New York show
Submitted by IanGrant on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 11:52.
And so the New York show begins. But first a little background. The
show itself is a somewhat middle to upper end wholesale show. That
means people like me that sell to retailers around the country come
here, set up a booth and push our goods on all of the buyers – from
companies like Pier One, ma and pa retailer, all the way up to the 5th
Avenue shops of the world. Of course that means shipping all of your
samples, getting new product in on time and in one piece, negotiating
the logistical nightmares of the show site. A for example to get you
started. To ship to my location at Pier 94, there are around 4
different addresses to send things to. All of which are date
sensitive, but not necessarily self-explanatory. If you are wrong on
the address, your goods could wind up wandering aimlessly in New Jersey
or somewhere while you are standing in an empty booth trying to sell
air that surrounds you. Add to that, the whole thing is run by any
number of unions. Now I am not looking to get into a debate of whether
or not unions are a good thing or not. I am in one myself for some
acting things, and quite happy for it. But not all unions are created
equal, and not all of them work for the greater good. If you screw in
5 light bulbs at my pier, you are fine, if you screw in 6, you are
charged a labor fee of $40 for half an hour worth of labor, and it goes
up from there. If you have a screw gun and need to screw together your
stands, they have to get a union carpenter to put in the 12 screws and
there is an hourly charge of around $100. Never mind the union, a roll
of stretch wrap, the stuff that is basically high strength saran wrap
that you wrap your pallets in for keeping them all together – what
costs around $20 at Home Depot is $125 for a roll here at the Pier. A
Coke? $3.75. I am all for what the market can bear, but for us poor
slobs that are working the show, it gets to be a bit much.
So I have three pallets worth of stuff shipped to the show. One from our shop in Minneapolis, and two from my location at the show in High Point, North Carolina. I had them tracked, and they made it to New York and are somewhere in a warehouse staging area. One might think that's a good sign, but it’s only the beginning. Now it’s up to the gods of the show to decide when everything gets to its proper booth and in what condition it will arrive.
I arrived Friday afternoon in the city after a well-delayed flight. Delayed because of high winds coming into La Guardia, because of being put on the plane in Minneapolis on one side of the airport, and then everyone taken off and sent to the other side of the airport to get on a plane that actually functions, because of arriving at LA Guardia, pulling up to the jet way and the jet way not working, getting eventually backed out and, waiting for a new jet way, pulling back up and getting off and into the airport. So I am off and running, actually taxicabing my way to the Pier on the west side of midtown Manhattan. I arrive at my booth – which is a moderate size for the show – 20ft long by 10ft deep. There is one of my pallets there, the one that we sent from Minneapolis. There is also apparently everyone else’s garbage and empty boxes in the rest of my booth. Space in set up for the show is a premium, so your neighbors usually cannibalize any open and seemingly unoccupied booth as a location for their empty boxes and containers to give them room to set up. So I promptly go about figuring out to whom all these things belong. That’s a delicate issue, because you can’t be too concretive for a couple of reasons. Everyone steals everyone else’s unoccupied space, and on top of that, even if you are the most angelic (which of course I am), you are about to spend the next week with the people who have taken over your booth with their garbage. So rather than saying “would you get your crap the hell out of my booth” it’s more of “ do you know whose stuff this is” or “can I help you move this stuff back into the aisle?” Those lines change as people start to recognize who the major offenders are in your area. Eventually the line reverts back to the first more aggressive one “would you get your crap the hell out of my booth,” or shorter yet “get your crap the hell out of my booth,” but its directed only towards the main offender and usually comes out of the person’s mouth with the lowest breaking point. There was most definitely one person that had that sentiment directed towards him by all of us in his surrounding dispersal area.
Just a little side note, somehow I got “I’m a little tea pot” stuck in my head not far into the first day of set up, and it stayed with me until the end. I could explain how that came into my head, but it might put you into a coma type sleep . . . who am I kidding, you should be there already, so here is how it got into my head.
A few days ago, Mike (the guy at the shop who manages the warehouse end of things – packing, inventory etc) and I were loading a big cabinet into a truck. We were having the truck pull up to the front of the shop, as close as possible without hitting the sign on the outside of the building. I dutifully stand in full view of the driver’s side mirror, and as he gets within 5 feet of the sign, I do the traditional hold both arms up in a sort of Y and bring my hands together – mimicking the distance the truck is to the sign, eventually bringing both hands together over my head signaling the driver to stop. Mike, for whatever reason it entered his mind I know not, thought I was performing a spontaneous rendition of “I’m a little tea pot”. In any case, it was replaced near the end of that first set up day by someone's Sex in the City phone ring that went off while they were walking by. Anyhow, that's how it all happened, enjoy the restful coma.
So today the show begins (Sunday). There is always the usual speculation about sales and traffic among vendors. “Is it going to be busy,” “There are too many other shows going on right now,” “there are new days that the show begins and I think it will confuse the buyers (presumably because they think buyers can’t tell the difference between a Saturday and a Sunday?),” “No one likes to come to New York during the winter,” “our aisle is slow,” “my product sucks,” (not too many people go with this last explanation). There is the other end of this – the traditional Pollyanna vendors ”I’m having a fantastic show,” “Never been busier,” “Everything is just terrific.” Super! I am willing to bet it’s the same answer no matter what is going on with those people, at least right up until the mental breakdown finishing off with jumping into the Hudson (conveniently right outside the door of our Pier).
As for my own neurosis, I will spend the entire show staring at the booth, moving one vase from one location to another because the form it has leads nicely into the piece behind it, or the colors lend themselves to the box below, or one piece casts just the right shadow onto the other. I’ll move a spot light from one group of things to another to see if sales on that one item will pick up. I’ll take pieces that are sitting on the ground and put them up, I’ll move things that I have sold through to the back of the booth, and I’ll do it over and over again until I have achieved in my own mind – usually by the end of the show – the perfect Bjorling & Grant booth. It’s my own self-invented and self-induced level of Dante’s Inferno: a milder inferno level like one or two. The good new is I find it quite entertaining, seeing how people react to certain things a different way simply because its now next to the orange vase, or its now a foot higher so you see the tribal necklace at a different, more appealing angle. All based on what and how the eye picks things out . . . you’re still in that coma.
Another little aside, there are a surprising number of people in the world that chew gum with their mouth open. Maybe it keeps them mentally busy, thinking about how they need to keep chewing . . . and walking . . . and breathing. .. . so much to think about.
One of the nice things about these shows is there is a sort of comradery among your fellow exhibitors – those that you have shown next to for years, even those that you have only spent a few shows next to. The sense that you are all in this thing together. They offer a sense of familiarity in what is other wise a chaotic time. There’s also a nice bit of solidarity with some of your regular clients. I can honestly say it’s really nice to see a number of my clients, even if, God forbid, they don’t buy anything. I like seeing them, to catch up, see how they are doing, their family, where they have been traveling, what they have been buying.
Now of course there are those clients that, if I were standing in the middle of my booth and saw them coming, I would dive behind anything to hide, even the little ridge from the hallway carpet to the bamboo flooring in my booth would look like refuge to dive behind.
Now it’s the end of day two at the show and I have had a really good first two days. People in general have been in good buying moods, quite a few of my regular clients have been around which, as I mentioned earlier, is quite comforting and very nice to see a friendly face. Quite a few new clients who are very excited about what we are doing, again a very nice thing, and most people are placing orders. Apparently that’s a good thing in the business world, keeps bread on the table and formula for the bottomless pit that is our 5-month-old child.
But its what happens tomorrow that really counts in my mind. My first show at the New York show, last August, was great the first two days, and then it shut off to a virtual trickle. Small consolation that it a- was my fist show, b- everyone else was experiencing the same thing and c- I met my show goal in those first two days (although I set a pathetically low goal for my first show which makes reaching it quite easy, sort of like reaching for the top of your head and being happy that you could do it). As of the end of today, I have already passed where I finished the show last time, so if I post a good day tomorrow (the third day), I will feel like I clambered over that thre day hurdle.
Only a couple of hours into the day so far and things are on the right track. A couple good orders. One from an existing client and one from a new client. That to me is the perfect ratio: half new clients half existing clients. In theory that should mean your client base should be growing steadily.
So I am around halfway down the long part of the pier. It is a jetty directly over the Hudson River a warehouse built directly onto the jetty. We are inside the warehouse obviously. At the end of the Pier (warehouse), are a couple food stands. One of them is a nut vendor with various kinds of roasted almonds and peanuts, the other is a creperie that sells the usual fare of savory and sweet crepes. The only place for the smells to go is down the warehouse towards the front at the street. That means we are constantly wafted by this crepe and roasted peanut smell. It sort of encompasses you at all times, infusing into your very pores. I have no idea what the caloric intake from crepe to skin osmosis is, but I am sure it is a registeralbe quantity. The smells keep all of us (or maybe its just me) in a constant state of hunger. I have not yet succumbed to the crepe. . . well technically I did, but they were closed this morning when I went down to get one. Its not for down on today’s agenda, unless I can make it to lunchtime when the ladies across the aisle from me order in lunch for us all. Today I think is Thai (the first day some Zen vegetarian place that was surprisingly good), then Greek yesterday, and probably Mexican tomorrow. Anyway, if I can hold out until then, I will remain crepe free for a few more hours.
One of my clients who was ordering this morning handed my their nicely produced foldout piece from their store. In essence a piece in high gloss paper that you open up and it shows some of the products they sell. Very nicely done image piece – they are a “lifestyle” store in LA. The interesting part is after you have been doing these shows and meeting fellow vendors, you get to know people that are in your general genre and price point. Every single piece that the shop offered in this fold out - I knew the vendors that sold them by first name. Our business, like any other industry, is a very small world. What before was just good looking product to me has now become more personal because of my relationships with the very people that design and make them. “Hey you have Russ at Shine’s lamps, there’s Distat’s vases and wood pieces, Kathrine and Ed’s upholstery (Patagonia) is great stuff, Linda (co-owner at Shawna Stoney), is the only person that does high end accessories that look like that.”
Just for your own peace of mind, I am not going to keep droning on like this throughout the whole show. After today I will shorten things up and get us to the end of this edition of the blog, unless there are any noteworthy events, most potentially with the end of show breakdown. . . not a mass mental breakdown, just when we break down the booths and pack everything up in a frenetically paced get out of Dodge end to the show.
Ok, we are nearly there. It’s the end of the third day, and its another really good one. The show, even at this stage with a day and a half left, has been a success, so I can walk around Manhattan until I head off to La Guardia on Friday with a vacuous grin on my face. I just want to leave you with this. None of what I have written is really meant to make any sense or have any real direction, a goal I feel like I have truly achieved in this edition of the blog . . and if I see you chewing gum with your mouth open, you know what I'm thinking. ‘Till next time.
So I have three pallets worth of stuff shipped to the show. One from our shop in Minneapolis, and two from my location at the show in High Point, North Carolina. I had them tracked, and they made it to New York and are somewhere in a warehouse staging area. One might think that's a good sign, but it’s only the beginning. Now it’s up to the gods of the show to decide when everything gets to its proper booth and in what condition it will arrive.
I arrived Friday afternoon in the city after a well-delayed flight. Delayed because of high winds coming into La Guardia, because of being put on the plane in Minneapolis on one side of the airport, and then everyone taken off and sent to the other side of the airport to get on a plane that actually functions, because of arriving at LA Guardia, pulling up to the jet way and the jet way not working, getting eventually backed out and, waiting for a new jet way, pulling back up and getting off and into the airport. So I am off and running, actually taxicabing my way to the Pier on the west side of midtown Manhattan. I arrive at my booth – which is a moderate size for the show – 20ft long by 10ft deep. There is one of my pallets there, the one that we sent from Minneapolis. There is also apparently everyone else’s garbage and empty boxes in the rest of my booth. Space in set up for the show is a premium, so your neighbors usually cannibalize any open and seemingly unoccupied booth as a location for their empty boxes and containers to give them room to set up. So I promptly go about figuring out to whom all these things belong. That’s a delicate issue, because you can’t be too concretive for a couple of reasons. Everyone steals everyone else’s unoccupied space, and on top of that, even if you are the most angelic (which of course I am), you are about to spend the next week with the people who have taken over your booth with their garbage. So rather than saying “would you get your crap the hell out of my booth” it’s more of “ do you know whose stuff this is” or “can I help you move this stuff back into the aisle?” Those lines change as people start to recognize who the major offenders are in your area. Eventually the line reverts back to the first more aggressive one “would you get your crap the hell out of my booth,” or shorter yet “get your crap the hell out of my booth,” but its directed only towards the main offender and usually comes out of the person’s mouth with the lowest breaking point. There was most definitely one person that had that sentiment directed towards him by all of us in his surrounding dispersal area.
So it’s late Friday, I have one of three pallets, but I have all day Saturday to set up and make things all pretty for the opening of the show on Sunday. I unpack the one skid and make my way out to look through the arriving shipments at the front of the pier. There I find one of my pallets and figure the other one must be on its way (skillful use of foreshadowing).
Fast forward to the next morning. I arrive back at my booth hoping to find my two remaining pallets. Now keep in mind, each one of these is around 8 feet tall by 4 by 4 feet, each filled with all of our product – ceramics, lamps etc, and all of our display stands with glass tops to them. I find in my booth the usual amount of other people’s junk – especially the one guy (refer to the appropriate response above), and a pile of what looks remotely like my stuff. A pile. What was once a nicely wrapped pallet is now literally a pile of stuff. Some of it is mine, some of it is just garbage. It’s a pile that is around two feet high and around 5 feet in circumference. It’s all of my stands and the glass tops for them. Around 35 pieces of 3/8 thick pieces of glass. And all of my lampshades. Also all of my lights for lighting the booth. The lampshades are all crushed. Did I mention its all in a pile, intermingled with random pieces of particle board and sheets of discarded cardboard, packing paper. What was once a nice, cleanly wrapped pallet, seven feet tall is now an amorphous blob of junk on the floor. I go to the show management who to their credit were quite quick to at least start trying to figure things out. Next to Roadway (the trucking company that shipped it) to find out what the next step is. I don’t think I had even gotten the first sentence out of my mouth to the Roadway guy and he was saying, “of course who knows who did this, could be us, or it could have been the show people," which, when looking around at the chaos of hundreds of shipments being thrown around the show area, I can certainly understand why he was saying that. In truth, I was probably inclined to agree with him. If I were a betting man, I would put my pallet's demise in the hands of the chaos around me rather than Roadway. I’m not one to get too excited about these things for a couple of reasons. Chances are I won’t have much of a claim because the two “interested” parties involved in my pallet arriving in this condition are going to pass blame. Add to that, no matter what the result is of talking to people about who did what and who pays for what, its not going to change the condition of my stands. Speaking of, amazingly, after having the show management people photograph the crime scene that was my pallet, I “opened” the pile up and the only damaged things were all of my lampshades and one piece of broken glass. Still, I am going to get a copy of the photo just for nostalgic reasons (to jump ahead a couple of days, the Roadway guy, to his credit, came by to check on things and told me that it looked like it did happen on his end, not that it mattered at this point). So I get set up over the course of the day and end up having a booth that looks pretty good, though I say so myself. I am even able to resurrect enough lampshades - by bending the wire rims into place and putting the creases towards the back – to cover all of my lamps.
Just a little side note, somehow I got “I’m a little tea pot” stuck in my head not far into the first day of set up, and it stayed with me until the end. I could explain how that came into my head, but it might put you into a coma type sleep . . . who am I kidding, you should be there already, so here is how it got into my head.
A few days ago, Mike (the guy at the shop who manages the warehouse end of things – packing, inventory etc) and I were loading a big cabinet into a truck. We were having the truck pull up to the front of the shop, as close as possible without hitting the sign on the outside of the building. I dutifully stand in full view of the driver’s side mirror, and as he gets within 5 feet of the sign, I do the traditional hold both arms up in a sort of Y and bring my hands together – mimicking the distance the truck is to the sign, eventually bringing both hands together over my head signaling the driver to stop. Mike, for whatever reason it entered his mind I know not, thought I was performing a spontaneous rendition of “I’m a little tea pot”. In any case, it was replaced near the end of that first set up day by someone's Sex in the City phone ring that went off while they were walking by. Anyhow, that's how it all happened, enjoy the restful coma.
So today the show begins (Sunday). There is always the usual speculation about sales and traffic among vendors. “Is it going to be busy,” “There are too many other shows going on right now,” “there are new days that the show begins and I think it will confuse the buyers (presumably because they think buyers can’t tell the difference between a Saturday and a Sunday?),” “No one likes to come to New York during the winter,” “our aisle is slow,” “my product sucks,” (not too many people go with this last explanation). There is the other end of this – the traditional Pollyanna vendors ”I’m having a fantastic show,” “Never been busier,” “Everything is just terrific.” Super! I am willing to bet it’s the same answer no matter what is going on with those people, at least right up until the mental breakdown finishing off with jumping into the Hudson (conveniently right outside the door of our Pier).
As for my own neurosis, I will spend the entire show staring at the booth, moving one vase from one location to another because the form it has leads nicely into the piece behind it, or the colors lend themselves to the box below, or one piece casts just the right shadow onto the other. I’ll move a spot light from one group of things to another to see if sales on that one item will pick up. I’ll take pieces that are sitting on the ground and put them up, I’ll move things that I have sold through to the back of the booth, and I’ll do it over and over again until I have achieved in my own mind – usually by the end of the show – the perfect Bjorling & Grant booth. It’s my own self-invented and self-induced level of Dante’s Inferno: a milder inferno level like one or two. The good new is I find it quite entertaining, seeing how people react to certain things a different way simply because its now next to the orange vase, or its now a foot higher so you see the tribal necklace at a different, more appealing angle. All based on what and how the eye picks things out . . . you’re still in that coma.
Another little aside, there are a surprising number of people in the world that chew gum with their mouth open. Maybe it keeps them mentally busy, thinking about how they need to keep chewing . . . and walking . . . and breathing. .. . so much to think about.
One of the nice things about these shows is there is a sort of comradery among your fellow exhibitors – those that you have shown next to for years, even those that you have only spent a few shows next to. The sense that you are all in this thing together. They offer a sense of familiarity in what is other wise a chaotic time. There’s also a nice bit of solidarity with some of your regular clients. I can honestly say it’s really nice to see a number of my clients, even if, God forbid, they don’t buy anything. I like seeing them, to catch up, see how they are doing, their family, where they have been traveling, what they have been buying.
Now of course there are those clients that, if I were standing in the middle of my booth and saw them coming, I would dive behind anything to hide, even the little ridge from the hallway carpet to the bamboo flooring in my booth would look like refuge to dive behind.
Now it’s the end of day two at the show and I have had a really good first two days. People in general have been in good buying moods, quite a few of my regular clients have been around which, as I mentioned earlier, is quite comforting and very nice to see a friendly face. Quite a few new clients who are very excited about what we are doing, again a very nice thing, and most people are placing orders. Apparently that’s a good thing in the business world, keeps bread on the table and formula for the bottomless pit that is our 5-month-old child.
But its what happens tomorrow that really counts in my mind. My first show at the New York show, last August, was great the first two days, and then it shut off to a virtual trickle. Small consolation that it a- was my fist show, b- everyone else was experiencing the same thing and c- I met my show goal in those first two days (although I set a pathetically low goal for my first show which makes reaching it quite easy, sort of like reaching for the top of your head and being happy that you could do it). As of the end of today, I have already passed where I finished the show last time, so if I post a good day tomorrow (the third day), I will feel like I clambered over that thre day hurdle.
Only a couple of hours into the day so far and things are on the right track. A couple good orders. One from an existing client and one from a new client. That to me is the perfect ratio: half new clients half existing clients. In theory that should mean your client base should be growing steadily.
So I am around halfway down the long part of the pier. It is a jetty directly over the Hudson River a warehouse built directly onto the jetty. We are inside the warehouse obviously. At the end of the Pier (warehouse), are a couple food stands. One of them is a nut vendor with various kinds of roasted almonds and peanuts, the other is a creperie that sells the usual fare of savory and sweet crepes. The only place for the smells to go is down the warehouse towards the front at the street. That means we are constantly wafted by this crepe and roasted peanut smell. It sort of encompasses you at all times, infusing into your very pores. I have no idea what the caloric intake from crepe to skin osmosis is, but I am sure it is a registeralbe quantity. The smells keep all of us (or maybe its just me) in a constant state of hunger. I have not yet succumbed to the crepe. . . well technically I did, but they were closed this morning when I went down to get one. Its not for down on today’s agenda, unless I can make it to lunchtime when the ladies across the aisle from me order in lunch for us all. Today I think is Thai (the first day some Zen vegetarian place that was surprisingly good), then Greek yesterday, and probably Mexican tomorrow. Anyway, if I can hold out until then, I will remain crepe free for a few more hours.
One of my clients who was ordering this morning handed my their nicely produced foldout piece from their store. In essence a piece in high gloss paper that you open up and it shows some of the products they sell. Very nicely done image piece – they are a “lifestyle” store in LA. The interesting part is after you have been doing these shows and meeting fellow vendors, you get to know people that are in your general genre and price point. Every single piece that the shop offered in this fold out - I knew the vendors that sold them by first name. Our business, like any other industry, is a very small world. What before was just good looking product to me has now become more personal because of my relationships with the very people that design and make them. “Hey you have Russ at Shine’s lamps, there’s Distat’s vases and wood pieces, Kathrine and Ed’s upholstery (Patagonia) is great stuff, Linda (co-owner at Shawna Stoney), is the only person that does high end accessories that look like that.”
Just for your own peace of mind, I am not going to keep droning on like this throughout the whole show. After today I will shorten things up and get us to the end of this edition of the blog, unless there are any noteworthy events, most potentially with the end of show breakdown. . . not a mass mental breakdown, just when we break down the booths and pack everything up in a frenetically paced get out of Dodge end to the show.
Ok, we are nearly there. It’s the end of the third day, and its another really good one. The show, even at this stage with a day and a half left, has been a success, so I can walk around Manhattan until I head off to La Guardia on Friday with a vacuous grin on my face. I just want to leave you with this. None of what I have written is really meant to make any sense or have any real direction, a goal I feel like I have truly achieved in this edition of the blog . . and if I see you chewing gum with your mouth open, you know what I'm thinking. ‘Till next time.