The Last Word on a Chilly Texas Weekend . . .

It is Wednesday morning in Ohio, and finally the temperature is higher than it was all weekend while we were in Texas. Of course, that isn't saying much -- the whole country has been in the deep freeze, with the possible exception of my parents in Tucson, where it has been consistently in the 70s. I'm jealous . . .

For the uninitiated, the Grapevine Convention Center is about two miles from the DFW airport. It's a really nice building, but it's not large, so most of the vendors are in the main room and others are in side rooms. For the past few years, we have been in the stage area, which suits us just fine -- there is a door in the back of the stage area that goes straight out onto the loading dock!

But there are challenges. The stage is 29 feet wide -- our booth is 30 feet wide. So in past years, we have bowed the back a little, angled the ends a little, etc. to fit from side to side. But it's also about 15 feet deep, so we have more space for shopping when we finish building the booth. This time, we also had to make room for the 10-foot USArtQuest display, and because of the size of the room it had to fit within the stage area. I tried for a month to come up with something in my mind that would work, but I didn't like any of my ideas. Leave it to Karen to come up with a solution that worked . . .



We started our booth at the front edge of the stage, took it along the side wall, and turned right at the back. That left room for Sue's display along the other wall . . .



. . . and her demo table up front. And it left a lot of walking space in the middle.



The challenge was turning that corner, and figuring out what to do with the space once we turned it. But a couple of short pieces of gridwall at a slight angle did the trick, and a lot of customers told us how much they liked it. We'll try it again next time, but don't expect it anyplace else -- I don't know of another place where we get enough depth to try it.



We marketed hard -- sent out flyers and e-mails, and passed out flyers in the line before the show opened. Must have worked -- this was the view inside our booth two minutes after the show opened on Saturday.



This was my favorite view from Saturday -- Cheryl Darrow from Ten Seconds Studio was demoing her new molds that had just come in from China. The three girls in the foreground were soaking in every word . . .



. . . and the next thing I knew, one of them had taken over Cheryl's demo chair!

I forgot to take pictures during the giveaway -- by then, my mind was already at Cowboys' Stadium. From the feedback I received after yesterday's post, apparently I made it sound like I am a Cowboys' fan. Not really -- I like the Cowboys, but I like the Eagles, too. Same with the Packers, and the Vikings, and the Steelers, and the Redskins, and even the Bengals from time to time. I consider myself a "reformed Bengals fan" -- they have disappointed us so much for so long that I decided a year ago to give up on them and look for a new team to root for. Haven't decided on one yet. But I really like to explore ballparks and stadiums when I travel, and that was what I was most excited about.