Ten and out: NAAS 2011 and the storm that wasn’t.

I headed down to Springfield, MA last Thursday with my laptop and great intentions of getting on and posting at least once or twice while we were down at the North American Show itself. You know: kind of a live and on the scene type of thing! Of course I also went down there promoting the fantasy that I would get up early in the mornings and exercise each day at the hotel gym. Best laid plans and all that. As far as the blog and internet use went, not only did I not get to post anything, I didn’t even really get to check email for the past 3 days which is a pretty unusual occurrence.  As for the planned exercise regimen, it turns out that it lacked compatibility with the copious amounts of beer and vodka that were “forced” upon me by the various hooligans that I am fortunate enough to call my friends. All of that aside though, the show was really a great success. Though as with any event involving 800+ alpacas it was of course not without a touch of drama.

With the weather forecast calling for Springfield and most of the Northeast to get hammered by a snowstorm last Friday, we invited any and all exhibitors that wanted to arrive on Thursday afternoon instead of the scheduled check-in day to do so. Though people went out of their way to thank us all for the chance to check-in a day early, I must confess that it had all seemed like a far better idea from my perspective on Wednesday afternoon when we first hatched the plan than it did on Thursday when roughly half of the registered farms took us up on our offer and arrived over the course of just 3.5 hours! In the end of course Friday only brought the mighty storm that wasn’t. More of a glorified flurry really. Thursday evening’s craziness also meant that Friday’s check-in was in fact a rather relaxed affair compared to other years. With a lot of folks having already set up and their animals settled in, people were able to spend that day catching up with old friends and colleagues, meeting new breeders, and even — control your shock and surprise — doing a little business. All good.

The gamut of emotions that I’m feeling today, this first day after the North American Show, runs through quite a wide spectrum: happiness, relief, pride, fatigue, sadness. Kind of like the day after Christmas I guess if I had to make a comparison. Lots of build up and excitement followed by a form of emotional and physical let-down. We had agreed with our friends and fellow organizers Kevin O’Leary, Deb Shields, and Bob and Louise Hebeler not to talk about our future with the show too much ahead of time. Obviously our friends and family knew that we (Jen and Ian) as well as the Hebelers would be helping to run our final NAAS this time around but that wasn’t really public knowledge until the exhibitors’ meeting on Saturday morning.

When we first started the NAAS in 2002 we had no idea that the show would have the legs to go on as long as it has. How time flies! I think it was at the 2008 show that we more or less made a pact both here at CCNF and with Bob and Louise that a 10 year run for the four of us would have a nice ring to it. We all have our different reasons for wanting to step back a little from the organizer’s role. In our case it mostly relates to wanting a little extra time with our kids as they start to reach their teenage years and all of the scheduling challenges that presents. Who knows: we might even want to try going to some other early Spring shows too? Though right now (this would be the fatigue speaking) I can’t even write that on my monitor with too much enthusiasm. Time will tell of course. So even though there is a part of me that is relieved and gratified to have passed that 10 year mark I also feel a little haunted knowing that we’re finally done as well. The three farms that ran the show from its inception went through a lot together over the past decade and have built friendships that we will last for the rest of our lives as a result. I won’t prattle on here about the history of the show and the things it has gone through and done — all of which are a matter of public recored — to become what it is today. Suffice it to say that I feel, and I think most would agree, that it has been and will continue to be a very positive force in the North American alpaca industry and to a lesser extent the world at large.

In any case as Kevin pointed out in his introductions on Saturday morning, even though the show will officially be taken over by himself and The Big Guy (aka Scott Young) we are in point of fact not really going anywhere. Though we will no longer be writing emails, shepherding registrations, or chasing down ads from sponsors there is a very high probability that we will be right back there next year on check-in day scanning microchips and helping out with color checks the same way we did for the past ten years. I like to think of it as the lighter, more positive version of Stockholm Syndrome: the NAAS had us in its clutches for a decade and we went and fell in love with our captor. Our thanks go out to everyone over the years who has come to the show and in so doing helped to make it the incredible event that it is today. Long live the NAAS!

We came, we saw…we drank beer (and took bad pictures with my phone). Clockwise from the upper left: 1. Deb Shields, River View Alpacas and Scott Gove (THE voice of the NAAS), Sandhill Alpacas. 2. Sean Penn and Polly Michaelis, Finger Lakes Alpacas and Kim McAllister, CCNF Herd Manager 3. Ursula Munro, Tripping Gnome Farm Alpacas and Scott Young, Hilltop Alpacas 4. Ryen Munro, TGF 5. Dave “The Forgotten Man” Serino, Aspenwood Alpacas and Jen Lutz.