Jan 25

Written by:
1/25/2012 6:37 PM 

Pomona Gold & Treasure show sets record attendance

By Brad Jones
GPAA Editor / Content Director

Gold prospectors — new, young and old — came out in droves to the GPAA Gold & Treasure Show in Pomona, Calif. in January.

The Pomona show, Jan. 21-22, the first of 20 gold shows to be held across the country in 2012, drew a crowd of 1,422 on Saturday and 869 on Sunday despite football playoffs and weekend rain, Chapters and Trade Show Manager Gary Sturgill said.

“We’ve never had that many vendors in that venue; it was packed front to back. It was a good show with a 2,291 showgoers — a record turnout,” Sturgill said.

Both Sturgill and GPAA Director of Operations Dominic Ricci expect to see more of the same record-breaking attendance at the upcoming Gold & Treasure Shows in Mesa, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico in February.

One recent development is that “Dakota” Fred Hurt (shown above) of the Discovery Channel’s popular TV series, Gold Rush, is planning to have his own booth at the Mesa gold show.

“I think we may pull in an extra few hundred people with “Dakota” Fred at the show. Everybody is excited. They all want to come see him,” Sturgill said.

“A big percentage of folks like “Dakota” Fred. He’s actually the most experienced prospector of the bunch. But, after watching the show from last season to this season, I’ve got to admit the Hoffman boys have come a long way. I don’t know if they’ve been readin’ books or pickin’ somebody’s brain, but they’ve actually got it together this year,” Sturgill said. “But, I’m rootin’ for the kid. I want Parker [Schnabel] to kick all their butts.”

Todd Hoffman and Gold Rush are featured in the current issue of Gold Prospectors Magazine, which is on sale now at newsstands and available at www.goldprospectors.org

“Mesa is usually a good show. We usually draw between 2,100 and 2,400 for the weekend,” said Sturgill, adding that he expects to break all past attendance figures.

“A new speaker, Bill Samarin, will give a lecture on Riffles — How and Why. He will talk about all the different types of riffles, how they work and why they work the way they do. So, it will explain a lot to the new people who aren’t familiar with riffles on small-scale gold mining equipment” Sturgill said.

And, if you don’t know what a riffle is, you should come out to the show and find out for yourself, he said.

Sturgill noted that the GPAA’s new Gold & Treasure Show programs are popular among both vendors and showgoers.

“They are keeping the programs, which contains a photo of Tom and Cindy Massie and people are asking Tom to autograph it. They can keep the whole program as a memento,” he said.

Revving up for the Spring Gold & Treasure show circuit has been an exhilarating experience to say the least, said Ricci.

“Sometimes when you get to the first show of the season, there is a high — an adrenalin rush — when you haven’t seen members, vendors, chapters people and volunteers. They all come together out there and there’s just this buzz of excitement,” Ricci said.

“I think that’s one of the first things I noticed on set up day as people showed up. As the vendors came in and started loading their equipment and merchandise into their booths it was high-5s as they walked by and this excitement and anticipation of knowing that we’ve beefed up the Gold & Treasure Shows this year,” Ricci said.

“Some vendors that used to have one or two booths were taking four to six booths. The show was just constant throngs of people,” he said.

We have some of the same speakers, but we have different people doing Prospecting 101, Fine Gold Recovery, Metal Detecting, How to Read a Stream and How to stake your own claim.

“It’s just another reason to come out to the show and learn. The lectures were great and Public Lands of the People raffle, for which all the vendors donate items, packed the house,” he said.

The PLP has been fighting tirelessly to keep public lands open to the public and for prospecting, Ricci said. The Gold Prospectors Association of America is the single largest financial contributor to PLP.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a nugget of an accomplishment or a picker, we’re gaining ground in supporting the land rights of prospectors and miners fight and that’s a positive step,” he said, noting that the PLP has not given up and is making some headway in the legal battle to reopen suction dredge mining in California, the only state to shut down suction dredging.

Many new participants signed up for the Alaska Gold Expedition at the show, Ricci said.

“There were about a dozen different crew members of the expedition talking to members who wanted to hear more about the trip. We had an Alaska Expedition booth set up.”

“When you are comtemplating going on that big of an adventure, sometimes you have to go home and think about it, but others are ready to go right there at the show,” Ricci said.

“What was phenomenal was that a quarter of the memberships we did were renewals. Three quarters were brand new members who had never been members before. To me, that’s awesome. That means there are new people wanting to get into gold prospecting for whatever reason — fun, finding gold, getting outdoors or making a little money,” he said.

“There were all kinds of people and even younger girls wanting to get into prospecting — girlfriends saying ‘If you do it, I’ll do it,’ ” Ricci said.

We had Buzzard (GPAA) members come in and LDMA members come as well as members of the DVD club and magazine subscribers,

Many showgoers, members or not, were snapping up free copies of the most current Pick & Shovel Gazette and past issues of Gold Prospectors, Ricci said.

“One member walked up ... tapped a finger on the counter three times and said, ‘Listen, that was the best Pick & Shovel you guys have ever done — incredible stories, current stories, good information. We love it. Keep it comin’.’ You had those members and then you had the people who would just come by talking about it and Gold Prospectors Magazine as well,” he said.

“Tom Massie was in the house on Saturday afternoon and I was working the room like [GPAA founder] George [Massie] used to do. More people from the national headquarters are coming to the shows, so we are changing things up. If Mesa goes off like it should, we should definitely hit 3,000-plus.”

The show in Albuquerque, New Mexico — a gold and lost treasure hunting hot spot with plenty of Old West splendor— the following weekend, also shows promise for record attendance, he said.

“All the major metal detector companies will be well-represented there,” Ricci said.

For more information about and the full Gold & Treasure Show schedule, go to www.goldandtreasureshows.com