Editing The Pen Addict 268/transcript (section)

== Pen Show Logistics ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Myke's already lectured me like earlier this afternoon that I can't go off the rails on this because I just don't think it's I want to talk about it a little bit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But like we could sit here and talk for half an hour about how frustrating the first couple of hours of this morning were. But it's not useful for anyone. But like I guess kind of the cliff notes were just we get there at nine. Everyone's waiting. There's these huge lines. There's vendors and people who want to go and buy some pens. And there is there is no organization at all. The organizers did a really bad job of trying to get people in. It seemed like and this is no exaggeration that the tables hadn't even been set by 9 a.m. this morning or assigned or assigned. No. And it also seemed that they had overbooked and they didn't have enough tables, which added to all of the problems. Right. Which meant they've had to open this like satellite room down the hallway. And it effectively meant that we were in line at eight. We got our table at like 11. Yeah. And we were for that whole time. We were just standing in various hallways. And people were walking up and down. And there were lots of vendors, especially the smaller vendors, who were getting really upset and angry because this is their livelihood. And there are people there that want to buy stuff. And all of their stuff is still in boxes. And it was a real disaster. It was the dictionary definition of a disaster. It was a pure disaster. Nothing was arranged properly. I mean, and the only reason, the only way that we got a table in the end is Brad had had enough. And he kind of went to the guy who was walking around with this list that the guy was refusing to share. And he just was like, tell me where my tables are. And you just kept making him turn the pages. And then we finally went set up ourselves.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, it takes a lot to wipe the smile off my face at a pen show. Yep. For the first couple hours of this lunacy, I was okay. I was like, there's nothing I can do. We're going to deal with it. It's going to be fine. Then it got to the point where there was really, after about two hours, there was really very minimal movement in improving the situation that we were in. And they were actually making things worse as they were going. It was just getting worse and worse. It was getting worse and worse. So, you know, I didn't show out or do anything. But I basically tailed the guy who had the master list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They had the list. They had the list where they had everybody's numbers. But they just weren't sharing it with anyone. Right. Which it beggars belief to try and understand why they were doing it. It just doesn't make any sense. I don't think that a person of logic can understand the way in which this was being a site. It was just really, really weird. And I only want to talk about this because it's true. It happened. Yeah. Right. And it, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, it's all over social media this morning. You'll see. I'm sure if you're listening to this now live, you've seen all the posts on Instagram this morning.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And because everyone that was here was just upset. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It affected every person in the building. And I felt really bad for the customers more than the vendors. Yep. Because they were told that at 9 o'clock they could start shopping. And you know what? As a vendor, at 9 o'clock you want to be ready to start taking people's money. People are there with money in their hand. We want to allow you to buy things from us. You know, it's a novel idea, right? Right. So everything about this was done incorrectly. I could, like Myke said, I could go, we get like a half hour discussion for me breaking down everything that was a failure. But just instead of me doing that, just understand that it was actually a total failure. There was no silver lining. And it's, you know, I finally got, I finally felt normal. Let's see, we got our table about 11. We set up and we were able to start selling things. It still took me a couple of hours to feel like myself. Like I feel like a normal person, you know, here to represent Nock and to sell things. It took a while. And my neck and shoulders are still like completely tight because I was so stressed this morning. Like it was, I've never seen anything like this. And I'm not, I'm way, way far from the most experienced person in this building. But I think that's a consensus. Even the most experienced people have never seen anything like this before.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Everyone that I've spoken to, people that have been doing these things for years across and like make a living, right? Like it's part of their business to go to every show they could possibly go to. And this just seemed really bad. People left.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Give me my money back. I am leaving.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, you know, these are people that have decided they were carving out a weekend and were going to come and sell at this thing. And they were just, it was that bad that they were just, because it seemed like at certain points there was just no end in sight. Right. Right. Like it was just, how long is this going to take? It never got better. Yeah. At any point. But the day did get better, I think. It was, we had smiles from there on out. Yeah. We, but I wanted to just mention it because it's just, it was real and it happened and

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it needs to be discussed. But I guess we, I, I am the one that will beat the dead horse and Myke's right. We don't need to beat the dead horse just in, you know, an angsty kind of way. And it was a rough morning for everybody and hopefully we'll onwards and upwards from, from here on out. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And just to answer a question in the chat room, Cupcake Girl asked, was it vendors or customers that left? Yeah. There were vendors that decided that they just were just didn't want to be associated with the show anymore. Yep. So they, they just up and left. And if you're local. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Don't, you know, just don't put yourself there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And customers left because they could not access the, essentially access the ballroom. Mm-hmm. And if they could, there was no one set up. Yep. For hours.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So it was kind of pointless.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So people who had short timeframes today had an expectation when they arrived and they failed to meet that. Yeah.