The 5,900 exhibitors showed 61 breeds in 110 colors. There were 2,103 Netherland Dwarfs of which Marylouise was able to purchase 35.
The day after judging the halls are decorated with Christmas trees and poinsettias, skirts are stapled around the bottom of the coops. Office staff work on inputting the show results to print the 886 page catalog by 8:00 p.m. Only entered rabbits are for sale with their price being set at the time of entry. This is printed in the catalog along with its scored points. The host club gets 15%.
The official opening to the public is Saturday. Marylouise along with Jeff Hardin drove to the show at 5 a.m. passing 200 buses from Italy, Luxenburg, Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland and other parts of Germany. Throngs of people waited outside to purchase the $10.65 catalogs and pay $6.65 for one day or $10.00 for a 2 day pass. There were 1000 volunteer workers to help with the sale of rabbits at booths in all the halls. A German bank office sets up in the showroom to exchange the foreign currency as only German money is accepted for the sales.
Their Saturday evening banquet had 900 attendees. You paid for the banquet, the dinner and the wine. There were only two short speeches and the rest of the night was music from a 40 piece band and dancing. The show officially closed on Sunday at 4 p.m. At midnight all 12 halls were bare and volunteers on their way home to go to work on Monday.
Another amazing thing is that out of 37,019 rabbits entered, only 3 were missing!!!