Editing The Pen Addict 271/transcript (section)

== Pen Show ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So I want to follow up on this pen show topic real quick because this has been a conversation since DC and my good friend, Jim, who is one of my favorite people in the community. Shout out to Jim. Y'all all know Jim. If you've been to DC or Atlanta, Robo Jim in the Slack, he wants to know, what are the challenges of adding a new show to the entire pen show circuit? Where and when would you like to see a new show established on the calendar? So this, like I responded to him in the chat room. This is a huge question. Like, I won't be able to cover everything I want to say about this, but we've talked about this. It resurfaced after DC, but this is something I've been looking into for probably a year and a half now for myself or with other people in the community. You know, can we bring a new show somewhere? Can we do a better existing show somewhere? How do you go about doing this? How do you go about building it? And it's intimidating. I will say that. It's very intimidating to think about the things that have to happen to make a new pen show. So the biggest challenge is getting vendors to commit, I think. I think that's the biggest challenge because you have to have enough vendors to have a show to have the audience, you know, be satisfied with your show. But the vendors have to have another, enough other vendors there to see that, hey, this is going to be worth my while and I'm not going to lose money. So that's, they're coming at it from the perspective of, is this going to be profitable for me? You know, sure, some of them will believe in the cause and have more altruistic motives, you know, the first year, maybe the first, second year trying to build something new. But you have to have this buy-in up front. And I don't mean like a month up front. I mean like a year up front to get these vendors into what you're doing and why you're doing it and where you're doing it and when you're doing it, which are all the questions Jim asked. I think that's the biggest challenge. I've watched the group from the St. Louis Pen show show up at every show I've been to this year since I think Los Angeles. They've been at every show talking to the vendors, you know, telling them about the show, telling them what's going on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Then seeing the vendors at the next show and the next show at the next show, sharing information, sharing how they're growing, sharing what commitments they have. They've been super involved in trying to build that show for its very first show. So St. Louis will be a new Pen show on the calendar next year. I think they've done a really good job at that. And I think that's a huge challenge. It can't be overcome. But I think that's a huge challenge. Where and when would I like to see a Pen show? Well, I know where I would like to see a Pen show. I even own the domain. But, you know, it's a challenge of finding a hotel and things like that. But I think when I was asked about this, the three places on my short list were Kansas City, Nashville, and Austin because they're centrally located.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What about London?