After graduating from the University of Virginia in 1995 with an MBA, Lowell Carhart went to work for the Vice President of Quality at NCR. By 1999 he and his USAF wife were stationed at Yokota USAF base in Japan. Many weekend trips to the Asian Mainland presented opportunities to acquire fossils and sell them on eBay during his free time. When a buy-out offer was made by NCR during their 2001 downsizing he grabbed the opportunity to leave NCR and start his own fossil business.
By 2003 Lowell and his wife were stationed in Germany and he was selling fossils at the major European shows. Then in 2005 they were back in the USA and he started doing US shows. In contrast to professionally run European shows, he felt that American shows were not measuring up. So along with his sister Christine he decided to form Eons Expos and start his own show in Denver in 2009. The Denver Coliseum Show grew in each subsequent year until becoming Denver’s largest by its 4th year in 2012. In 2020 the showed moved to the National Western Complex and renamed itself the Denver Show.
Soon after they decided to leverage their Denver success and begin a new show in Tucson in 2010. By its 6th year (2016) the 22nd Street Show was the most attended show in the world with 41,000 visitors. Then, recognizing that their home state of NJ was lacking its own major show, the team decided to start a show there. Starting with a modest 115 booths / 6,000 attendees at the inaugural 2012 event, the NJ Show is now the most-attended gem show east of Denver.
The vision is to grow the NJ Show into the finest show in the United States. This will be achieved by continuing with the same business philosophy as from the beginning: advertise on a massive scale, offer exhibitors the lowest booth fee (measured “as cost per customer”), have the largest / best venue, and invest profits back into the show.
We thank you for your interest in our shows and if you are an exhibitor we encourage you to give us a try. Come grow with us.