Toronto Sportsmen’s Show – A Sad Shadow Of Itself

Years ago, my parents would take me and my siblings every year to the Toronto Sportsman’s show. Sometimes we enjoyed it so much and didn’t get to see everything the first day, my dad would take me the next day so that we could take it all in and take advantage of the amazing deals one could have on fishing and outdoor gear.

Back then, the show closed at 10PM, and if you waited to leave at the last minute on the last day of the show, you could often get some even more amazing deals on stock left over that the exhibitors didn’t want to pack up and take away with them.

When I was old enough to drive as a teenager, it was not unexpected that my fishing and outdoor pals would be at the Sportsman Show in Toronto three days of its week long duration.

In the past 15 years, for a variety of reasons mostly including distance from the show and work requirements, I’ve only attended once – and that was to meet some clients. I didn’t get a chance to take a look around.

Today, I decided to attend with two of my sons and to say I was a bit disappointed would be an understatement. Although many were talking about how good the show was – it was nothing like it used to be! It seemed to be about a quarter of the size that I remember and we seemed to manage to walk up all the aisles as well as take in a short time of some dog shows going on in about three and half hours. Unless I missed something, but according to the guide I had, we did seem to hit just about every section of the show.

Some of the exhibitors that I would have liked to have spent more time in just were not set up very well as far as also having a five year old along. Too small. And where was what used to be the mighty LeBaron exhibit that used to have what seemed like bazillions of items for sale? This year, although it had a lot of floor space, there was very little product on display.

I also missed sitting in the old coliseum where we used to sit up in the stands and watch the Retriever trials.

Probably the absolute worse part of today’s show was the parking fiasco. I remember attending the show years ago, and there would be parking attendants that would direct you right into a parking spot. Traffic flow was excellent. Today, it took OVER AN HOUR from the time we arrived at the Exhibition grounds from the west to where I finally was able to park my car. Over an hour! It was pathetic. When we finally arrived at the parking entrance, only one of the parking attendant booths out of three were operating. That is just unacceptable.

I don’t know if the parking issues were the responsibility of the Sportsmen Show organizers or Toronto Exhibition management – but I certainly would be very hesitant to ever attend another Sportsmen Show in Toronto based only the parking experiences and the length of time it took to get there once arriving at the grounds.

One highlight of the show were the staff at the Tent City Outfitters exhibit – especially William. Due to a number of moves of residence, I seem to have lost a great sleeping bag I used to own. A sleeping bag that was very light, rolled up into a small space, yet was able to keep me warm outside in a tent when the temperatures dipped below 0C. I also have misplaced my very handy single burner Coleman Stove that runs on Coleman gas.

As well, I wanted to get my five year old a good quality light sleeping bag. William of Tent City helped me out on all three counts, and as well, I was extremely happy with the prices they had these pieces at for the show. I’ve always enjoyed shopping at Tent City when I’m in the area of their store in Vaughan, Ontario.

Having said all that, David and Colin both seemed to enjoy the show – perhaps because they had nothing to compare it against – although they were quite frustrated with sitting in the car for an hour after arriving at the Exhibition grounds before we could park.