FCI WORLD DOG SHOW BRNO 2021 (CZECH REPUBLIC)
to have no rent at all. This probably accounted for the trade stand holders too and the sponsors. I had the impression that it was all a little more modest than we are used to. On Wednesday, prior to the start of the World Dog Show, there was a CACIB show and that allowed many foreign exhibitors to obtain extra CACIB titles, and eventually, finish their Czech Championship or Grand Championship. The total entry for this show was 3,161 dogs. The Czech Kennel Club had previously organized a World Dog Show in 1966, and another one in 1990. In 2014, they hosted the European Dog Show. (They have certainly built up a lot of experience.) And yes, they managed again to organize another very nice show, especially with all the COVID restrictions in mind. They dared to take this high risk, and with a glance, they succeeded. The show took place in the second largest city of the country, Brno, about 200 kilometers [124 miles] further to the southeast of Praag, nearby the border to Slovakia. The city has about 400,000 citizens, but its expo halls are vast, modern, and practical. They can host a show with easily double as many partici- pants then this year’s COVID edition. The show took four days. (Five, if we also take the CACIB show into account.) On the first day, we still saw about 10 percent of the people wearing masks, but on day two this changed to hardly 0.1 percent. No trace of social distancing any longer, and I had the impres- sion that COVID never happened. I did not see any COVID-safe checkpoints, but people confirmed that samples were regularly taken at the entrance. Maybe this is probably why the COVID measurements were not followed so strictly. Fortunately, due to the very nice, sunny, and perfect weather for an event like this, the doors of the halls were mostly open and people liked to walk outside in the open. Inside, there was no social distancing at all and it was crowded like any other show of this size. Four halls were used for showing, the two big- gest for the WDS, a smaller one for the club specials, and another for more club specials plus the indoor trade stands. The small halls were very dark inside, and your eyes had to adjust to the darkness before you were able to follow the judging in the rings. Out- side, in between the two biggest halls, was a kind of street with more trade stands and many food, snack, and coffee stands spread around the halls. Thanks to the large parking areas around the halls, nothing was very far away. One thing was a fact: It was very clean everywhere! As I did not see any cleaning service— maybe I didn’t notice—I suppose that all the people were very disciplined. It makes such a big difference! Hall F was reserved for the breed stands, offices, and of course, for the very large main ring. Along the long sides, we found the stairs on one side, and opposite to the podium, on the short sides, we found the entrance and exit, left and right of the huge black curtain and opposite to the VIP and Press seats. They proved far from ideal due to a difficult angle for taking good photos. On general request, this was changed
118 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 2021
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