Tag: Trade Show

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Another Expo in the Rearview Mirror

I’ve had some great Calgary Expo experiences over the years, but this one is certainly at the top. I didn’t realize how much I missed people, especially these people. When I mentioned that to my buddy Darrel in a recent text, he replied, “you’re alone too much.”

No argument there. It’s not good for the psyche, as many of us have discovered these past two years.

From the first afternoon on Thursday to the last on Sunday, reconnecting with familiar faces, repeat customers and introducing my work to new people was terrific. I had forgotten how much fun it was, and I get a kick out of the reactions when some people see my work for the first time.
As I’ve written before, it is human nature to smile in response to a smile, so when people run into a couple of walls and tables full of smiling animals, those people smile, laugh, and say things like “ohmygawd, they’re so cuuuuuuuuute!”

I heard that a lot this weekend. It was like a drug.

The compliments are nice, and I say Thank You. Of course, the sales are important, that’s why I’m there. But making people smile, seeing them light up at the unusual nature of my work, I wish I could bottle that. It would come in handy on far too many days when I am working alone in my office, convinced the world has gone to hell in a handcart.

There have been a lot of those days recently for all of us.

I went into this event with realistic expectations. I wasn’t sure if people would buy much or what the mood would be, but it surprised me that it felt like a regular Expo. People were happy to be out and having a good time, and it was very busy, which I’ll admit was a little uncomfortable at times, considering what we’ve all been through.
I had a fantastic location, and because I was next to a pillar, with no booth beside me, I could stretch out a little, which made the layout even better. I had good neighbours, which always makes the show better, but I don’t remember ever having bad ones at this event. Best of all, not a political or contentious discussion or experience all weekend long, which was incredibly refreshing.

I’m bad with names, but I’m excellent with faces, likely a consequence of this visual profession. I recognized a lot of former customers two and three years later, which surprised many of them.

2019 had been my best year, but I exceeded that year’s sales on every day except for Sunday, and that one was close. But for the whole show, this is now my best year, and I’m thrilled.

Talking with people in person, seeing their reactions, and what they buy gives me a better idea of which paintings are popular. I brought a lot of the Smiling Tiger and Otter, but they sold out. That’s always welcome, of course, but not a surprise.

Of the newer paintings, I can now consider Winter Wolf, Sea Turtle and Grizzly on Grass to be bestsellers. Though I brought plenty with me, I also sold out of those at the show, and I’ll know to bring more next time. I still have some of each here at home, but I can only carry so many.

Here are a few stand-out highlights.

Need a Break?

A big THANK YOU to two couples who were incredibly generous. They’re some of my biggest collectors and supporters for several years now, both at this show and throughout the year, and I enjoy visiting with them. They each had four-day passes, so I saw them all weekend long.

While I thought that having my booth next to the bathrooms would be convenient, the map didn’t specify that both of those bathrooms were for women. The men’s bathrooms were both five aisles away in opposite directions. Who designed this place?!

So Will and Jaime volunteered to watch my booth a few times during the weekend, they brought me soft drinks from their hotel one day, and Will even tried to act like a carnival barker to boost sales, which was damn funny.
Sheldon and Tracy are the folks I spent the afternoon with at the zoo and wrote about in a recent post. They watched my booth a few times, chatted with me when it was slow, and stopped by often to check if I needed anything. At one point, Sheldon flipped through my bin of prints and said he felt like he was going through hockey cards. “got it, got it, got it, need it, got it, got it,…”

These customers have become friends, and I was grateful for their kind consideration and help.

I could recite a list of names of all of the people I’ve come to know at this event over the years, but I would likely forget and offend somebody. So, if some of you are reading this, hopefully I let you know in person how much I enjoyed seeing you again.

Have You Got an Elephant Yet?

Remember the guy who comes back every year and asks if I have an elephant painting? You can read about that in a previous post. I was worried he might not be there this year, but Aric was my first customer on Thursday! He asked the question, and I was able to answer, “Why yes! Yes, I do!” and showed him the elephant hanging behind me.
That was the perfect start to the event because not only did he love the painting, he bought the 12”X16” metal print for his wife’s birthday. He assured me I could talk about it here, and I wouldn’t likely ruin the surprise. I had brought two of those metal prints with me this weekend, just in case he bought one, so I’d still have another for the wall.

What a Wookiee!

Before I became a full-time artist in 2006, my last job was as an Admin Assistant for a physiotherapist here in Canmore. These days, Ascent Physical Therapy is bigger and in a new location, with multiple therapists and clinicians. At the time, however, it was a small clinic, just two of us working there with an occasional massage therapist using one of the rooms.

I often describe Shane as the ‘best last boss to have.’ He knew that I wanted to work for myself and was very supportive. When I realized I couldn’t take my business to the next level without leaving, I gave him plenty of notice, but he suggested I job share with somebody else so that I could go part-time to make it easier and train the new person at the same time. That worked great for several months, but eventually, I gave notice again, as did the other part-timer who found a full-time job elsewhere. Shane hired somebody to replace us, and she stayed with him for several years. It was about as smooth and painless a transition as we could have wanted.
Several years ago, Shane created this Chewbacca costume from scratch. It is truly a masterpiece and looks movie-quality. It has an electronic voice box for the growls, stilts for the height and is a highlight of the show for many people, especially kids. Every year, he comes to Expo with this outfit and has even added a C3PO backpiece from the Empire Strikes Back.

Now he’s part of the charitable fan organization, the 501st Legion, and Shane makes a circuit several times during the show with security escorts so that people can take pictures with him. He walked by my booth multiple times but obviously couldn’t stay long as he was mobbed for photos. However, Shane returned one morning without the costume to visit, and it’s always great to see him there.

There Once Was a Bear and a Rat.

Finally, I’d like to share a couple of gifts I received that I’m happy to display in my office.

At the 2019 show, Matthew Overbeck came by the booth and asked if we could collaborate on an art project. He wanted to create some 3D printed lamps and use a couple of my paintings for the lampshade panels. Matthew and his wife Maria have bought my prints before, so it wasn’t a cold call.

I thought it would be a fun project and agreed to let him use my work. He kept me up to date with progress shots and said he would give me a lamp when finished. I was looking forward to it, but the pandemic suddenly arrived, and everybody’s plans slid into the ditch.

I’ve thought about Matthew and this project a few times over the past two years, but I didn’t want to reach out to him about it. When we’re all struggling, the last thing I wanted to do was pressure him to complete his art project or imply that I was waiting for a lamp.
I was thrilled when he showed up at my booth on Thursday and revealed the finished piece. It looks even better than I expected and features two of my favourite paintings. This will be a fond keepsake and Expo memory, as will the second smaller bonus rat lamp he gave me.
While he said he’s not in a super creative mode right now, I know that the right inspiration can turn that around on a dime.

So, feel free to reach out to Matthew if this work is of interest to you. He’s a talented artist working in a unique medium, and I wish him nothing but success with these pieces. I’m pleased that my work could be a small part of it.

To wrap up this wrap-up, I’ve come away from Expo inspired to create more work, which is no small thing. As a result, I have rebooked a corner booth for next year. While I would love the same location, I know that’s not always feasible with changing floor plans, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

To all of you who came to see me and add my artwork to your homes, please accept my sincere thanks for supporting not only this painter of whimsical wildlife but local art in general. It means a lot to all who make our living creating stuff.

And finally, to all of you who signed up for A Wilder View at the Calgary Expo, I know I already sent you a welcome message a couple of days ago, but thanks again for being here. I will do my best to make it worth your while.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Setting the Table for Expo

The Calgary Expo is a monster event, beginning on a Thursday afternoon and ending Sunday evening. Pre-pandemic, close to 100,000 people came and went through the doors for four days. It was once the 6th biggest Comic-Con in North America, still growing before the world swerved drunkenly into traffic.

Attendees include comic, toy, art, and pop culture collectors. Movie and television fans pay additional fees to line up for signatures, photo ops, panel discussions and talks from invited celebrities. Calgary attracts some very big names, which draws in more people.

One year, the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation attended, resulting in absolute chaos. The Fire Marshal eventually shut it down with so many people inside that you couldn’t move. Thankfully I wasn’t a vendor that year. Organizers rewrote their rule book the following year.

In 2014, the cast of Aliens was a big draw, resulting in one of my favourite memories, when the late Bill Paxton ended the show by intentionally overacting his most famous movie lines on the intercom. Exhausted vendors suddenly woke up from packing our booths, cheering and applauding the gesture.

Cosplayers spend countless hours creating incredible outfits, from elaborate body paint to 3D printed helmets and armour of pop culture, movie, TV, animation and comic book characters. For example, my former employer spent weeks creating the most realistic Chewbacca costume you’ll ever see, complete with stilt extensions and an electronic voice box. He was a big hit at the show.
Truly an all-ages, family-friendly event, it has consistently been one of the most positive experiences I’ve had each year. The people-watching alone is worth attending, and the whole event has a circus feel.

In fact, they even have a signature parade in downtown Calgary called POW! Parade of Wonders on the Friday (although Expo is open Thursday evening) to kick it off. I’ve never seen it live because I’m always prepping my booth for the day. But it sure looks like people are having fun. This was from 2019.

Retailers include comic book stores, T-shirt vendors, book publishers, and every kind of nerdy pop culture collectible under the sun. Then there is the art. There’s so much quality art that it would take more time than I’ve got to catalogue it all.

Artist Alley is a section unto itself, with more affordable booths for creatives to sell their prints and other items. Many are hobbyists building an audience, though some have built a large fan base and do quite well.

The large halls of the main building are divided into 10 x 10 booths, with some larger companies occupying several. Naturally, these Retailer booths cost more, but increased space and traffic translates to more sales.

Having worked my way up from my first booth, more of a table really, in the now-retired Small Press section, I’ve been in the Retailer section for several years. In my last year in 2019, I had a corner booth on a main thoroughfare, a prime location that I had earned through seniority. I have no idea where I’ll be this year as the floor plan is likely to change and they haven’t released any information yet.

No matter how many times I prepare for this event, it’s a logistical gauntlet. For best pricing, booths are usually booked a year in advance on the last day of the previous Expo. I booked my 2020 booth in April of 2019, so they’ve had my money for three years. Even though they responsibly offered refunds several times during the pandemic, I wanted to keep my booking and priority.

The booth space shown here was bigger than I was used to as the vendor next to me no-showed. So I was able to spread out a little bit, as did the guy on the other side. It’s usually more compact.
Neighbouring vendors form temporary communities at these shows. We watch each other’s booths for bathroom breaks, might do a coffee run if one of us is going, and we talk during set-up and slow periods. I hear a common question: “How did you do today?”

A frequently heard answer, especially from people who don’t do this for a living, is, “I’ve covered my booth costs.”

If that’s your only goal, and you’re doing this for fun or a side hustle, that’s important. The booth fee is usually the most significant expense, but it’s certainly not the only one.

My corner booth costs $1228.50. Despite overall bright lighting in this venue, having my lights on my artwork and banners makes it pop and attracts more attention. So, I rent power for my booth, another $134. Parking for the five days (including Wednesday set-up day) is $65, and my car stays in that lot from Thursday to Sunday.

If I were doing regular shows, I’d get a blanket policy through my insurance provider to cover all of them. All it takes is one person to bump the wrong thing and fall in your booth, or if something from your display falls into an aisle and somebody trips over it, the vendor could be liable. Of course, nobody thinks it will happen to them, but it’s not worth the risk in our litigious society. So, I get vendor insurance for this show through the venue, which costs $64.

Canmore is only an hour away from downtown Calgary when there’s no traffic, but getting in and out of the grounds with everybody else adds a lot of time. I wouldn’t get home until 10 PM at the earliest Friday night and would have to leave by 7 AM the following day to make it back. Add in the potential for a spring snowstorm, which has happened more than once on this weekend, and commuting would be a gamble.

So from Thursday to Sunday, I stay in a hotel. It’s six or seven blocks away from the venue, and I walk back and forth each day. That’s $470 all in, with the Expo rate.

I don’t have a big appetite these days, and I stay away from the high-fat food trucks. Instead, I eat breakfast at the hotel, pick up a healthy lunch at Sunterra market on the way to the grounds each morning, bring trail mix snacks, fruit and cheese from home, and then grab a late takeout light dinner on the walk home to eat in my room. I used to attend the odd networking event at this show, organized by Calgary artist collectives. They were fun, but I prefer winding down in a quiet hotel room. These are long, loud days with many people, and that always takes it out of me.

My food expense for the weekend is usually around $100.

In the late 90s, I worked at a hotel in Banff. For a couple of those years, I was an accounting clerk. Later, I worked as an office admin for a physiotherapist here in Canmore. Through these jobs, I became proficient with Microsoft Excel.

Shonna is an Excel wizard and loves putting data into a spreadsheet. It might sound boring, but it’s a great skill. We each keep our own finances, but there are no mysteries in our household budget for the joint expenses. She’ll spend hours tweaking those numbers to make sure everything gets paid, money is set aside for savings, and ensure that we still get to live a life.

So for Expo a few years ago, we sat down and built a spreadsheet to find out exactly how much it cost to do the show.

My booth might cost $1228.50, but before I sell anything, the initial costs add up to almost twice that, and I haven’t even mentioned creating a booth and filling it with stock.

The most considerable expense of building a booth is in the first year. I didn’t make any money the first two years I did this show, and the second year I barely broke even. I’ll buy one or two new display items to improve things each year, but if you take care of your equipment, almost all of it is reusable.

Here is a list of some of the display materials and equipment. Grid walls, corner braces, wall coverings, hangers, lights, lightbulbs, power bars, banner stands, banners, two folding tables, tablecloths, table riser, magnet boards, coaster/sticker display risers, print display bins, print storage bins, storage rack, canvas/metal cases, floor mats, office supplies, toolbox/tools, cargo dolly, business card holders, display easels, and a bunch of other minor stuff.

In the beginning, this whole show was cash transactions. The rule was to bring lots of small bills for your float. Very few sales are cash these days, and everybody wants to use TAP. My handheld terminal costs $20/month to rent, but it’s well worth it. But like any other retailer in the world, the banks and credit card companies take a small percentage of every transaction.

That’s to build a temporary store for those four days. Then, after that, I need to have items to sell.

Before I sell a print, I pay a printer to produce it, order a backer board to protect and make it presentable, order art bio labels for the backer board, and a cellophane sleeve. Every print comes with an initial cost. It’s the same for the large metal prints, canvas and stickers. For the coasters, magnets, calendars, small aluminum prints and anything else I get from Pacific Music & Art, I buy those from Mike. I get them at less than wholesale because he doesn’t have to pay me a royalty on products I buy for myself.

Every item breaks down on that Excel spreadsheet. From what it cost to buy it to what I sold it for, and in the final column is the profit from that one item. I track everything I sell during the show, writing each transaction in a notebook. Then, I enter it into a spreadsheet on my iPad in my hotel room at the end of each day. Finally, I enter each day into the more extensive spreadsheet at the show’s end.

From the total profit of each item sold, I deduct the hotel, parking, electrical, insurance, and food costs. Only then do I know if I made any money.
That explains the hard costs, but what about my time?

Coming up with an hourly wage for self-employment is almost like mixing math and philosophy. Building my art skills took decades; painting each piece took many hours, and the whole collection of whimsical wildlife paintings has taken 13 years so far. There wouldn’t be any prints, coasters, magnets, calendars, and other items to sell without all of that. So, how could I come up with a value for that time?

I recently spent an hour redesigning my booth in Photoshop, creating scale pieces of the different items and moving them around for greater efficiency. Does that count against time spent?

What about the intangible benefits from the show that can’t be quantified?

Each year, I meet new people and introduce them to my work. If they don’t buy something the first year, they might buy something next time. I’ll get new subscribers to A Wilder View, so maybe they will buy something later or share my work with their friends. I reconnect with people who already like my work and come back to see me year after year.

How do I enter those benefits on an Excel spreadsheet? The simple answer is I can’t, but they’re still valuable.

But for the costs that can be recorded, it’s essential to know what you’re getting out of it and to be honest with yourself if it’s worth doing.

This show has been financially well worth my time and effort for years. But, I’ll admit that significant changes to the show before 2019 had me rethinking whether I would do it again. When the ‘little Expo that could’ sold to the multi-national Fan Expo, now a subsidiary of Informa, it lost the local community feel and it has become a colder corporate event. As a vendor, I used to feel like a valuable participant, friendly with the organizers and happy to see them each year during setup. Now, I just feel like a number on a sheet, easily replaced.

But that turned out to be my most profitable year, and I was pleased with the return on my investment. While I’ve lost any connection with the organization, I still had a great time with my customers and fellow vendors. So, I booked again, unaware that the next two years would change everything for everybody.

I have no idea what to expect this year. As I post this, there’s still no floor plan published, I don’t know my booth number or move-in details. Eight days out, that’s concerning as far as confidence in the overall organization. It could be a great show, with record attendance and people buying a lot of my art. Or it could be quiet, folks reluctant to gather in groups, still financially shell-shocked from the last two years, and just browsing. It will likely be somewhere in between, but that’s still a big range.

I won’t know until Monday, April 25th when I run the numbers.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Last Minute Mountain Made Market

Last week’s Mountain Made Christmas Market was fun. Saturday was steady all day, but it was quiet on Sunday, likely a consequence of the Grey Cup and a big dump of snow Saturday night. However, I did pretty well with sales for the whole weekend, and I enjoyed introducing new people to my work.

Between the market in November and the one last weekend, I’ve got a lot of new subscribers to A Wilder View, so welcome to all of you. The calendar/sticker raffle winner was Karen from right here in Canmore.

I dropped the prize off on her doorstep, and here’s an excerpt from the email I received later that evening….”I had a 12 hour day at (omitted), and to come home to such a delightful surprise just absolutely made all the frustrations go away!  Thank you so much for the beautiful calendar and stickers!   You do such amazing work, and I will have a smile on my face every time I look at the pictures/stickers!”

It may come as a surprise to many of you that this here traditional Grinch has been spreading Christmas cheer. I hope this doesn’t become a habit.

I would especially like to thank those of you who drove out from Calgary and Cochrane to say Hello and add to your collections. I only wish I’d had more time to chat with you, considering both of you have been following my work for years, and I was genuinely pleased to finally meet you in person.

There’s one more kick at the can this coming Saturday. This Last Minute Mountain Made Christmas Market is only one day from 10-4 at The Civic Centre downtown Canmore. I’ve got coasters, magnets, aluminum art, canvas, poster prints and calendars available, and there will be plenty of other vendors there for your last-minute shopping.

So if you’re in the neighbourhood, stop by and see me and my funny-looking animals.

Cheers,
Patrick

 

 

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Made in the Mountains

I signed up late for The Mountain Made Christmas Market at the Canmore Civic Centre, but since I had the stock, the time, and it was close to home, I couldn’t think of a reason not to give it a try.

As it was a six-foot table space rather than a 10 x 10 booth, and I haven’t used any of my hardware and displays since April of 2019, I set it up in my garage last week to figure out how I wanted it to look. With setup time limited on-site, you don’t want to experiment and solve problems in the final moments before the doors open.

Usually, these events have vendors packed tightly together, but with distancing rules, there were 2m between booths and a building capacity limit, including those behind the tables. So while it meant fewer vendors could attend, it didn’t feel crowded, and we had breathing room. Behind masks, of course.

If you’ve followed my work for a while, you know I’m most comfortable working on editorial cartoons or paintings in my office. I know a lot of artist introverts, seems to go with the profession. We’re good with one or two other people, but crowds sap our energy.

And yet, I didn’t realize how much I missed the interaction at these things.

The show hours were 10-4, and I had a prime corner in the main lobby. With a couple of hours setup on Saturday before opening, restocking on Sunday morning, and an hour of tear-down at the end, it was just a couple of eight-hour days. I even got some painting time in at home in the morning before heading to the venue. Some of these shows have long hours without a break, all day, every day. So I come home exhausted after five days at The Calgary Expo.

Getting to know the other vendors is usually enjoyable. Sometimes you can have a conflict, especially if a neighbour starts pushing into your space, but it’s most often a cooperative, friendly environment. When possible, we help each other out with forgotten supplies, keeping an eye on tables for bathroom breaks, taking orders for coffee runs, chatting during the slow periods, and learning about what each of us does.

Before the pandemic, I only did one or two shows a year. The daily editorial cartoon deadlines prohibit a lot of travelling. Some of these vendors make their entire living doing the gift, craft, and trade show circuit, and they’re pros at it. They’ve got setup and travel down to a science. When it comes to farmer’s markets, some of them go four or five days a week in different locations, a lot of time spent on the road.

While I only had a five-minute drive back to my house on Sunday after tear-down, one of my neighbours was still packing up before her four-hour drive back to Fernie, BC.

Halfway through Saturday, I realized I was having a good time. I’ve written about this before, but I love it when people are surprised by my wall of funny-looking animals. Even behind masks, the positive reaction is obvious.

It’s a good feeling to make people smile, especially since the past year and a half has seen so little of that.

I’ll often have to invite people to come closer, telling them it’s OK, my critters don’t bite. Their hands come up as they point out different ones to their companions. Because I had over 45 different images at the show, with no way to put them all on canvas on the wall behind me, I invite people to flip through the bin of poster prints, assuring them they’re all different.

I get the same questions all the time, and I’m happy to answer them.

“Are you the artist?”

“Did you paint all of these?

“How do you do this?”

And I hear the same comments, without complaint.

“They’ve got such personality!”

“They look cartoony…but real.”

“I love these.”

Yeah, that last one never gets old. Even if people don’t buy anything, it’s comforting that my work helped distract them from their troubles for at least a moment or two. Not a bad way to measure success.

Sales far exceeded expectations, and I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend. What people buy in different places and times of year never fails to surprise me. While prints like the Otter and Smiling Tiger always sell well, people have their favourite animals or a friend who loves owls, cows, or moose. So one person buys a rat, the next person a hippo, and the one after that a Ring-tailed Lemur who’s not quite all there.

But two popular standouts at this show were the Winter Wolf and the Sea Turtle, both newer paintings.

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8X10 aluminum prints and ceramic coasters were big sellers at this show, and I sold out of calendars. Those are all made by Pacific Music & Art, and I’ve already placed a resupply order. I’m adding the Sea Turtle, Winter Wolf and a few others to aluminum art for the next time around.

There will be another two-day Mountain Made Christmas Market at the Civic Centre on December 11th and 12th and a one-day Last Minute Market on December 18th. As this was such a positive experience, I’ve registered for both. This was an enjoyable event because the organizer, Julian, set the right tone and did a fine job of putting everything together. In addition, the Town of Canmore’s building monitor, Maurice, was ridiculously helpful and courteous, and we let him know how appreciated that was.

We’re often quick to point out when others fall short but fail to tell them when they’ve done a great job. People need to hear it, to let them know that it matters.

Now, please don’t get excited and think I’ve found my long-lost Christmas spirit or anything.

Having just endured two back-to-back elections in Alberta, plus the last year and a half of uncertainty and stress, it was nice to talk with people without the whole conversation revolving around politics, the pandemic, and polarized opinions.

Thanks to all of you who signed up for A Wilder View at the show. Chris S. won the calendar and sticker draw, and I’ve already delivered it to him. I enjoyed chatting with all of you, and I welcome your feedback, so don’t be shy about leaving a comment on a blog post or sending me an email from time to time.

Coming up next week, I’ll have a new desktop/device wallpaper download for all subscribers. I think you’ll really like this one. It’s one of my favourite paintings, and I hope it will put a smile on your face, even if I don’t get to see it in person.

Until next time, thanks for being here.

Cheers,
Patrick.

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Calgary Expo – The Wrap-Up 2019

The Calgary Expo wrapped up on Sunday and it was one of the most unique and unexpected results in the six years I’ve done this show.

At the beginning of the weekend, I was thinking this might be my last one and said as much in my previous blog post. While I stand by all I said in the most recent post, and there is a lot of room for improvement on the part of the organizers, I had great sales. With just a couple more prints out the door, I would have beaten 2017, which was my best year.

So, on that front, I’m very pleased with the results.

Let’s start with what I didn’t like about this year’s event.

Informa, the company that now owns the Calgary Expo cast out the soul of this show, in my opinion. Plenty of people I spoke with, both vendors and attendees had choice words to describe the shortcomings. The attendees weren’t happy with the guests this year. Sure, they had Michael J. Fox and the Back to the Future cast, but they had them last year, too, except Fox had to cancel, so it was almost a repeat. Other than that, only one or two I spoke with were excited to see some of the other guests.

Communication in the run-up to the show was poor, especially compared to their predecessors. I could elaborate at length, but it would be boring. Let’s just say they’ve got nowhere to go but up. Clearly efforts to slash costs, a lot of little corners were cut.

There were quite a few empty booths at the show this year, so much so that I know quite a few vendors who got to expand their own space into the empty areas beside them. That’s unheard of for this show, but since I was one of those who got to add two feet to my booth and have some storage beside it, I was happy to take advantage. A number of vendors told me that this was their last year. Some attendees said the same.

The weather. This one is just bad luck, nobody’s fault, springtime in Alberta, what are you going to do? Saturday is traditionally the busiest day and we got walloped by a BIG snowstorm. Shonna usually drives in from Canmore for the day to help me out on Saturday, but since the weather was accurately forecast, I called her that morning from the hotel and told her not to come. It just wasn’t worth the risk.

It was a good call.

She would have been driving home right around the time that buses, semis and cars were careening into the ditch on the Trans-Canada. They closed the highway as a result. Walking the six blocks back to my hotel that evening was an adventure, horizontal snow and stinging wind, right in the face. I took a cab back the next day as I couldn’t roll my little suitcase through the snow and the sidewalks were skating rinks.

With people heading home to beat the storm, it got real quiet the last couple of hours on Saturday. That no doubt hurt sales, but they were still quite good.

The upside? There was plenty of that, too.

My booth location was the best I’ve had. I was right by a main entrance to the other building, a perimeter thoroughfare close to the exit from the Corral where the events were held. I really couldn’t have picked a better spot. No doubt that contributed to my great sales. Last year, some of my regular customers had a hard time finding me. This year, quite a few said I was one of the first booths they saw.

The vendors around me contribute a lot to the experience. When setting up, tearing down, when it’s slow, or you just need someone to talk to, the people around you can make it very dull or really fun. This year, it was most definitely the latter. My neighbours were all talented artists, each with their own unique styles. More than a few times, we were crying from making each other laugh.

It’s always great to see vendors I’ve known for years as well. When they found out I was alone, one couple came by a few times on Saturday and Sunday to watch my booth so I could take quick bathroom breaks. I had brought plenty of good food and could steal quick bites at the booth, but getting away was tough. So that thoughtful courtesy was greatly appreciated.

Patrick, Dani, Jamie, Marvin, Sebastian, Brock, April, if you’re reading this, thanks for making a tiring weekend a lot more fun.

The new product was well received and it was great to have such a variety to share. In addition to the usual prints and canvas, quite a few magnets, coasters, calendars and aluminum art pieces went home with customers and many remarked on the great quality of the goods from Pacific Music and Art. Quite a few people mentioned they’re seeing my stuff in different places, too, a result of that new license. One man said he recently saw a display of my work in The Banff Springs Hotel. I’m looking forward to checking that out.

Last, but certainly not least, I enjoy the people who come to see my funny looking animals.

There are so many return customers who buy my prints year after year, some who rival my parents in how many prints they have and they keep coming back. Many of them follow my newsletter and gave me positive feedback about videos I’ve recorded, stuff I’ve written about, told me animals they’d like me to paint, and were just great to talk with, often more than once over the weekend. More than a few of them greeted me with warm handshakes, hugs and big smiles.

It’s a pet peeve of mine that I’m so good at remembering faces, but not names, even though they all forgive me for it every year. As they’re fresh in my mind right now, I could run down a list of people I was happy to see again, but that might invade their privacy and I would invariably leave some out.

If any of you are reading this, hopefully I adequately conveyed my great appreciation for your continued support when I saw you in person. And even when you run out of wall space, as some of you have and many are close, please continue to come by and say Hello. A purchase is not required.

You are the best part of my Calgary Expo experience.

As the price of booth rental only went up a little, and I was guaranteed my same booth space if I renewed at the show, I put down the deposit for next year with hopeful, but realistic expectations.

My neighbour Jamie put it well when he said that our current Expo grievances, while well founded, might also be a simple case of resistance to change. Nothing stays the same and even though there’s plenty with which we’re not happy, there’s still good reason to hang on a little longer and see how it turns out, give Informa and Fan Expo the opportunity to listen to the complaints and try to make things right.

I’m willing to take that chance, at least one more time.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Prints and Prep for The Calgary Expo Holiday Market

With the Calgary Holiday Expo next weekend, I’m busy preparing my prints and booth hardware, wondering once again if I’ll be able to get it all in the car. It’s a valid concern, especially when I change things up, as I always do.

A few years ago, this sort of thing was a significant source of stress, as it adds quite a few hours of work to an already busy week of the usual deadlines. This time, however, it just feels like business as usual, which is a pleasant surprise.

I have a spreadsheet checklist of things I need to bring and everything I had to order has arrived with plenty of time to spare. As expected, the more you do something, the easier it gets.

The only thing that could throw a wrench into the gears is bad weather, poor sales, and myriad other unexpected possibilities, none of which I can do anything about. Usually I’d worry about it anyway, but this week, I’m not.

As my grid wall setup is changing yet again, I will spend an afternoon tomorrow or Tuesday setting everything up in the garage, just to address any issues ahead of time. It’s not a task I look forward to, but one I think is necessary, given that I don’t want to find out I’m missing something on setup day. I’d hate to have to give up a good parking space to make a run to Staples or Canadian Tire.

Now that I’m using a new printer for my giclée works, I have to order larger numbers to keep my costs down. Instead of ordering 5 prints of a particular painting, I have to order a minimum of 20. This means more of an investment each time, likely holding on to prints for a longer period of time.

For example, I don’t expect to sell 30 Smiling Tigers next weekend, but likely more than 10. Since I only had 9 left in stock, I had to place an order and now have 29. I had to stock up in similar fashion for a number of my better selling prints, which means when looking at overall numbers; I have a couple hundred more than I need.

That does make me a little nervous, because it means I’ve invested money now that I normally wouldn’t have until later. On the positive side, however, prints don’t expire when cared for properly.

After completing a full print inventory and swallowing hard at the total, I have twice as many individual images in stock than I’d like. Between 8X10s, canvas, acrylic, poster and matted, I have prints of 45 different animals. On one hand, that’s an impressive number of paintings. On the other hand, it’s far too many different images to stock on a regular basis, especially since a third of those are not big sellers.

Even though I have fond feelings for every one of my paintings, it doesn’t mean they resonate with everyone else. I’ve already been weeding out certain ones as I run out, but will be much more aggressive in that practice over the coming year. I sold the last matted Raccoon Totem print online this week. As much as I like it, I won’t be ordering any more. There are about a dozen others that will meet the same fate when the last of each sells.

Many times, after I finish a new painting, I’ll get an email or a private message from somebody telling me they want a print. On more than one occasion, those folks have disappeared or told me they’ve changed their mind after I’ve invested the money to make prints available, when I might not have done so had they not expressed interest. Take that as a cautionary tale for both artists and buyers. Talk is cheap.

Then, of course, there are my reliable regular customers who ask for a print of a new animal, and even though I want to be able to make one available, I have to ask them to be patient until I get around to doing a print run. These are the folks I hate to disappoint since many have been supporting my work for years. Thank you, you know who you are.

I’m always painting new animals and if I want to stock prints of some of those, I have to start letting many of the others go. It also means that when I do paint a new animal, I have to think long and hard about whether or not I’m going to have prints done right away.

Or at all.

The Calgary Expo Holiday Market runs next Saturday and Sunday, November 25th and 26th in Halls B & C at the BMO Centre. Tickets available online and I believe at the door as well. Here’s the link. You can find me at Booth 414. Come by and say Hello.

Cheers,
Patrick