Hey folks, Dr. Bob McCauley and upstanding out here in front of the now infamous natural products expo and this was supposed to happen this weekend and it's the biggest natural products expo in maybe the world definitely in the United States. I've been coming out here since 2004. I'm in California so I've got my Prop 65 T-shirt on that because California has left our country and decided you know we're just going to attack the rest of the United States with our lawsuits and say that your products need to meet our standards and our standards are better than your standards. So California quite a place. The only reason I ever come out to California anymore is this expo and then they canceled it. They canceled this expo on four o'clock the day before 4pm the day before it was supposed to start. Kind of incredible. You would do that too. Oh I don't know 90,000 people. There were 90,000 attendees going to come through 3,500 booths and you kind of wonder how stupid can somebody beat it to wait to the last minute like this and and cancel a such a major expo. So there's all sorts of rumors going on. Why did this happen? Are they trying to destroy the economy? Are they trying to hurt the presidential election? Are they trying to hurt Democrats or Republicans or what is going on? Well one theory is that maybe they're trying to hurt all the small companies. I mean you spent tens of thousands of dollars to get all your stuff, your start up and everything and then what happens at the last second they cancel on you. Now they post-poned it technically so it's not a cancellation. So they don't have to give anyone's money back. So a lot of people say, geez, was this all the big corporations trying to get rid of the small corporations and something like this? Is this what was going on? And so we have all this speculation and all this this organization new hope which is run by a corporation, a giant corporation called Informa. Informa took over all the the the expos for the supplement for supplements, the supply side expo, the natural products expo, they own it all and the prices have just gone through the roof. I used to pay $5,000 for a booth. Now it's $7,100. I think next year I'm paying $7,400 for a booth at supply side up from 5,000 just ready five years ago. So it's gone up what almost 50% in five years. So this company's running this thing in this new hope. They are very exclusive and they I really think they're just catering to the big companies here. That's what I think is what's really going on. But who knows? Who knows? We ever really going to find out what happened. I mean I would guess I'm just put it in the ballpark of 80 to $100 million that we're going to be lost here just for this weekend and you know just in the revenue. Forget about you know the natural products business is a trillion dollar industry at this point. But for something like this in one weekend, $100 million loss just right out of a gate and they said they postponed it and then they're going to tell us in April when the new date is like people will just come back here. I mean I flew all the way out here for nothing and I tell you something I really hope I really hope this hurts this expo because they they kind of been running roughshod over people for many many years and you know if you're kind of this attitude you don't like it here. Don't don't show this is your big opportunity. You're so lucky to be spending your money with this and all these companies. I mean they they depend on something like like doing this thing and getting out there and everything and then they that's where all their money goes all their advertising and their budget and everything and then they just fail and that's a lot of people saying well that's what they did now they just these big corporations they can afford to take this loss but the little ones can't. So maybe that's what's happening but I would say more along the lines of you know I hope it hurts this this this expo a lot. There were supposed to be or or 86,000 people last year 90,000 this year and I get to tell you I hope next year is 20,000 come I really do because it's about time we broke up this cartel and started shifting away from Anaheim which is a terrible place to have an I mean it's a good place to have an expo but there's only a few restaurants in the area it's not the nicest city and I really I really don't care for California at all anymore I I can't wait to get in here and get out I've been coming here since the 1960s I used to be a wonderful place it's not anymore and now I'm stuck here for a whole week because you know you can't cancel airline tickets I mean I found out about this at 11 o'clock on the day before we were leaving so I thought what am I gonna throw away $1,100 and air tickets and lose a couple days reservation at my hotel and cancel the rest or something now we'll just come out here and have a little vacation and at least we're gonna do that but I hope it hurts it and I hope this place I hope this expo shifts locations to other other venues and so we don't have such a such control over the natural products industry as we have now they're the gatekeepers they almost are gonna let you know whether you can you can exhibit here and whether you're gonna be a success and all this kind of stuff and I'll just tell you that we need more of these kind of expos but there's just two concentrated here 90,000 people in in a weekend and when I first started coming here it was 2004 much smaller show I can't remember how many people were here I think it was around 20,000 maybe less than that now they have you parking over to Angel Stadium and they truck here they bus you in you can't get a hotel around here you know hotels now is nobody here you look around I mean it's really pretty amazing to see this place this place should be jammed this should be jammed with people and should be a big band going on and they should be doing yoga and there should be events and there should be booze and there should be excitement and instead these people and of course where they can't sit over this this coronavirus I mean that that's that's excuse you didn't see this coming you waited till the last second you waited till the absolute last moment right before the show to say no you know I talked to the people here literally this over over at the Hilton here they had a huge meeting everything was great to a clock and same and I'm staying over at the Sheridan to they said told me the same thing we had a big meeting to a clock everything's good and then four o'clock everything shut down that's it now we're not gonna do it so from between two and four something big happened somebody somebody wake up and and corporate headquarters and go oh my gosh people we're gonna spread this virus and we we could be liable we could be liable you never thought of this before this virus has been around for months now and all of a sudden you decided to destroy this this you know these many people's lives you know it's gonna cost me a few thousand here for the whole week I'm gonna be okay okay I really feel sorry for these small little startup company mostly these kids are in their twenties they got nothing and they spend a fortune to come out in this place trying to make it and then there's something like this happens this whole natural product started out as an organic thing and it's been taken over by these giant corporations and unified and K here the distributors and I mean all these big names are buying up everything and by the way when these when these when these corporations buy the small companies that you had a really high quality product that product goes to crap every time because to mass produce something and put it out in the market in such high quantity quantities you just can't keep the quality up so it all goes to crap you know Kashi that company they bought all this stuff and everything they they make crap it's all it's all garbage you know they're just big money they're big corporations and that's what runs so much of this thing and so there's this amalgamation amalgamation and this you know buying of all these small companies and all the things that have gone on over the last now 20 years have really brought us to the point where we know honestly something like this can happen and and these big corporations are just absorb it and go on and then we don't see the great innovation in new products because people get lose all the money with this sort of thing so they've got one out in the East Coast and Baltimore that's when I know he's about half the size of this one I go out there every year quite frankly Baltimore is an awful city they're moving it to fill it out via this year we'll see how it does there they try moving that one before to Boston that was a disaster that was an absolute almost destroyed the show Boston not a good place to have an expo I'll tell you that but anyway I hope this hurts it a lot I hope it hurts this company and I hope it breaks up the cartel and I hope some we see places other other venues starting Austin Texas would be a great place to have a natural products expo like this because that's really the mecha now and it's not too not too bad try to get there but that's just one example but anyway I hope we see more of this kind of thing but if you really understood this business and you really understood this industry you would understand that there's a lot more going on here with this thing being shut down like this than maybe just the virus and wanting to protect people and by the way you know again they're gonna they're gonna tell us they're gonna make an announcement in April when they're gonna when the new day is I mean did they think everyone's just gonna come back I mean there's gotta be I mean there's a parking lot in the back is it you know I mean there must be thousands and thousands of crates back there that never got loaded they must have been building some of the booths inside there I wonder who's gonna pay for all this and what the liability is and all that kind of stuff but I think a lot of it was designed to hurt the little guy why not they got the money to do it anyway Dr. Bob from California Prop 65 trying to protect myself here from the California lawyers that are always going after for somebody I didn't know if I was gonna get an Uber here because they destroyed Uber with their gig economy they destroyed the gig economy everybody's an employee now of Uber it's just unbelievable so Dr. Bob it was a totally different thing when I came here in 2004 totally different I loved it and now it's just money and corporate stuff wow anyway Dr. Bob I'll see you next time