[meteorite-list] China Now Hosts The World's Largest Gem and Mineral Show

[Michael Farmer]

Exactly Peter, 
There are political motives behind the show in Changsha/chenzhou. It is government owned. The local governments are trying to get an airport built at Chenzhou. They wanted those hundreds of thousands of visitors to spur demand for an airport and development. The hundreds of thousands of visitors were all local peasants. None of them knew a thing about what they were looking at, much less have interest in spending a single yuan. 
Certainly there were buyers there and a lot of money was made, but none of that had anything to do with the visitor numbers. I think 1000 people would have been far better.

There is also no way to gauge Tucson attendance. The only number they use is the ticket sales at the main show at the convention center. When that is open I'm ready closed. There are hundreds of venues all over the city. 
The song "Don't cry for me Argentina" comes to mind. We do quite well thank you very much Adam:)

Michael Farmer

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 2:19 AM, Peter Davidson via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear List members
> 
> I would be very wary of the figures quoted here. As someone on the list has already mentioned, the shows at Changsha (now gone forever), Chenzhou and elsewhere are largely attended by locals and students bussed in by the Chinese government to artificially boost numbers. A number of prominent mineral dealers that I know, who have the knowledge and experience of mineral shows World-wide, are all very scathing about the Chinese shows. It may well be that once these shows have been running for a number of years (like Tucson and Munich) then thinks will settle down and trust between seller and buyer may eventually be built up.
> 
> My recent experiences of trying to get the Chinese to organise an international mineralogy conference have proved to be one of the most frustrating periods of my professional life. China may have made many great strides in some fields, but are hide-bound by politics. The result of all this is that the conference will probably not go ahead. Poor organisation and political interference/favouritism are among the main culprits.
> 
> I am a relative Tucson newbie (this will be my fifth visit), and the city can be a difficult place to reach from Scotland, but it is still (along with Munich) the place to go to catch up with old friends, meet new ones and most importantly see some great specimens! I would not be too worried about attendance figures. The main show, where I have my small display, is still pretty busy on all the days that it is open and the hotels and smaller shows around the city still seem to attract a lot of people. Long may it continue.
> 
> Hope to see a few of you there.
> 
> Peter Davidson
> Senior Curator of Mineralogy
> 
> Natural Sciences Department
> National Museums Collection Centre
> 242 West Granton Road
> Edinburgh
> EH5 1JA
> TEL: 0131 247 4283
> E-mail: p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Meteorite-list [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Raremeteorites via Meteorite-list
> Sent: 23 January 2016 18:07
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: [meteorite-list] China Now Hosts The World's Largest Gem and Mineral Show
> 
> Dear List Members,
> 
> I was shocked to hear that the Tucson Gem and Mineral show is no longer the world's largest.  It looks like China is in first place with attendance figures of over 380,000 for a four day event in 2015 compared to less than
> 40,000 for Tucson.
> 
> http://www.friendsofmineralogy.org/newsletters/2015_Jul.pdf
> 
> Maybe I should attend this year to add support for this American show that has been running since 1955 while the Chinese show has only existed for a mere 3 years.
> 
> Adam
> 
> 
> 
> 
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