Editing The Pen Addict 728/transcript (section)

== Big Picture Stuff ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. All right. Let's dig in more to big picture type of stuff. That was kind of like the very specific things we're into. And we're going to talk about like more specifics later, like things we bought, things we saw, but can you kick us off with just a general statement of the trip? What is your thesis of the, of the trip? Myke? No, but give us a feel for the overall event and based on like what you expected and then what actually took place.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What took place was what I expected, but the scale of it was off. Right. So like the, the variation of brands, you know, companies I'd never heard of creators. I'd never heard of weird and wonderful things. This is what I was expecting to see at stationary fast. And I knew it was going to be a large event just based on the amount of tickets and seeing pictures and stuff. But I still was not prepared for just how many vendors were there. Um, and kind of like how many people there were as well. Like the, the over, the overall scale of this event kind of surpassed anything I've experienced, but also the vibes too was so good. Like I said it at the time and I'm perfect on it. This is, I think the best, I got in trouble for saying this by someone at your second, but I'm just going to say anyway, the best pen show I've ever been to. I was corrected to say stationary show, but they're all joking. I'm just saying that, you know, you know, I was, I was, I was corrected, but still, I, I think this is the best one of these that I've been to from a, I mean, and again, I'm working from a position where I, in this event got great access, but I always do because I go with you. Right. So I'm kind of setting it at that bar. Um, but it was excellently organized. It looked fantastic in there, right? Like there was, it's like, you could tell that they put a lot of effort into it. There was, there are lots of volunteers. I don't think I've ever seen that before at a show, right? Where you, people you could go and ask questions to and they could help you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All you had to do was turn around and you had a volunteer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like I've been to pen shows before where I desperately needed answers to questions and it almost felt like people were hiding from me. I'm looking through that one very specific, uh, show that happens in the overall district of Columbia area. Um, we've had issues there. That year was unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. All they wanted to do was sell their products and no one would help them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, we should probably find that episode to share because that was a long time ago. It was great. I'll find it. I have some epic pictures, epic pictures from that event. It was awful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh, but this one was, I mean, I, I just think that overall it was just, it was, I think arranged very well. And again, there are some criticisms that I think we'll get to, but from my perspective, I couldn't have asked for it to go better. Like I think it was, I think it was a brilliant, brilliant event.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I pretty much echo everything you said now, like to just to piggyback on what you said about our access. We essentially had full access, including what I call like backstage green room access, right? There was a, there was a volunteers and exhibitors room that we had access to. Um, although our guest passes were quite, were quite funny because, uh, we were like one of the few that actually had a badge that said guest on it as opposed. So some of the volunteers were not sure what to do with that. Um, but it was, it was, it ended up being kind of more funny than an issue. Um, so yeah, it was huge in scope. Definitely the biggest show I've been to. And I'll say, you know, I'll try to say stationary show, but I'm just going to say pen show sometimes too, because that's what we're used to. And that's what we're like comparing it to. Like the only other thing I have to compare this to is the previous stationary fest in 2024 that I went to. And that event, you know, had, had a lot of issues that they did take to heart and try to correct for this issue. Uh, I mean, for this, um, event this year, correct those issues. And there were still like, there's still some work to do clearly, which like you said, we're going to get to, but big picture, it was high energy positivity, like the whole time, like no matter if you were in the, like the heat of the peak hours of the show or just walking around like the courtyard, like first thing in the morning when it's quiet. Um, the energy was always like super positive. I felt it was really nice. Nice space. Great to put on, uh, in that event space was cool. Um, so let's go through, I guess, directly some of the highlights and then some of the low lights, um, for this. And, and I'll kick this off. And this is also like piggybacking off of something you said, the, uh, the quality and quantity and variety of vendors was pretty spectacular. Um, less pen vendors, obviously then like, if you've only ever been to a pen show, this is not that there was essentially

'''Myke Hurley:''' none. Like there was like maybe like three, but there was, I was going to say like, it's actually,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it was close. I was trying to figure this out. I think it was more like eight to 10. Um, if you like really nailed it down, but yeah, not a lot. And then like three nib grinders, um, who all looked like reasonably busy. Um, every time I went by, like trying to talk to Gina from custom nib studio, they were always working on something. So, um, everyone looked busy and I know Joshua Lacks also did some teaching there. So he wasn't always nib grinding, but, um, it obviously heavily leaned into like the stationary side of things like your journaling, planning stickers, washy type that, that had to be probably 50%. Would you, is that fair? Maybe not that much. Like I'm probably overselling that because there was a lot of variety in the space, but yeah, there was a lot of, you know, stationary type vendors that you don't see at a pen show, but a lot of them that you do see at pen shows. And then you had, um, some random like big companies like Muji had tables there, which was kind of wild to see. Um, yes, they had a huge booth. They had a huge booth and you had the bigger companies, like we already mentioned, the which term, they had like basically an installation space there, right? They would do it like a trade show booth where they had, you know, more just like, as opposed to just like a traditional table, they had like a booth that you could like walk around the internal and they had the photo ops with the big Dregger fell pin, which we took advantage of with a special guest we'll get to later. Um, yeah, I just thought overall the vendors were great. I don't think I like missed anything. I wasn't really lacking for anything, uh, during the show. Um, the vendor space was good. The two rooms were essentially connected by like, I don't know what, uh, 20 yard walkway or so very, very short. Like you could see one from the other, um, very connect internal connection, right? Internal through the courtyard, uh, no, not through the courtyard, but, um, in like an internal hallway. Um, the uptown room was gigantic and then the downtown room was at least half of the giganticness of the uptown room. It was huge on its own. It was the small room. If you can call it, that was as big as some pen show rooms, right? Yeah, for sure. Um, the location itself and jump in, if you want to, to comment on any of this stuff, the location was called industry city. It didn't quite land until we got there. How good of a space that was. I thought we would be a little bit more locked down in options, um, outside of the show, but it turns out it was just basically like a revitalized like warehouse space. And there were eight buildings and like each of these buildings had retail and food and like all kinds of stuff. Um, restrooms were right there. That's always an important thing. Restrooms and like water access. That's always like important. Um, at shows, those were always convenient. Never seemed like too, too much of a line. Um, you know, they were easily accessible. Um, you have a couple of highlights here that I was just like overall talking about the space, but Myke had some different highlights. Yeah. It seems. Yeah. So, uh, well, I think this

'''Myke Hurley:''' was on the first day, um, Brad looks down at his shirt and he has a yellow stain on his shirt. Uh, and he's like, we'd, we'd actually just gone to a barbecue restaurant. And so he wasn't completely sure that what had happened, what he had spilled on him. And I realized it was the mustard from the hot dog pen. So the yellow line that Brad has drawn on his hot dog pen, which he was so pleased about over the day, rubbed off and left the yellow stain on his shirt. That was an absolute highlight for me. Um, outside. Cause I didn't know what it was. I was like, how did I get this yellow? And you're like, and I just took one look at the pen that was in the vicinity of the stain and realized what happened to him, which was brilliant. Yeah. So what set it off

'''Brad Dowdy:''' was the first panel, like it was warm, but it wasn't too bad that day, but it rained. Yes. So it was very humid in that panel and the hot dog pen was oriented. So that when it's in the front of my badge, you can see the mustard, but if I'm not watching it flips around to the back and then the mustard was in between my badge and the shirt. And then just the heat that I'm generating from, from being hot and humid, um, ended up just like, um, making, giving myself a mustard stain that I was unaware of and actually freaked out about it. I was like, how, there's no way I got anything. And Myke's like, um, buddy, um, you know, that pen that's attached to your shirt? And

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm like, Oh no. So yeah, that was great. Uh, and then also on, I think this is on the second day. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Idina and Sophia came in the morning. It was like, I wanted them to see it. Well, I wanted Idina to see it. Sophia didn't really have much of an opinion. Uh, I wanted Idina to see stationary fest and I wanted to like, just walk around me for a little bit. Cause I knew that she would enjoy it and she would want to, you know, obviously buy things because that's the whole point. Um, and so I was like, well, if you come in the nine to 11 time, it's like, it'd be easy. You can walk around, so that'd be nice. And then also, you know, you, we can, she then would go back, uh, for the baby's nap in the kind of around that time. And so it came in, it was really fun. Sophia first really enjoyed it and got a little overwhelmed by the, by it. Which is interesting. Cause she doesn't always get like that. Um, there was a moment where, uh, I was kind of walking around and, and, uh, see why I said, hi. So I was standing talking to see why and Sophia just like turns to me, raises her arms, which she very rarely does this kind of stuff. And I picked her up and she was just vice gripping my shoulders for like 10 minutes. Uh, I think she had just reached the point where she just needed the safety, but I actually loved that. So I'm not complaining. Yeah. And then we mentioned Muji's booth and Muji were doing a lot of like buyer thing and customize it kind of stands on their tables. And one of the things was stamp your notebook. Um, and so they had all these like big stamps. So stamps everywhere, by the way, it was like one of the really interesting things. That's a thing. Every table has stamps. People were stamping their journals. Right. But like, it was so interesting to see that I'd not experienced that before, but they had this tray of stamps and Sophia was sitting on the, she, she wanted to, she was interested in this. So Dina kind of sat her on one of the tables and Sophia has this, this toy, which is just eggs and you can open the eggs and they have different shapes inside. And she likes to just open the eggs. So she took to just taking the caps of all the stamps and she was doing this for maybe 10 minutes, um, and had to be removed in a meltdown, uh, which was very funny. Um, but the fine people at Muji, they, uh, they, they got the stamps, um, caps removed and put on and removed and put on about a thousand times. I don't know what they

'''Brad Dowdy:''' thought was going on over there. It was, it was epic. I kind of watched some of that because, uh, we were both over there, uh, at, uh, who's Ming, which we'll talk about later. And we could see this, uh, transpiring and we're both like, Oh, look how cute this is. And then it was immediately like, this is going to be an issue. And it was, it was a big problem. I would say on this trip,

'''Myke Hurley:''' uh, Sophia has developed like very strong preferences for like, if I'm doing a thing, I don't want you to stop me doing that thing. And, uh, yeah, she's at the perfect age for that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We've learned. Yeah. Um, let's tackle a few of the lowlights because you don't want to brush these under the table at all. There's definitely some issues. Brad cannot be silenced. That's how that makes it sound. I will not, I will not be silenced. So the, I guess the good thing is I'm not going to say anything that hasn't been said, like everyone's kind of having the same issues. Right. So like, I'm just, you know, mentioning it and talking about our experience from that. Um, the crowds during peak hours were insane. Like this had the layout of the show was really nice and that the aisles were very wide, but it was still ended up being packed. Like if you have accessibility issues, right? Like if you're in a wheelchair using a walker, I talked to one of my friends in a walker who she was keeping up. She's like, I'm just going to keep a positive attitude. And it's, you know, it's going to, we're just going to go through and deal with this, but like the like wheelchair and walker cane, any type of mobility issue access would have been very, very tough, uh, especially in the middle aisles. Um, they did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is that different with, with, with other pen shows that you have to, you obviously go to more than me. Right. But like, I feel like this is always a problem. It is. At any convention or anything like that. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. So the one thing they did do here to try to mitigate it is they would station volunteers on the most crowded aisles and try to keep the middle moving. So you're either on a, on a table to the left or on a table to the right. And if you're in the middle and you slowed down to like, look over these people, they would move you on. Right. They would try. They were trying. I got moved on a bunch of times. Yeah. We got moved on. We actually got redirected one time because it was too busy to pass through, but I know that's tough. Um, for anyone, even like fully mobile people like us, um, getting through those crowds, like that's where like, you know, it's hard. If you planned on being there for like two hours on like a Friday afternoon, you had a bad time. I promise you. And it's like,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not trying to say like, Oh, you know, but it's just, I just think this is an issue with events like this. I don't think this is a specific thing for stationery fest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And more space doesn't solve this. I think this had the best space of pretty much any show I've been to as far as aisle width. Right. Yes. And I, and I think as well, like it was

'''Myke Hurley:''' pretty clear that they could have sold more tickets. Oh, sure. Right. And, and it seems like they tried from the 2024 learnings to limit, uh, attendance in the way that they could. Yeah. One of the ways they limited attendance, which I think actually makes sense, but I understand why people also don't like it is you can, if you will, if you left, you cannot come back on a certain,