Expo Seeking Franchisees to Open at Fairgrounds

The cotton candy is gone and the Ferris wheel shut down, but 4,000 entrepreneurs are expected to flock to the Orange County Fairgrounds this weekend for a Business Opportunity and Investment Expo.

Fifty companies will try to attract franchisees from noon to 6 p.m. today and Sunday in the first such event ever held at the fairgrounds. Each company has an invention or business that could put prospective entrepreneurs on the road to riches.

“Everybody showing their stuff at our expo has something that’s on the market,” said Dick Pogoda, vice president at Federal Productions of Orange, sponsor of the event. “They want to offer distributorships to business people that are ready to make it on their own.”

Businesses from chiropractors to financial managers paid $1,000 each to rent booths to sell their wares. Admission is $5.

“They’ll tell people that if George can sell it, they can too,” Pogoda said. “But first they check out whether they’re qualified.”

Sponsors Fairs

Federal Productions has sponsored franchising fairs for about 20 years and holds similar events around the nation.

Among the exhibitors at this weekend’s show will be representatives of a Miami-based maker of water purifiers, a Utah bathroom remodeler and companies from all over California.

One local firm is Balloon Wrap, a six-month-old Yorba Linda company that has patented a machine that can insert anything from a teddy bear to a battleship into a balloon. The company has sold about 300 of its $1,495 machines at dozens of crafts and business opportunity fairs, said Balloon Wrap show manager John Carrell.

Another local company, Ramar Bureaus International Inc. of Montclair, will try to sell visitors on an $18,000-bookkeeping computer system. The company, which was started in Australia in 1979 by a self-proclaimed “Crocodile Dundee” type, has about 450 franchisees and system users worldwide.

Though such shows can offer prospective careers, they also can be a risk, said Mike Anthony, deputy director of the Orange County Business Development Center. About 88% of small businesses fail, and consumers should keep this in mind before making investments, he said.