Big Trade Show Changes for 2011

There's big news on the birding trade show front for 2011--buyers will have a few choices for where to look for new outdoor product!

Bird Watch America announced that it not be hosted in Atlanta next year but instead will divide into 2 separate regional trade shows. One called Birdwatch America East January 8 - 11, 2011 in conjunction with the Philadelphia Gift Show at the Garden Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania and Birdwatch America-West February 5 - 8, 2011 in conjunction with the Seattle Gift Show at the Washington State Convention Center in Washington.

AmericasMart also announced yesterday that they will officially add a new category for 2011 called Birding & Backyard Nature in the Market Temporaries area. Many buyers have added AmericasMart to their itinerary when visiting Bird Watch America in the past to look around for product ideas in the Garden section. A few birding vendors had booths there this year including Mr. Bird, Droll Yankees, Birds Choice and Arundale.

With three markets to choose from in 2011, it will be interesting to see how bird retailers and vendors divide their travel dollars.

New Droll Yankee Feeders

Droll Yankees had a display of their new line of easy to clean bird feeders. One is the Onyx Clever Clean® line of feeders.

The feeders offer a new port style on DY feeders. Above is the sunflower port tube feeder. Still a nice wide area for a black oil sunflower mix to flow through, but the perch is a coated U-shape design, making it easier for small birds to feed--they can face the food and eat, as opposed to turning and twisting their heads to get at the food as with previous designs. The perch is also more attractive to larger ground feeding birds like the cardinal.

The port for the Nyjer/thistle feeder shows a unique flower pattern. It gives a finch four places to get food in one port and is a more artistic design from your standard Nyjer tube feeder. The design will also help people who feed a fine chips finch mix, since squirrels and downy woodpeckers both have a tendency to widen holes on the old style design. However, that's not the most exciting feature of the feeder. The bottom of the Onyx Clever Clean feeders, snaps apart easily for any customer to remove the base and clean out the feeder. Watch a video demonstration:



But the Onyx feeders weren't the only new style from DY.

It's not quite available yet, but the Droll Yankee Ring Pull tube feeder will be available soon. A bit more economical in price compared to the Onyx line, this line is a sturdy tube feeder that comes apart. The center of the tube is held together with a long rod. You unscrew the rod and all the ports come apart for super easy cleaning. There is probably a greater risk of an overzealous customer losing pieces, but overall is an exciting design.

Watch your supplier for these exciting Drolly Yankees feeder.

Birdwatch America 2009

It was a slightly more subdued crowd at Birdwatch America this year. Overall traffic from both buyers and vendors was down, which wasn't too surprising given the current economic forecast. But many vendors showed up--some new faces and many reliable standbys. The winner for Best New Product was a new comer to the show called Cast Paper Art.

Cast offers cards and ornaments that can either be offered as food for birds or a potential garden for bees or birds the following spring. Their line of Blooming Expressions are ornaments crafted from 100% recycled cotton, fresh flowers, and wildflower seeds. When the ornament is planted, it grows into perennial wildflowers.

Recycling and sustainable products were key at this year's show. Almost every booth mentioned how much recycled product or sustainable supplies were used in the manufacturing of their products.

The winner of best booth at the trade show went to Texas Butterflies. Their colorful display of large decorative butterflies wowed the crowed, causing them to get the most votes. Also, the winner of Best Website went to Woodstream Corp.

Urban Expositions is committed to making the show better than ever and a meeting was held the following day with many well know feeder manufacturers and others involved with the show to make it better for buyers and vendors in the future. If you attended BWA (or if you did not) what will make you attend the next show?