Thursday 26 May 2011

the Show is Over

Day 1: After a cattlewagon trip on the underground I arrived at the show just five minutes before opening time....(more of that in a minute)  Phew! The hall had been transformed since we set up on Sunday and was filled with hunderds of stands of brilliant card designs all vying for orders. The highlight of my day was when this lovely lady Wendy from The Card Gallery in Exeter came onto the stand and placed an order for my cards.  She presented me with this silver ticket she had won for being one of the best greetings card retailers in the SW of England which I could redeem for £50 from the show organisers. It was so lovely she chose my stand to spend her ticket on.  Brilliant!
We had some lovely orders although we were in a very poor area of the show in a corridor oppostite a dark well. Note to self: Remember that postion is everything. Do not accept a stand in a corridor or off on a limb in a tiny room ever again. It does not pay off!
I arrived home to be greeted with a large G&T and Lindsey cooking dinner for us all. What would we do without good friends?
Day two: Here we are looking quite dishevelled at the end of a long day. Lindsey was brilliant and drove us both down to the show where we parked next to the event for a quick get away at the end of the day. Amazingly it only cost £37.00 to park the car! The journey down was pretty nightmarish even though we left at 6.15am. It took 2 1/2 hours to get there but we had plenty of time to chill out and drink coffee. Day two was very quiet and the poor position really made a difference. No more wonderful silver tickets or other excitment. We packed up quicly and got home in record time.

Thursday: Today I have been unpacking and sorting out the printing order and uploading more designs online. It all takes so much time and energy which I am rapidly running out of. You know what I really, really want to do? I want to have time to clean the bathroom, tidy and hoover!!!!! How sad is that?

The rain has been hammering on my windows today as I've sat at the computer....it is such a wonderful sound after months of drought. Tony has captured the most beautiful picture of the black sky and the sun falling on the field with peonys in the foreground which I shall blog another day.

I really, really want to tell you about the train journery. I realise that I must be getting old....really old! I used to travel to London regularly in the 1980's when I had our knitting business Tiny Tiger. I thought nothing of running up and down the escalators carrying my bags of samples. life was simple in those days. It is a strange world, very different from those days when electronic gismos were unthought of...other than pacman! Mobile phones were the size of car batteries so you didn't see many of them! It is the tweeting, twittering restlessness that surrounds me that is so unnerving. What are they all saying and doing frantically typing into their little laptops? What happened to sitting reading the newspaper?  And WATER! What posesses people to buy water in ugly plastic bottles and pasties wrapped in garishly printed waxed paper?

Hang on a minute....did the man sitting oposite me who held his phone up in front of me just now take my picture with The Fallen Angel emblazoned across my breasts? Did he? you know...this is going to be next awful thing with technology. It won't be long before everyone owns secret hidden cameras and ghastly intimate secrets will be shared with the world. They are even putting cameras in contact lenses. Yikes! Can you imaging being caught untucking a wedgy or picking your nose?
NO!!!!

After the train joureny there was the underground. I only wanted to travel one stop from Kings Cross to Angel and I had plenty of time...all the time in the world but I hadn't reckoned on the number of people also wanting to get on MY TRAIN! I now know what a sardine feels like as it is packed in those little tins. I was carried across the platform between hot smelly bodies and watched in despair as not one, not two, but three trains came before I'd inched close enough to leap on board. The last girl in was crammed in so tightly her hair was caught in the rubber door seals.  Just as well the doors opened the same side at the next stop!  Note: Wearing a tight fitting hat is advisable if one wishes to preserve one's precious locks. I didn't have to hold on as we travelled, I felt every movement of the train through the hot bodies that encased me in this madness. I never, ever want to work in London.
No I don't!!!!!

I must tell you about the show. It is 21 years since I did a trade fair. It was FUN! The anticipation of 'will I sell anything? Will anyone stop and look?' is always better than the reality of hours and hours on your feet seeing no-one go past in ages. My stand was up in the Gods, far removed from the Big Boys down below. But I did have success. At 11.45 am I made my first sale. And then Gareth and I were both writing orders at the same time and had a third one waiting. Pleasing! I fell in love with ALL my buyers. What great people they all seem to be and they'll stay that way as long as they pay for their goods.

Then there was an interview. A journalist wanted to know all about me and what I do. She is writing a supplement for Progressive Greetings focus on Artitsts. Great. Let's hope it comes off. She was interested in my past life with Tiny Tiger and all the craft books I've written and magaine articles too.

Must go now and get on with uploading more files. Byeeeee!

8 comments:

Sandra Rowney said...

Would you do it again? I wonder if you'll get some follow ups later? Good to find out the hard way how it all works so that next time you can fight tooth and claw for a pitch near the centre. The t shirts looked great. Well done Moira!

dandelion dreamer said...

Thanks Sandie! There should be plenty of follow ups and everyone has a page in the catalog that all the buyers get so hopefully some will get in touch after the show. The main thing is to have got to the final stage...order forms, professiopnally printed cards, brochures etc. I shall hit the road soon one day a week.

vintagerockchick said...

Oh well done! It sounds like in spite of the various nightmares of exorbitant car park charges, horrendous journey, manic fellow passengers and a hidden-away stand, your cards sold themselves because they are so lovely. And it's maddening about the photos isn't it, - I'm constantly seeing pictures of Elle McPherson's head on my body.

Gina said...

Glad it all went well for you despite the horrible journeys etc. I did laugh about you wanting to do housework. I had a day off this week after an exhausting few days work and I cleared the ironing, cleaned the bathrooms, swept, vacuumed and washed the floors... and it felt really good!

Zue said...

What an amazing trip. I would love to see the photo of the rain clouds, will you post it up?
Moira, where do you get your energy from???
Train journeys can be a nightmare; I am off to London soon but I think it is on a Sunday so could be a quiet trip.
Take care!
Sue xxx

jacqueline said...

Dearest sweet Moira, this is such a wonderful inspiring show! I am so HAPPY that everything went well for you!!! You are my inspiration! :)
Thank you so much for your encouraging kind words on my little bubble space! I really appreciate your love and support! Have a lovely merry happy sunday sweet friend! Love to you!

Zue said...

Hi Moira
The plant is a parsnip, going to seed! It is beautiful and destined for a vase!
Sue xx

dandelion dreamer said...

Susan I never dreampt a parsnip could look so beautiful!