards climbed out of what was left of his car and jogged across the finish line to complete the race. Later, when he learned of the injuries in the stands, he is quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "We'll race like this until we kill somebody. Then [NASCAR] will change it."

I sincerely hope something is changed before a spectator or anyone dies.

Gotta move out those Jackets

What the Slow Economy Means to You

Promotional Products is an interesting business. It's sorta like being a dairy farmer. When the cows mooo that it's milking time, ya gotta milk them. When clothing manufacturers receive their raw materials... the stuff they contracted for a while back... they have to make the clothes and move them out. This is especially true with cotton, as I have explained before. That's why we get these "flash deals" on things like T-shirts -- sales that last only a few days.

One of our jacket suppliers has made the offer of discounts approaching 70% on some excellent clothing. Embroidery is available. These are not cheesy jackets but the kind you and your club or group would be proud to wear. This is a "While Supplies Last" offer, and when someone inquires, we call and find out the supply situation.

Remember, too, that Time can be your Friend. The earlier you make your decision, the better. Just click on the pic to be able to read about it.

The Airlines are trying to Squeeze Capacity

The Wall Street Journal is a great place to discover travel hints. Scott McCartney, who writes a regular feature called "The Middle Seat", notes in the WSJ of Tuesday, April 20th, that the airlines are parking more planes in an effort to limit the number of available seats for any given flight. This, in an effort to raise prices.

Many of these airliners, some only a few hundred hours old, are being dead-stored in Marana, Arizona, which used to be a "secret" CIA base, home to Evergreen Airlines. The maintenance personnel tape over all the openings, check the fluids, roll the tires into "bags" and maintain the planes once a week. For this (the example as used in the story) an airline will pay $60,000 per MONTH to store a 747, in addition to paying the note with the bank. It's still cheaper to do this than fly a load of empty seats around the sky.

What this mean to you is that the airlines want to raise fares. If you were not aware of it, several lines DID raise fares this past week, only to lower them again when other lines didn't also raise theirs. (That's called "Who Blinked First.")

If you plan to go somewhere this spring, summer or fall, now might be a good time to firm up travel plans and buy those airline tickets. At this moment SPIRIT AIRLINES is having a ONE-DAY SALE, a real "flash sale" with fares as low as $18. Read it for yourself HERE.

If you are looking at Las Vegas, which would be REALLY PLEASED to see you, the Las Vegas Hilton has a flash sale with prices from $50 - $60 per night (including weekends) with a load of extra goodies included. The resort is on Paradise Road just across the street from the Las Vegas Country Club, and the Monorail is right out front.

And if Las Vegas IS your destination, the show at Bally's, "Jubilee!" is discounting tickets about $35. I have seen that show three times, and it is a great piece of production.

If this interests you, the specials are all from Travelzoo, and you have to do your booking through the site links here. I'll be watching for more specials, so please come back to check.

Special Promotional Products Offers

We are receiving special manufacturers' offers every day. Among them are price specials on T-shirts of five gross (720) or more. But the T-shirt specials are good for only three days. If you are going to need T-shirts in several months, you can buy them now and warehouse them until you need them printed. We can transship direct to you, and you can have a local screen printer complete the job.

Also Bic Pens has some GREAT special offers right now, but most end April 30. If they do what they usually do, they will have a new round of specials during late spring and summer.

AS was expected....

ORBITZ announced it is waiving booking fees through May for any trips booked on Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. This means that they join Expedia and Priceline as major online ticket bookers in dropping their fees. This is a big deal; those fees help to pay the rent for each of these companies.

Travelocity.com had also dropped their fees until May 31. Travelocity is part of Sabre Holdings Corp. I couldn't get a straight answer on the phone, but I think that this Sabre is the reservations arm of AMR Corp, the parent of American Airlines, the booking consortium used by many major (legacy) carriers.

Anyhow, do your homework, and remember you may be able to find better fares directly from your airline of choice. And Southwest don't play dat game. You have to check Southwest yourself. And speaking of SWA, they have been offering some killer deals in conjunction with resorts in, among others, Las Vegas. Check it out.

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I have received emails noting that some of the special offers listed have expired, i.e., they are no longer valid. The reason I leave them up is to help emphasize the timeliness of the postings. I write about these offers for your benefit, and I point out that they have hard expiration dates. It's like, use them or lose them. If you are new to this BLOG, you can see that I am finding great special offers for all kinds of travel, and I am giving you the opportunity to take advantage of them.

Tough for THEM is Good for YOU

Earlier I had mentioned how airlines had cut back flights, airplanes and seats in this steep drop off of business. Even with capacity reductions, the airlines are still flying empty seats. The result is airlines are competing with each other in an ongoing series of fare sales.

In the WASHINGTON POST there is a story about how far the drop off in air travel has reached. The travel booking websites Travelocity and Expedia have eliminated airfare booking fees on any trips purchased through May 31. The belief within the industry is that these "temporary reductions" may become permanent and that Orbitz may be pressured to shed its fee system as well.

Also, there are new offers being made to guarantee a "lowest price" for a given trip. While Orbitz offers their own Price Assurance program which refunds flights if a customer finds the same flight(s) at a lower price, Travelocity has a PriceGuardian promotion (also through May 31) which promises a refund if another Travelocity user books the same trip for less. Priceline is also offering protection if a customer finds a lower fare for the same trip.

It means that making decisions early MAY mean a better price and MAY mean a price even better than THAT.

What did you USED to do, Grampa?

In my previous life, waaay previous, I was "radio personality." That always sounded better than "disk jockey." Pretty lucky to have worked with some of the true heavyweights in broadcasting. Three of my 29 years were spent with the monster of all monsters, WABC New York. That's when it was Musicradio77 WABC.

That powerhouse has been talks/news since the early 80s, but Mark Simone, who holds forth on a talk show, has a Saturday night oldies show. He brings back musical stars of the era when WABC was THE radio station everyone listened to, and he talks with them from 6 to 10 PM on Saturday nights.

Some people seem to think I'm a larger deal than I think I was, and last May Mark had me on the air for a half hour, talking about what radio used to be (when it was fun.) I'm coming baaaack. Saturday night, April 11, from 8:15 PM New York time (5:15 PM in Arizona) I'm going to be back on the air with Mark. I have no idea of what we're going to talk about, but I never knew what I was going to talk about when I went on the air, anyhow. Check out Saturday Night Oldies on April 11th.

Thanks!

More Travel Specials!

I'm beginning to think I should be in the travel business. More flash sales are on the way, some very short time.

In the world of advertising specialties, we are now receiving three specials a week with deep discounting for both polos and T-shirts. In either case, if you are going to want or need either in the next few months, now would be the best time to buy them and keep them warehoused, out of sight. We are also seeing many special offers for the old basic item, pens. And these are not just the kind you steal from the motel, either. There are some great looking and great handling pens in here, including many from Bic. If you didn't know, Bic has several upscale lines, and all the lines are having specials of their own.

As for getting away, here is a deal that may disappear before you have seen it. (What a shame!) If you had ever considered San Diego, the beachfront Hotel del Coronado is having a HALF PRICE SALE! And it's for the rest of 2009! Yes, there is a catch. You have to book it before Saturday night, April 5. Coronado is that strip of sand across the bay from San Diego, to the south of NAS North Island. It is ungodly expensive to live there, and granted the Hotel del Coronado is no Super 8. But half price? If you are considering a getaway some time in the fall, make a decision and GET ON IT.

The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa on the Phoenix/Scottsdale line, about four miles from where I am sitting at the moment, has a terrific special offer for Arizona residents. $89 room rates from Memorial Day through Labor Day if you book now. The rate for the special from last summer was $200. If you have friends or family here in the valley, send them the money and have them book it for you. This is a beautiful NEW resort, and if you are a golfer, this is as close to heaven as you can get for these bucks!

US Airways, our Home Town Airline, has even come up with a bargain fare that's hard to top. From Phoenix to Hawaii used to run about $700; right now it's $385. In speaking with one of the well-known bargain travel services, we heard that even with the cutback in flights and the parking of airplanes, there are STILL too many empty seats, and the airlines HAVE to fill them. If a trip usually costs $500 and there are three empty seats, the lines may want to sell them for $200 to keep from flying "sailboat fuel" around. The bargaining services, like Priceline and Expedia, get to broker some pretty neat deals.

Southwest Airlines has thus far had more airfare sales this year to date than they had in all of 2008. And they have brought back (again) their coast-to-coast one-way fare of $99. You will find specials for Southwest only in their website; Southwest isn't even listed on the major booking networks to avoid some pretty heavy costs. The current Southwest sales ends Monday, April 6th.

I usually have something in here about Las Vegas, so here 'tis. The Mirage (not a bad place) has a $95 per night special, including a buffet credit of $50. You have to read this one for yourself.

Get outta town!

Newspaper story about LUKE AFB Airshow

The following is a letter I wrote to the Arizona REPUBLIC with reference to a whiney story about "all the problems" at the Luke AFB airshow over the weekend of March 28th and 29th. I gain nothing from this; I had nothing to do with the show.

I was going to let the "Air-show snags bother visitors" from Monday's REPUBLIC just roll off my back. I cannot. I have been an airshow performer since 1977, and I have seen real snags. What people are whining about at Luke AFB are minor inconveniences.

I have announced a couple of the Luke shows, and between base security and the local police departments, the agencies do the best they can.

Granted there are more people and cars coming in recent years, but Luke has two ways in and two ways out. They are both the same ways. Remote site parking is a great idea, but if the shuttle buses aren't kept separate from the cars, traffic will never improve. Open a little-used and little-known-about gate on the west side of the base -- a gate that only snakes and coyotes know about -- and run the shuttles back and forth that way. Make the shuttles the ONLY vehicles which can use it. Isolate shuttles from any other vehicles.

Passing through screening will take some time, but do it offsite, at remote parking. Screen 'em, get 'em onto the shuttles, and move 'em out.

Ten bucks to park? With four people in a vehicle, that's $2.50 each. And the show is FREE! This show would be about a $15 to $20 ticket as a civilian show. So there was a long line? STAND in the line. You are going to see a helluva show!

I announced the show at what used to be NAS Miramar north of San Diego for the three consecutive years following the release of the movie TOP GUN. You cannot fathom the traffic trying to get into that show! It was always the second weekend in August, and cars began lining up pre-dawn for a 9 AM gate opening. (The show started at Noon, thankfully.) Base security used to escort all the performers through the aforementioned little-used and little-known-about gate on the west side of the base. It was a delight. All parking was on-site for spectators back in the 80's, but no one complained about the traffic at the two gates.

Getting off the base is usually complicated by people whining at the cops, "I don't wanna turn left! I wanna go RIGHT...." The sooner people learn to go the way security wants them to go, the quicker they can get home.

What moron brings a gun to an airshow? At a military base? And every newspaper ad and broadcast commercial, not to mention posters, said: "NO Backpacks, No Pets,"etc. Of course there is always some fool who takes the pet back to the car and locks it in. I have personally helped to "liberate" pets from these wheeled ovens.

One other thing. When people call the base, most will ask, "When do the Thunderbirds (or Blue Angels or Canadian Snowbirds) fly?" Unfortunately they are frequently told the target time. Then people will say, "They don't fly until 3 PM, so we can go over around 2:45 and see them." Wrongo. First of all, many many dummies have the same idea, and they will all wind up watching from some distance away, stuck in terrible traffic. Second, the military team is just a PART of a fantastic performance which a bunch of people have spent an awful lot of time and effort to put together. Sponsors have put money into the show so the show can pay for all the performers and the support they require. The answer to the original question should be: "The gates open at 8 AM, the flying begins at 10 AM, and the Thunderbirds are the featured act."

There weren't any "woes." It may have taken longer to get in and out, and you can't legislate against the stupidity of people who bring prohibited items and screw up the flow, but inside, you DID indeed see a world class airshow, safely and professionally managed and performed. Any "problems" as people perceived them will be fixed in time for the next show. And aside from paying ten bucks to park, no one paid a DIME for a day's entertainment, and the day's entertainment didn't cost one taxpayer one cent.

Guess what's UP in Las Vegas?

Word out of Sin City sez that, while hotel/resort room prices may be down, the price of shows has been going up. (!)

Production show prices have risen between 5 and 9% in the last year. This does not include touring headliners, like if Elton John (first name that came to mind) were in for a three night concert at Mandalay Bay, prices would probably be in the $150 vicinity. Check show prices carefully if you want to see one, and remember that same-day tickets are available to MANY shows. Check for coupons in the Las Vegas tourist magazines and in the booklets in every hotel room. As noted in an earlier BLOG, you may be able to get tix for a hot show, but the seats may not be together. If ya REALLY REALLY want to see it, maybe you can get past the "not together" thing. We have lucked out on a couple of occasions with half-pricers side by side!

Quick Update on Harrah's

72 Hour "FLASH Sale" - Decide QUICKLY!

A very brief note, different for me.

Harrah's wants to get some revenue in the till, so for THREE DAYS (including today, Friday, March 27th) there is a booking window for Las Vegas' Harrah's from $39 per night, Flamingo from $45 per night, and Imperial Palace from $30 per night. Certain nights and date limited through August, but there are accompanying spiffs included. Check it out HERE.

HERE WE GO!

I TOLD YOU that this was coming!

I want to get this up as quickly as possible.

From Travelzoo, word has just come down that MGM Grand wants money NOW, so they have put up a special offer good through (get this) DECEMBER 29th! That's so they can try to get their usual tariff for the rooms over New Years Eve. This may CHANGE or BE MODIFIED overnight.

$49 a night plus a $25 "casino credit". That means, go run you credit through a slot machine, then cash out. You will probably have about $21 in cash. Read about it in this TRAVELZOO special edition.

A catch? Yes; you have to make a reservation by April 3rd. Read the fine print carefully.

Have a nice time!

Ahhh... the Las Vegas Story is never ending

More News, and more GOOD News

In an earlier post, I mentioned MGM Mirage is up to its fanny in large bitey things. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal carried an extensive story on how Dubai World, a conglomerate owned by the government of Dubai, is suing MGM Mirage to limit their exposure to damages arising from the $8.6-billion City Center project. Bottom line --- Dubai wants out. 76 acres in the heart of the Strip has already seen large sums of money spent on its development, but Dubai is signaling in the lawsuit that it probably won't make a $100-million payment on the project due Friday, March 27.

(There is also some pretty good name-calling followed by mud-slinging from Dubai World, blaming MGM Mirage for mismanagement and massive cost overruns.)

Once again, I would suggest that you watch for some pretty good "flash sales" from MGM Mirage; they need some cash NOW, and they will probably be making special reservations offers for months down the road. But remember, one night only in advance, refundable, and use a credit card.

______________________________

Because we see Las Vegas so frequently, I tend to take things for granted. One of those things is my mentions of Boyd Gambling and their hotels, and there is one which I tend to forget about. One of Boyd's earliest properties is SAM'S TOWN on Fremont Street, far from downtown. That's a neat old place which caters more to the fifth wheel travel trailer crowd. It's far enough away from the heart of the action that we may visit, but we don't stay there.

On the other hand, the ORLEANS Hotel and Casino, a Sam Boyd property, has a deal through the Thursday before Labor Day. Three nights midweek (Sunday through Thursday) OR Two nights weekend (Friday and Saturday) for "only" $219, including a $100 "property credit." That credit can be used in almost any restaurant, bar, showroom, movie theater, even room service. That's a pretty good special when you break it down.

Downtown, the GOLDEN NUGGET has a co-op deal with Southwest Airlines. (Ya hafta GET there, remember.) SWA has cut one-way fares for Vegas; from $49 to $99. AND you can have a Golden Nugget North Tower Room for $25 per night, a Gold Club Room for $50 per night. We have stayed at the Nugget, and it's a nice place with very convenient parking. It's a real "Old Las Vegas" feel, being in the middle of downtown.

There are a load of disclaimers, but you can click HERE and read them all for yourself. You have to book by April 6th for travel through August 14th.

I leave up old posts just so you can go back and see what you MAY have missed. New offers will be posted as I hear about them. And remember Anthony Curtis' Las Vegas Advisor; Anthony knows everything.

Airshows can be a lot of fun

I have been pretty fortunate over the past 32 season of airshows, having met some outstanding people. Athletes, movie stars, just about every airshow performer there is, and in this case, a photographer who is so low-key, many wouldn't know she is doing her job.

Laryl Hancock lives in Yuma, AZ, and she has photographed the entire Marine Corps Air Station Yuma airshow on Saturday, March 14th. I mean, many many photos. I had the pleasure of previewing the entire gallery, and I am impressed! For me, that's going some.

She had requests to put together a 2010 calendar, and that's what she has been doing over the past week. And yes, she is going to sell them mail-order herself. $10 each + S&H. Her pics are all grabbers. If you want to see the cover for yourself, check this SAMPLE.

You can order right off her website, and she has a button on her site for you to use PayPal, if you want. And no, I am not getting a cut. Sheesh. You people....

Watch for those travel deals... really

Travel industry is in tough shape. YOU are in luck

A story in The Wall Street Journal of Friday, March 20th, notes that spending on travel and tourism declined last year for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Dollars spent fell at an annualized rate of an amazing 22% in the last quarter of 2008.

Cities most hard hit in the U.S. are those whose economies are heavily dependent upon tourism dollars. Unemployment in Las Vegas jumped to 10% in January from 8.7% in December. As noted in an earlier post, MGM Mirage lost $1.14-billion in the fourth quarter, due to a 17% drop in gambling revenue and a 21% drop in room revenue. Nationally, shopping dropped 11.6%, according to the USDOC, spending on food and drink dropped 6%, demand for lodging dropped 10%, and passenger air transportation dropped 13%, down for the third consecutive quarter.

Yesterday (Mar 19) Station Casinos moved to seek bankruptcy protection by April 15th, following their announcement that they had elected to NOT make a $9.9-million interest payment due at the end of the week. Station Casinos owns Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch, Aliante Station, Sunset Station, Santa Fe Station, Place Station, Texas Station, Boulder Station, Fiesta Henderson, Fiesta Rancho, and Wild Wild West. These hotels are already priced in the lower tiers to attract folks who wanted to save a buck or two, and all are excellent values. They are referred to as "off-strip" hotels (something akin to referring to a show in Harrisburg, PA, as being "off-Broadway.")

I am going to make an obvious point shortly, but the history of what is happening is extremely germane.

This past February Boyd Gaming made an offer to buy "a significant portion" of Station Casinos. Sam Boyd purchased most of the "Coast" properties a year or so ago, including Gold Coast and Orleans, two of my favorites, and Barbary Coast across the street from Bally's. (Barbary Coast subsequently became Boyd's Gambling Hall.) So the Station Casinos are very much alive -- viable hotels which at the moment are renting lodging at very reasonable rates.

Further, one airline in particular, JetBlue, announced that it will offer a full refund to people who book flights through June 1, 2009, then lose their jobs, making travel financially infeasible.

This all means that planning ahead can save you a bunch of dollars. (I wish I could go anywhere on JetBlue conveniently. From Phoenix, passengers are basically on a ferry flight to reposition aircraft for the following day.) For the hotels you care about, you MUST watch for "flash sales", which are very short-time offers, perhaps as short as a week, but which may be reserved six to nine months out. Remember that room reservations are secured in most cases by a refundable one-night deposit, and in the event that a hotel or group SHOULD fail, make the booking on credit card, preferably on a virtual number.

Also remember Anthony Curtis' website. If anything is going down, he knows about it. He also always has great hints as to where to find entertainment and meal deals, including a famous 99-cent shrimp cocktail that... nahh, read it in his site.

Good hunting!

Looking for something REALLY CHEAP. Why?

There are things out there besides cheap pens

It's kinda humorous, the "Can you help me" calls we get. See, we are promotional products consultants first, then sales people. The majority of people call us saying they need help, then saying their minds are already made up. "Really inexpensive pens" is what we hear most often.

We joke when we ask, "You mean the kind you steal from a motel?" Our bank gave us a pen which, at the quantity they purchased them, cost about 11 cents. Cheap? Yes. Leave an impression of a solid financial institution? Not really.

The idea of a promotional item is to leave a warm, fuzzy memory of you FIRST, then to increase your visibility and hopefully broaden your customer base (or base of friends; many folks have called us for awards and for wedding mementos.) So "really inexpensive pens" is not always the answer.

There are many thousands of inexpensive items out there which are NOT stick pens. Of those items there are hundreds of variations on a theme. When you seek promotional items, let your promotional goods purveyor HELP YOU! That's what we do.

FLASH SALE in Las Vegas!

NO SOONER do I enter the story about the changing rates of Las Vegas hotels/resorts than Paris Las Vegas announces a rate of $50 per night Sunday through Thursday in June and July. The rack rate is $129. Friday and Saturday nights start at $75; rack rate is $250. If you want to go, you have to book quickly, because a deal like this will sell out quickly and the end date fopr the offer is Wednesday, March 25th.

This must be booked by March 25th through the TravelZoo link. There are a few blackout dates, but rooms may be still available. You will probably never be able to stay at a Four-Diamond resort for these prices again.

MGM Mirage is In Deep

The Wall Street Journal of Wednesday, March 18th, has a story of how MGM Mirage is on the verge of defaulting on payments on billions of dollars in loans as early as mid-May.

MGM Mirage has 10 casinos in Las Vegas, and it has more than $13-billion in debt, posting a fourth-quarter loss of $1.14-billion compared to net income of $872-million for the fourth quarter of 2007. Pending the possible default, the opening of the $8.4-billion 67-acre City Center project on the strip could be delayed, and the debt for the existing construction loan of $1.8-billion may also go into default.

You scared yet?

Las Vegas has always felt that as long as there is the urge to gamble, owning a property in the town and much of the state, would be tantamount to having a license to print money. When the economy started heading south a year and a half ago, the fallacy of building more and more hotel rooms and waiting for people to fill them up has made itself obvious. Ain't got the jack, ain't gonna come.

The result is to the advantage of those who want to go to Las Vegas, but want to do it on a budget, which does not include a 4,000 square foot suite with butler service and a stretch limo standing by. Resorts/casinos need cash today, even for reservations far down the road. It is for that reason that the deals are out there!

We offer this advice: if you are planning to go to Las Vegas, for business or for fun, and you are relatively sure of your dates, book rooms as soon as you hear of or read about a "flash sale." Once again we remind you that these are SHORT TIME sales, so a delay may actually cost you money. However, always book a reservation with a credit card (preferably with a "virtual number" for security sake) and read your reservation's details before you hit the BUY button. If the hotel should happen to close up [not really likely] you will at least be able to have a little leverage when it comes to demanding a refund; you will have the credit card company behind you.

Who ISN'T ticked off at A.I.G.

Lou Dobbs' coversation on Tuesday, March 17

Watching Lou Dobbs on CNN last night, guest talkshow host Mark Simone brought up an interesting point, which is completely valid.

The subject was the bonuses being paid to A.I.G. executives, despite the fact that A.I.G. has taken billions from us, taxpayers of the U.S. Mark noted that the $165-million is "like 37 cents" in the overall scheme of things. And he was absolutely correct. It's like making a big thing out of an extra bucket of water going over Niagara Falls.

That $165-million has been made very visible, as it should have been. The problem I have with it is that politicians have found a neat way to get face time on TV and newspapers; they stand up and whine how they are going to demand the money BACK, even to the point of what Senator Charles Grassley, Republican from Iowa, has suggested. He suggested that executives should follow the Japanese example and either resign or commit suicide, an extreme which Lou Dobbs came to refer to as the "Grassley Penalty." It all boils down to members of congress from both sides of the aisle trying to out-outrage each other.

The fact is that the "37 cents example" is valid, but it must be regarded as how that 37 cents affects the American taxpayer who has done his or her job well for many years, then finds the pink slip because, either the company can't keep as many employees or the company has gone bust. The outrage comes when those people see a group of elitists grabbing a bonus which they clearly have not earned, meanwhile the little guy gets nothing more than, "Sorry."

That $165-million may not be all that important when comparing it to the TRILLION-DOLLAR bailout, but to someone who was bringing home a few hundred dollars a week after taxes, those bonuses are the ultimate insult.

MORE on Las Vegas Specials

Las Vegas Specials from Harrah's are still out there

In an email on March 16, we got information that Harrah's group of hotels is changing some of the "specials" pricing at their Las Vegas hotel/resorts. The waaay advance price for Bally's is the same (at the moment) but the price for Paris has increased by $14. This is why we always suggest that when you see information for a "flash sale", you investigate it and take advantage of it ASAP. Don't let any good pricing opportunity slip away; if you are dead certain of your dates, JUMP on the special. The requirement is one night's advance for the reservation, and you can CANCEL it a few days in advance. Not bad.

T-shirts are a HUGE business right now

In the world of promotional products, "wearables" comprise about HALF of the industry. Getting into the warmer weather, imprinted Tees are a very large business.

T-shirts are always available, but right NOW, we are receiving notices of "flash sales" which last only a few (very few, like three) days. Even if you don't need T-shirts for a couple of months, now might be the time to buy the cases of shirts you need. As a giveaway item, the most commonly ordered size is EXTRA LARGE.

Just wanted you to know.

GOOD Travel News, and MORE GOOD Travel News

And the OFFERS just KEEP ON COMIN'

I am a regular on US Airways, an irregular on Southwest. Both have "frequent flier" programs.

Airlines carry frequent flier mileage on their books as a debt that has to be paid. Since free seats seem to dry up pretty quickly, the lines need some way to move the miles. The more unused miles out there, the softer their balance sheets look. So that's why we all get magazine offers, hotel offers, vacation trip offers, etc. from various lines, hoping we will burn those miles off their pages.

"If you can't raise the bridge, lower the river." US Airways (my "hometown airline") is attacking the debt problem from the other end. Today they are very nearly begging me to join their VIP club, so I can have some place quiet to go after the screeners pat me down. Anything to bring a buck in the door. So, watch for more "flash deals" from the airlines.

We are trying to keep up with the "special offers". Sometimes we luck out and find a SUPER special offer, which we pass along as quickly as we can. However, there are some specials you can track for yourself. One is TripRes.com, a site with outstanding hotel deals and more. The link should take you right to Las Vegas hotels, but you can also look for cars, restaurants and more in MANY cities.

And HERE is what I mentioned yesterday, Anthony Curtis' Las Vegas Advisor. If there is a deal to be had in Las Vegas, this guy knows what and where it is. One of the prominent posts on his home page is The LVA Top 10 values. You can join his membership club if you want to, but it is not necessary for most lookups. This is well worth your bookmarking and referring to frequently if you are planning a trip.

More when I can.... Frank

Airlines are in a World of Hurt

A HERITAGE Airline is looking for CA$H NOW

As mentioned yesterday, airlines are trying to put bodies in seats. Today, tomorrow, next month, half a year from today. But they would like to get some dollars in the bank now. As a result, many are running what has come to be called "Flash Sales," unannounced, short-time special offers which may have to be booked, like NOW!

American Airlines just launched a huge domestic fare sale for spring travel featuring some of the lowest fares on thousands of routes across the U.S. starting at $37 each way, based on round trip purchase. To take advantage of this sale, book by March 16! Later in the year there will be MORE air fare sales that will most likely extend into the Christmas holiday season, so keep watching in here.

Here are some of the longer-distance fares, one-way based on your eventually going home:

• Denver-Los Angeles — $67
• San Diego- Dallas/Ft. Worth — $95
• Los Angeles- Washington, D.C. — $97
• San Diego-Chicago — $97
• San Francisco-St. Louis — $97
• Denver-Miami — $98
• Los Angeles-Orlando — $107
• San Francisco-New York City — $115
• San Francisco- Boston — $118
• Los Angeles-New York City — $118

These special fares shown are valid for travel Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, there are a couple of blackout dates around Holy Week, and fares are valid for travel through May 20.

This alert came to me from TRAVELZOO; click only HERE to check on other American Airlines routes which may interest you. But remember, (a) you have to book by March 16, and (b) you have to complete travel by May 20th.

We are keeping watch for all kinds of travel goodies for airlines, cars, hotels, dining and entertainment (especially in Las Vegas.) I am endeavoring to make a Las Vegas "connection" that can offer you deals on EVERYTHING far beyond my wildest dreams.

Thanks for looking in.