It’s not the first time the Company has defaulted on a payment for a Pet Convention Event – it’s not even the first time they’ve been kicked out.
William Rilenge of the St. Louis based Amazing Pet Expos and Pet Event Professionals had the same problem in 2017 with several vendors that had supplied services to the companies and with at least one other event venue (St. Charles Convention Center in Missouri), who canceled a 2017 event due to lack of payment. While many vendors and fans of the events that the company has run in the past (including the PetCon branded events) are giving the company the benefit of the doubt (citing the information at the company’s website for last year’s problems), many affiliated parties are not, including the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
In fairness, Mr. Rilenge claims to have tried to remedy the late payment concern and supplied a requested insurance document to satisfy contractual obligations to use the San Diego venue, but he says the venue is not cooperative in remedying the situation. While it’s a first in recent history for the Del Mar Venue to cancel an event due to non-payment, it still begs the question: is this something that is a trend for the company or is this a one-off situation that can be worked through?
Is this bad business or is this a holdover for a serious situation according to the business spokespeople?
It’s not clear that this isn’t a compounded result of the earlier concerns cited by the company. It very well could have had an impact on this situation. It does beg the question though: if there are problems, why not take the appropriate time to get things back in line before continuing on with events?
One thing is for sure, a company can only last so long if they aren’t running their business right, regardless of growth; similarly, unfortunately, even when it’s not a business’ fault for a failure, it is rare that a company can overcome multiple concerns of this magnitude and continue operations. According to recent commentary by Mr. Rilenge, this may be the nail in the coffin for his business if it cannot be fixed.
For any company, business fundamentals must always be in place, but sometimes that is not enough. Outside influences, perception by consumers and availability to financial resources are also important factors. For now: the PetCon 2018 is canceled, and those who are negatively affected by this situation should start looking for possible remedies to be made whole.
If you have interest in reading further on this subject, you can reference the October 24, 2017 article written by a Patch staff Author named J. Ryne Danielson.
