Editing The Pen Addict 328/transcript (section)

== Show Attendance Discussion Shift ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I might need to bring you there, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, a lot of people asked about you, especially people who were Retro 51 fans, because, you know, that's pretty much their home, right? They're 30 minutes from there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I got to meet everyone at Retro 51, all the people we've talked to over the years. You know, the owner even stopped by to just come say hi and thanks for all the support over the years. And I was like, you know, I've got a little tear in my eye. I was like, thank you. You guys are great. But it's just super nice, super nice people. Yeah. And I got to meet the people that I build the pins with on the back end. You know, like some of the people that you don't necessarily hear from or deal with. But all the people when I'm putting it, working on Pin Addict pins or other concepts or marketing stuff, you know, they were all there. And they had a table there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that table had some pretty fancy special editions and prototypes that you don't get to see any anywhere else. And they were for sale, Myke. And I couldn't help myself but send you some pictures and taunt you a little bit, even though I didn't buy any. And I keep looking back at the pictures that I took. I was like, well, that was dumb. I should have bought that one and that one at least, you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was a little jealous of this because I was kind of just like looking through the pictures. So there's a picture in the show notes that you put on the website. But there were also more pictures in Refill, which is your membership newsletter that people should always sign up for because it's awesome. So I definitely saw some of these prototypes. And I guess that these are just ones that are quite literally prototypes, not in like the Franklin Kristoff sense where it's like we're going to make new ones to sell at every show. Or they were going to have extras like that kind of made in mind of being sold. My expectation is these were ones that they were thinking about turning into products that weren't. And that's just I guess that's just because that's the difference in scale. I think like Retro 51 sells at a larger scale. So their prototypes are probably typically more actual prototypes than like here's a fun thing we were tooling around with. It didn't work. We're going to sell it as opposed to like we had a plan. We made the thing. The thing didn't work. Right. And they looked some of them. There is one is that I think it's actually in the picture that I'm putting in in our show notes, which is all pink. Everything's pink. And yeah, that is so different for them. Like all of the furniture is pink. Everything is pink. And I saw it and I was like, oh, damn.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, yeah, that one, you know, that one stood out to me. And I almost just went ahead and bought the purple one with gold trim for you to match your sailor. And I didn't. So I was kind of kicking myself on that one. So I did. So that was the thing about the show is I didn't buy a thing like I had a nib ground. And I came home with some retro 51 display trays. And I got a pen from Heinz pen that we've been talking about, you know, handing off to me for review. And that's all the stuff I came home with. Like I had no time to get around from the table to even go talk to people or see the other vendors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, just and I'm OK with that. Like, I'm totally fine with that. But like I didn't get to take enough pictures, I didn't think necessarily for the members newsletter. And I didn't share any to Instagram because I just didn't have time to like pull up my phone and snap a few shots. Once you get that busy, you know, it's like I'm just, you know, going to the water cooler and go into the restroom. And that's about it, you know, for two entire days. So I didn't get to shop around. There was a bunch of people I didn't get to talk to. I didn't get to hang out with some of my vendor friends that I see at all these shows and talk to online all the time. So, you know, like that's a good thing. Like that's not a complaint. It's just kind of a fact, right? It's I had a good show, so I didn't get around as much, right? So that kind of goes hand in hand. And, you know, I think that's the way I'd want it, right? If I was there selling. If I was there selling stuff, you know, I want as big a crowd as possible for as long as possible, you know. And then hopefully the sales happen. But I don't want to be standing around twiddling my thumbs or going to talk to other vendors saying, hey, you bored yet? You know, we were not bored at all this show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's excellent. I'm really pleased that it went so well because, I mean, these are always a gamble every time. And, you know, if they work out for you and for everybody else, it's only good for our community, right? Totally. What else did you see when you were there, though? Any other products?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't expect to see the new Sailor 1911 Key Lime. I didn't think they were going to show up in time, but Dromgools got theirs. So they brought them to the show. And I'm hesitant to say what I think about it.