Showmen's Trade Review (Apr-Jun 1939)

Jiiiu 17, 1939 SHOW M !•: N ' S T R A I) K REVIEW Pacjc 21 In The Editor's Mail Bag Editor, Showmkn's Tuadk Rkview Dear Chick: I road with coiisideralilc interest >oiir etHtorial of May 27th headed "Coinniercialisni in Conventions." Please accept my congratulations on the straightforward manner in which you point out the very thing that has heen causing a lot of bad feeling. AI. P. T. O. A. have realized for several years tliat this was rapidly developing into racket, and I say to you in all sincerity that since I have been President of M.P.T.O.A. we have not gone in for this kind of thing. We have absolutely kept it out of our National Conventions as you well know, and to substantiate this I send you attached hereto a copy of the program of our last convention in Miami. Kindly look this over and you will observe that this is not a shake down for complimentary advertising as it has no advertising whatever, complimentary or otherwise. You will see that the convention was self supporting; that the exhibitors paid their own way through by registration fees, and got their monies worth in meals and entertainment as we only charged a $10.00 registration fee for four days of affairs. Of course, the matter of booths is a hard problem, but we have never charged more than about the actual cost of constructing these booths, etc., doing this because we W'anted to keep them standardized, and we can find no way aro'jnd this problem, though we would m.uch rather have no charge whatever and invite everybody in the M.P.T.O.A. industry and its correlated lines to bring that which they may manufacture or distribute that the exhibitors of this country might be able to ascertain by sight what this different equipment was and as to whether it would fit into their particular needs. You, of course, know that the National Convention could have charged easily three or four times the $50.00 we did charge at Miami, as an example, and have gotten it because we turned down quite a number of those Wfho wanted to participate with booths because of lack of space. One other thing I want to bring to your attention. Myself and M.P.T.O.A. know that the real work of any constructive exhibitor organization is done by its officers and committees, and that it is a year round job and that very little, if any of this work can be accomplished at a three or four days convention. I have never kidded myself as to this because our conventions are not planned that way, but conventions are really important because they gather a consensus of exhibitors opinions on many highlj' controversial issues which guide our policies and activities throughout the following year. You know only too well how open our National Sessions have been. That anyone who wished could have a voice in them and that we have Board Meetings wherein we spend days working with and on things important to exhibitors and the industry. I could go on telling you the things that come into the activities of M.P.T.O.A. but you know them as well as I do. You were at the Oklahoma City Convention, as well as the Miami Convention. You were also at the New Orleans Convention so you know that what I have just said is true. But it is sometimes discouraging to see the attention given by those who should appreciate these efforts to the big talk, hell raising, shake down affairs described in your editorial — which usually turn out to be empty affairs. Be assured of my continued good wishes for your personal health and success, and for the success of Showmen's Trade Review. Sincerely, (Signed) Ed Kuykendall President, M.P.T.O.A, Exhibitors, Visitors Seen At RKO's Lounge Room Several out-of-tovvii exhibitors and prominent members of the fihn industry have visited RKO's World's Fair Lounge in Rockefeller Center since it opened a few weeks ago. Pictured are some of the visitors : Left to right: E. C. Beatty, president and treasurer RKO Radio's General Foreign Sales Manager, Phil of the Butterfield Circuit, Detroit, Michigan, and Reisman, with the first foreign sales representative Jules Levy, general sales manager of RKO Radio, to arrive in New York for the International Sales Convention, Ralph R. Doyle of Australasia. Left to right: Fred Ullman, Jr., vice-president of RKO Pathe News; Ned E. Depinet, vice-president of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.; Col. H. A. Cole, president of Allied, Dallas, Texas; A. K. Howard, secretary of Allied, Boston, Mass.; J. C. Caldwell, Lee Theatre, Appomattox, Va. Left to right: Ralph P. Merriman, Franklin Theatre, Syracuse, Left to right: Miss, Mr. and Mrs. E. S. N. Y. ; Steve Tarbell, Smalley Theatres, Cooperstown, N. Y. ; Samuelson, who is art director of Inter |. Constantino, James Theatre, Syracuse, N. Y., and Charles mountain Theatres, Salt Lake City, Utah, F. Wilson, Bijou Theatre, Troy, N. Y. are pictured looking at advance stills.