Editing The Pen Addict 422/transcript (section)

== Future Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Easy peasy. We got a couple of many topics I want to discuss in this first one kind of ties into what we were just talking about. So this came in via Pulp and Pen last week. What are your visions for pen shows in the future in the context of all the events of 2020? Physical versus virtual? More diversity both with the audience and products? Focus on smaller makers? What does the ideal pen show look like and how can our community make it happen? So a lot to take in in that question. Do you have any, like, initial thoughts? Because this isn't just how we're going to handle the pandemic. This is how are we going to handle, you know, the pandemic? How are we going to support, you know, underrepresented makers? You know, how are we going to support small makers? You know, and what can we do to make this experience our ideal experience? So, yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, there's a couple. I have many thoughts, of course. Yes. There's a couple of things, though, that I think are important to note. Like, there are not silver bullets. Like, it is actually impossible to do all of these things, right? You can't do them all in one thing. You can't, you know, make it more diverse with audience and products, focus on smaller makers, and make it the ideal pen show. Those three things don't, I don't know if they really can all exist at once. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Because to try and get more people, you need to have larger makers. You can't just have small makers because you need to have, like, big ticket items to draw people in. You know, like, if you can say, like, oh, we've, you know, like, it's almost like the DC pen show, right? Where, like, they have everyone. So, of course, you're going to want to be there. Yeah, so, like, I get the thinking and the merit behind this question of, like, all of these things need to be addressed. And I agree that all of these things do need to be addressed. But I don't think we need to focus on trying to address them all at the exact same time. We can do these things in different ways. One of the things that I think is really important, and I've already mentioned on previous episodes of the show, is that I think we should see online pen shows becoming more of a thing in the intervening time. And that would be a great way for small makers to participate because, you know, you could do it with much lower, if any, fees, right? Because you wouldn't need tables and no one would need to rent out a space. So, like, all of the fees would be way smaller, right? Because no one's going to hire a hotel room, so you haven't got that upfront cost. And you could have this, like, online pen show. You know, you could do things. You could have, like, classes via Zoom. There's so many things that can be done here. And I think that that's a great way of being able to open it up for many more people to attend something like this, even from people all over the world attending. And so that would definitely lower the barrier of entry for people. And you can have small makers there. You know, I think the thing that we need to consider and, like, we really need to think about is, like, what if there's never another pen show now? Like, or if the only pen shows that exist after this are the massive ones? Because the individuals that were organizing the smaller shows just don't see it as viable as a thing for them to focus on anymore because there might not be a pen show for a year. So I really think that somebody needs to take the reins of creating some kind of online thing and getting buy-in from a lot of companies. I think that that's the first thing that needs to occur before anything can happen. Because if we're all just thinking, like, oh, I can't wait for the next pen show, like, you've got the wrong thought.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I pretty much agree across the board with everything you've said there. In the before times, I don't know if I've ever said this out loud or in any show or stream or anything before, but in the before times, I was thinking about how can I help with the diversity problem we see at shows and shine a light on more diverse vendors and smaller vendors. And I always, like, one of my little dream scenarios was that I could start a nonprofit that was strictly there to fund travel for smaller makers to shows. And, you know, that never got off the ground because that's a really hard puzzle to solve and how do you, just in a lot of ways, right? Like, how do you manage that and make sure you're doing it right? But I think we're starting to see some of the other shows, some of the pen shows that existed before, starting to take a more local path and having a focus on area vendors that the larger pen community may not be aware of that, you know, are doing good things in the community where these shows are at that don't have the broad scope of these, you know, national or in some cases, international companies, brands, vendors, retailers, things like that. So that's good. Like, I still, there's obviously a ton of work to be able to do there. And if we ever do get back to pen shows, you know, that's something I'd like to focus on, seeing how we can help, you know, underrepresented people have, you know, the ability to sell at these shows and have their wear seen by a wider audience that we can all benefit from. And then, but that's assuming, like you said, pen shows come back like they used to be. And I think there is, and we've talked about this before, I think there is a path to an online type of pen show that doesn't come without massive amounts of work and risk and, you know, effort to pull something like that off. But I think it could be done, and I think, I wouldn't be surprised if there's people working on this. You know, I've never heard of anything or, you know, I'm not involved in anything, certainly. But there has to be people thinking about this, just those who travel a lot, who rely on these shows for parts of their income or looking at other ways to virtually have a pen show. And how big can something like that get? Like, how can we come together as a group to put something on like that? I see that happening maybe even before I'm comfortable traveling to a pen show again. We'll see, you know, it's definitely out there. So, you know, this is a big question, and that's why I kind of wanted to discuss it, even though we don't have any answers or maybe any way to have answers. But I can see a lot of things happening that could kind of push the pen show part of our hobby and our community forward in the future. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see. We're going to have a – we've got a lot of time to think about this. You know, I think, you know, next year will we see like one or two big virtual pen shows. I could see the Tokyo pen show group pulling something like this off. Maybe the San Francisco pen show group could pull something like this off, you know. That list is short who I think could pull something off right now, but I would love to see it happen, and I would certainly participate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' As we stand at this point, it's getting for me to be a thing of like I don't even think it would be nice if this happened. I think it needs to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think we're beyond like – yeah, that would be cool. I was like, no, I think this is probably going to need to happen for a lot of different reasons, right? So, yeah, I see what you're saying.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I mean really like for people's businesses to be able to continue in a way that they want, you know.