It Was the Best Of Times, It Was the Worst Of Times...

While Dee is showering (we're sharing a room for the BMAC and she's going to help me schlep the rest of my stuff down to the minivan) I will do one last quick BMAC post. My hope at the end of day 2 turned out to be unfounded and I took two orders a day both Sunday and Monday. So the show turned out to be a little better than last year (which was dismal), but the return in no way justified the effort and expense of doing it. I did not get one new customer for my kilnformed glass--everyone who ordered from me has been a strong customer in the past. Todd picked up a few new customers for our collaborative work, and one of Sara's old paperweight customers came in and ordered from us. I think Bill and Elaine did well, but I didn't talk to anyone who had a great show. We were pretty much all glad to get ANY orders.

The new booth layout went very well and we were up and down if not in record time, at least very quickly. Come to think of it, it may have been record time for us. And the breakdown was complicated by packing two crates of work and the new display panels to go to Vegas for the ACRE show, two crates of lights, carpet, pedestals, and miscellaneous to go into storage here for the summer show, and two carloads (Bill and Elaine's and mine) of old work to come home. With all that we were still done before 10:00 pm.

The future of shows is grim. The costs of doing them just keep rising--booth fees, exhibition services fees, shipping fees for work and display, lodging, parking if you drive and more. And isn't this a kick in the pants--parking the minivan here and cabbing back and forth to the hotel cost me more per day than my room did. I am still on the fence as to whether this is my last year of shows, but the outlook is not good.

Now time to hit the road. Bill and Elaine are already on their way and said the spitting snow we are getting here in Philly stops below Baltimore. I hope so. I am ready to see my family tonight and to just rest for a few days. Thanks to John for the snowy bicycle pics.