Showsight August 2020

LINES FROM LINDA: OVERCOMING THE ODDS

Jan Clifford stepped in for me, capturing photo memories of the shows.

or more. The grooming/crating space was a big hit. Everyone liked how it flowed and felt like they were not crowded. All aisles were at least 10' wide. We did organize our building to have a central PHA area. One end of the building was mostly Toys and Terriers, Non-Sporting, Sporting; the other side of the building was Working, Herding and Hounds. What didn’t go well: It seems some peo- ple don’t realize the word ‘grooming space’ is also ‘crate space’, so many didn’t under- stand the grooming areas we also meant for crating space. So better wording to make sure it is understood, whether you are crat- ing or not, you need space to leave a crate and dog during the shows is what we con-

allowed one exhibitor at a time to have their picture taken, the others had to wait to get their picture. This seemed to work well for us. Although we had to make changes from our normal way of holding our shows, it forced us to make changes and many of those changes were huge. This actually gave us better control to avoid congestion, not only at the rings, but in the entire build- ing. Much of what we did this year will be implemented for our future shows!” GROOMING/CRATING “We measured the building multiple times to gather a true knowledge of space for grooming/crating areas to maintain social distance. We had three large aisles, 20', 11'-20', and cross aisles over 40' near all the rings. Free reserved grooming space was given based on number of dogs and breeds. The PHA area layout: Perimeter aisle 18' then 9.5' table crate with a 9.5' crate table and then interior aisles were 6'. This allowed everyone to exit to an aisle. Crates were one set of back-to-back. The rest of the layout was Aisle—9.5' (Table-Crate), 6' Aisle— Table-Crate. This basically created blocks of space, again everyone exiting to an aisle. There were perimeter aisles around the edge of more than 18' and cross aisle with 11'

Our rings were laid out with at least two open sides and no middle rings. We had an entrance and exit for each ring, and tried to have space away from the adjoining ring. We had 6' barriers around the rings and ringside crating for each ring. The ring entrance/separated exits were really liked by the exhibitors, so much so that we will incorporate it into our regular routine going forward. We found we had to improve [by] adding more ringside crating to alleviate the congestion around the rings and to give better guidance as to where they could go if they were crowded.” SHOW PHOTOGRAPHERS “One of the AKC recommendations was to have the photographer take pictures with each judge with each ribbon, to be Photoshopped into the individual picture for each dog. After discussions with our photographer, Bryan McNabb, we realized this would not work for these shows. We had three photographers and 33 judges. It would take too much time for all three pho- tographers to take all those pictures every morning. Although the idea may work at single photographer shows with few judges, large events couldn’t do it that way. We continued do show win photos to the same way as we have always done them, with the photographer going to each ring. We only

sider grooming space.” MASKS/SIGNAGE

“We required masks or face shields on at all times when in the building, whether you were able to social distance or not—includ- ing alone in your setup. We had put up signs all over the building, focusing on any door into the building. Well it seems wording on the signs conflicted. The main sign spelled out, ‘Must wear a face covering your nose and mouth.’ Another sign said, ‘Must have face covering’ with a picture of a person wearing the mask. It was interpreted this sign just meant you had to have a mask with

86 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, AUGUST 2020

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