weekend show...quick follow-up...

We had a very nice trip to Great Barrington this past weekend. The Castle is really a lovely location...all bookfairs should be held in such lovely venues. On the other hands, the show was oversold. That is, the promoter sold more booths than the venue could physically hold. As a result, there were a handful of dealers literally out on the lawn (as opposed to the more or less covered terrace where some dealers planned to be (the option was 3 6' tables inside or 3 8' tables on the terrace (or...er...lawn, apparently).

Now it is nice to have a lot of dealers in one place...it is less nice to have a lot of dealers densely packed in several small spaces. There were three "main" rooms plus several galley spaces and the Dean's office (the castle is now private school). We were one of 4 dealers in the Dean's office (mind you, two were autograph dealers who split a 2 table "booth"). The room was lovely...though, as one who spent a couple of years at prep school, spending a DAY in the Dean's office was a bit disconcerting. The downside was that it was *just* enough off the path (and only had one point of access/egress) that it had a pretty serious effect on traffic.

There was pretty good foot traffic...especially as it was quite warm/humid and, overall, the fair was quite successful for us. We did not sell a great deal, but enough to feel good about it and the other matrix points were well struck (new contacts, ancillary project work, greater than 5 people returning to our booth to tell us nice things about the booth, etc.). Then, on Sunday, I spent 5 hours going through a client's archive pillaging wonderful material (more on this later). So, as I said, it was a fun and productive weekend.

That said, I am not certain I will do it again. Do not get me wrong, it is a great
physical location and the a supportive community (I've a good friend who lives in that neck of the woods who said, "GB has that rare combination of deep pockets and good taste...an increasingly scarce combination."). But the density and combination of dealers was uncomfortable.

I would do the show again in a second if the booth fees were raised by $100 or so. This would, I think, both thin the show a bit *and* help "gel" the remaining attending dealers. I do like doing shows with this promoter, however, as she rolls with the punches so well and doesn't let kavetching dealers get to her (the power main blew in part of the building during the show...a minor nightmare...but it was handled, overall, very well).

On a slightly related note, I do want to firmly agree with a comment to my show rant. ..admission to attend a show should be reconsidered. Perhaps you charge for a preview evening event, but not for the show itself. The idea of charging for shows probably originated at trade shows...where you often have companies giving away garbage to reasonably nice swag (that is, you charge to create a minor disincentive to attend the event unless you are genuinely interested in the concept/product(s), not just collecting swag). With book fairs, however, we want virtually any and every warm body who loves a good book (ok, and has a dime or several hundred (thousand) to rub together).

A great example of the problem happened in NY at the Carriage House show opposite the ABAA's NY show. I had a client who flew in from the mid-west to attend the two events. He wanted to attend the ABAA show that opened at 11 or so on Saturday and planned to attend Carriage House first. However, rather than trying as hard as possible to draw people to CH *prior* to the opening of the ABAA event, the promoter held a "preview" morning event and charged people $50 to enter the Carriage House show that morning. My client balked at what he thought was...well, he used colorful words...suffice it to say he did not think the pricing was fair or reasonable. He went and had a nice, leisurely breakfast, called me and told me what was up and then went to the ABAA event. He bought a couple of thousand dollars from me in the lobby of my hotel and many more thousand at the Park Ave. show. He *would* have spent money at the CH show...never came because of the entrance fee (N.B. this appears to be an issue that will not be repeated next year...but we shall see).

Anyway, fairs will continue and, most likely evolve...I look forward to it. It is also, clearly, far easier to analyze and wax esoteric about fairs than actually run one. I'll try to keep future whining much more brief.