Editing The Pen Addict 245/transcript (section)

== Weather ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So the FOMO hit me hard this week or this past weekend. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But just from the overall experience standpoint, it was just about perfect. Like, you know, the travel was easy. You know, my flights were good. And, you know, L.A. had a storm of epic proportions on Friday that we were out there. Like, they don't get a lot of rain out in L.A.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this storm was so big. It had, like, the weather channel had, like, given it a name. And it had, like, a category.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it was legitimately bad on Friday. So people who traveled on Friday had really, really rough time. Luckily, I came in before that. But I know people who travel on Friday were telling us stories of, you know, they basically putting them on, putting the plane on lockdown, you know, an hour before getting into L.A. on the Friday afternoon just because they didn't want anyone up and about. And, you know, with the rough flight landing that they were going to have. So I felt bad for a lot of them. But we got inches and inches of rain. And where we were at, we were up against a window in the hotel where the Van Espen's table was. And, like, the palm tree limbs were flying against the window, like, smashing against the window. It was nuts. Like, I took a bunch of pictures. They're kind of hard to see because they were at a distance. But, you know, the ponds on the little golf course that were behind the hotel, like, completely flooded the course. It was a mess. And there was a lot of damage around town and in the area, sinkholes and mudslides. And so it was rough Friday. Luckily, we were indoors. So that was good. And then it was just kind of, like, overcast and misty kind of the rest of the weekend. We didn't see the sun the entire time in L.A. except for a few hours Sunday afternoon. So it was kind of a weird weather trip. Definitely abnormal from that aspect. But we're pretty much in the hotel the whole time anyway. So it was good to just hang out and talk about planes. So talk about pens, not planes. We also talked about planes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Went to a plane show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Welcome to the plane addict.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the setup was the exact same as last year, except with less drama. Last year, half of the ballroom was booked for half of the day on Friday or Saturday. I think it was Friday. So that was nightmarish for a lot of vendors, everyone running around like crazy. Because this is one of the few shows that only has assigned tables and open to the public stuff on Sunday, which is dumb. So it causes problems. It causes people to have to move their stuff around. And since we have so much ink and all the shelving for Van Ness pens, we get in there early, find our tables. Luckily, they were the same as last year. And set up everything. And no one can move our towers of ink, right? They're just not going to do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Who moves it? I don't understand. I mean, no one would. When you say it's like not signed tables, people can just steal tables.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So it's called Trader Days, Friday and Saturday. So people just come in. You know, if the table's open, they'll just put out their wares on a table. But it's, you know, people that are carrying stuff in smaller capacities. Since Van Ness knows where our tables were going to be assigned on Sunday, we set them up there Thursday night. So we had a late night Thursday night getting everything set up. So like I landed that afternoon, got over to the hotel about four, went immediately and ate dinner, then came back and spent, you know, two or three hours setting up our tables because we don't want to do that Friday morning. It was good to just go ahead and push through on Thursday night. And so I prefer doing that no matter how tired I am. I'd rather go ahead and get it done. So we don't have to sweat it much on Friday. Crowds on Friday were awesome. It was very busy on Friday. Crowds on Saturday were very light, which is kind of what happens when you do this kind of setup. Right. So everyone who has the trader pass, they're there starting on Friday. Can anyone buy those? Yes. Except they're $65. Wow. Regular admission on Sunday is $7.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 65?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. So if you're going to be there all weekend, obviously it's worth it. But, you know, otherwise it causes basically a bum rush on Sunday. Yeah. So Sunday was absolutely insane. Like three and four deep, five deep at the table sometimes. Like I would work out in the hallway, not behind the table, like in front of the table. And, like, I would have to, like, crane my neck and reach in there to see if I could help anybody. And I'm, like, talking over three people to talk to the people in the front who might have a question while the other people wait behind them to get up in there and look at the inks and look at the pens and things like that. But, so Sunday was crazy. We didn't eat lunch on Sunday, so if that tells you anything. And, you know, we're usually very strict about our rules, but we would have physically never had a chance to stop on Sunday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So by Sunday night, you know, we started taking stuff down about 5.30. Got out about 7.30, 8 o'clock to go eat dinner. So that was, like, the first thing we ate since breakfast. But it was worth it. I mean, the people were so cool. We had a good time talking and helping to everybody. I got a lot of, I noticed I was getting tagged on a lot of Instagram pictures later saying, hey, thanks for your help today at the show. That makes me feel good to, you know, be able to help people pick out an ink or try out a pen or do anything that they need at a pen show. You know, answer questions. Just hang out and have fun. So all in all, like, the show proper itself was really good. It was better than last year. Just from a vibe and a feel perspective, crowds felt bigger.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sales were more. And it was just an all-around good show. I really like, we were wondering if we were going to come back after last year just because it was just weird. But that came from the promoter's perspective, certainly not the people that were coming. Just made it more difficult. But this year, it was much smoother sailing. We did have to move one table of ink on Sunday because they added in a different table, which that was a point of discussion among us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was like a pretty hostile environment.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the promoter is not very friendly. That's why, I mean, I tell people this, and I don't want this to sound, like, too negative, but it's more of just the facts. Like, we can't bring the pen addict there because we can't work with the promoter to do anything. You know, we have to have promoter buy-in to do stuff. And, like, we have that in Atlanta, you know. So, it's, like, hard to do, like, proper events at this show. So, like, at night, the only, like, real scheduled, like, after-hours event was Aurora Pens. They did an event, but it's just in the bar as we're sitting there, right? There's no special thing, which that's okay. I don't mind that. They have a good bar set up. But there was no room or space or coordination. It's just like, hey, everyone show up in the bar at 9 o'clock and we'll do this Aurora thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We'll be in this corner. Yeah, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Which worked out well, but it was just, you know, it was just, it's not, the promoter's not an easy guy to work with.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's not changing with the times either when these things are becoming events as opposed to people just popping in and buying some stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And it would be much better from a vendor's perspective. If we could at least have Saturday as public days, too, from a business, we would make more money. It's like, you're preventing us from making money by this setup. But also, at the same time, we're also agreeing to go and do it. So, right. So, we could choose not to, but we do. Because it's a good show and then the people are awesome. Which is always...

'''Myke Hurley:''' There are benefits still.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. Absolutely. Plus, you know, I mean, you know, the West Coast friends and fans of the show are the best. I mean, they're awesome. So, I just had... The people out there are awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hopefully one day, maybe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Oh, we could definitely get out there. But, like, LA wouldn't be an event we could swing to do something in San Francisco, on the other hand. That could work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' San Francisco would be good. I mean, I don't go there. I'm not going to be going there anymore, so...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's true. That's true. So, yeah, you would like it. You would like it. So, it was crazy. It was busy. We did real well. Had a lot of fun. You asked me in the show notes, did anyone buy all the inks like we've talked about before?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm trying to think.