Considering that I've never missed a Blade Show since 1982 a lot of them run together. For this one the show just felt different, the usual rush wasn't there for me.
It was great seeing old friends, making new ones, buying some knives, selling a few, doing editorial work. On the pocketbook side it was just as enjoyable when the tables were $350 though.
Part of the tone of a show comes from how a show starts. Dan Delavan of Plaza Cutlery was helping me some, so I had exhibitor badges for he and Pam, and he called while I was still driving down to the show from Chattanooga.
They couldn't find my packet at check in. They'd looked under "V", and then under "B" and then just sorta looked up at the ceiling. (That's when Dan called me.)
Recalling the thread about this last week I suggested the look under the "J" for J Bruce Voyles. There it was.
The only thing that bothers me about all this was I had called a friend at Blade, informed them of the snafu we were talking about on here, suggested they check out the forums, and also added that a simple solution would be to simply add a single sheet of paper with the alphabetical listings in an order in which someone could make some sense of it.
I was told that suggestion was passed along to the powers that be. They must have chosen to ignore the suggestion--which is their option. I know my program didn't have an insert in it.
With the old, "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind" adage, if the show management thus found the check-in to be something described by Gunny Highway in Heartbreak Ridge, and for some exhibitors that set the tone for their entire show--well...enjoy.
With this economy I don't think anyone expected an increased attendance show. Following this thread a few weeks out told most of us that a number of collectors would not be attending. However, I live 3 hours away from the show, and our local morning show was giving away free tickets. The show promoters certainly got the word out about the show.
I have never heard a knifemaker with poor sales at a show say the problem was the knives they had brought. With this economy a knifemaker who came into that show with the same knives at the same prices and expected to have the same demand has been breathing too many solvent and epoxy fumes.
One good friend sold out in 22 minutes last year. This year they still had a great show--but it took until Sunday to sell out. I found Sunday to be one of the best days of the show for me.
Saturday night there were more than a few makers I talked to that were concerned on how the show might finish up. If you only get four big paydays a year you cannot afford to blow any of them.
Frank Centofante came into the show with a new style knife that sold for less than his traditional folders, I was told, and he sold out quickly. This was brilliant. There were not a lot of makers doing similar things.
At one of the old Blade Shows in Knoxville, TN during a small recession Corbet Sigman came into the show with a line of wood handled hunters marked "CRS", with the knives priced at $65.00 without a sheath. (He charged $10.00 for the sheath). He sold out.
A maker has to react to market conditions. And so do the show promoters. However, tables for 2010 at the Blade show are going up. They added over 100 more tables. If you do not increase the number of customers there is only one direction a show can go. There comes a point in table rates at which some marginal knifemakers are going to finally get around to looking at costs versus income and have to make some hard choices about their show schedules.
High table rates may look good to a corporate bottom line--for a while.
The reason that the Blade Show is in Atlanta and not in Knoxville, TN, is when I ran the Blade Show we were obsessed with making the show bigger and bigger and bigger.
As we got bigger the sales for the majority of the makers got less. And we listened and were concerned. I've always operated on the theory that when you take a maker's money for his table you are also taking on the obligation to do everything within your power to get buyers into the show.
But that can only work up to a point. At some point the maker has to take responsibility for his own marketing.
Did the makers who did not sell well at Blade send a card to all his customers telling them they would be there?
Is the maker making what his customers want or is he following his "art"?
Remember the word artist often has "starving" in front of it.
A maker that is only making what he wants to make and expects the world to rush to him without any consideration for what his customers want has little right to complain about poor sales.
If you ignore marketing do not be surprised if the market ignores you.
The boost that launched the Blade Show in Atlanta was in large part because when we moved to Atlanta from Knoxville we dramatically reduced the size of the show.
Knoxville got too big. It was what I wanted as show manager at the time--but I had made a mistake.
The number of tables in Knoxville that we felt had thinned out the buying power of the shows attendees to the point that it was not working well? 700 tables. When we moved to the Waverly ballrooms we had a max of around 500 tables in all the rooms we used. That was a dramatic increase in sales for those who attended.
I was told that this year's Blade Show had around 700 tables.
Unfortunately, I tried to "clean up" on of the my blades and that didn't help...lol.
