Fascination of Orchids International Show and Sale
 

If you are in southern California the last weekend in September (or live here), indulge your orchid addiction at Fascination of Orchids Advance ticket sales will let you use a special entrance and skip the line. Check the website as we get closer to showtime for vendor list and seminar schedule. September 23, 24, and 25 at the Santa Ana Zoo.

How long will the advanced tickets be available for? If we purchase those will we definitely be able to skip the line? Last year I was in line for over 30 minutes. Also took me a while to find a parking space.

We haven't yet planned when to cut off the advance sales. Probably will be a week or less before the show. We will have a separate entrance for asvance-sales ticket holders, well away from the Zoo ticket booth. So we should be able to get people in pretty fast (but avoiding a stampede) All we'll have to do is scan as people come in, no transaction. That was the biggest glitch last year (the zoo had never seen so many people and didn't have a process to move them through quickly). So I think we have a solution. Their overflow parking lot is also near where the advance-sale entrance will be, so parking will also be less of an issue. We're working on getting signage to direct people so that we can basically keep the show attendees (at least the ones who have advance tickets) somewhat separated from the regular zoo attendees. The other thing that we hope helps to spread people out is that we have gone to 3 days, so the "gotta get the pick of the litter" crowd that arrives early on day 1 of any show and the Saturday crowd won't hit on the same day.

The joys of a new venue... you try to anticipate things but the 'ol crystal ball doesn't work all that well. The nightmare before is "Is anybody going to show up?" And when they do in massive numbers, how to cope? We learned a lot.

I may plan a day to get some orchids and some potato balls from portos!

Roberta, how long will advance tickets be available? What's the cutoff date? Thanks.

I'm not sure that we have established the cutoff date. I know that once the Show starts we aren't planning on offering them. So likely some time in the week leading up to it. I don't think we have decided precisely.

I just bought tickets! I'll be there that Saturday.

Great! Look for me and introduce yourself! If I'm not giving a class I'll probably be somewhere in the vicinity of the info table. Folks will know where to find me.

Gold Country no longer on list. Assume they decided not to come again this year.

Yup. They strung us out until the last minute. We still have a strong list of vendors with some good stuff. I was delighted that TropicalExotique came out of the woodwork... but then, I'm a species nut and they have some really neat things.