GLAM 2013 in review

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GLAM was awesome this year. I know, I say that every year. But I just love the energy and enthusiasm from both the vendors and the guests. The photo album above pretty much tells the whole story, but here are some thoughts, in no particular order.

1. I wish I’d been able to spend more quality time with the friends who came in from out of town, but I love that they let me recommend my favorite place to eat (Chopstix) and they went and had lunch together.
2. I love that a lot of people would pick something up, and then turn to me and say how excited they were to see it in person, because they’d loved it when I’d posted an in-progress photo on Facebook.
3. I was also surprised, since I’m pretty new to using Instagram, that a number of people commented that they’d seen my work on Instagram and were glad that I had been posting about both my work and GLAM.
4. I’m really glad I went with a booth instead of a table; so much so that I’ll probably never go back to doing just a table unless it’s all a show offers.
5. I feel that the booth gave a much wider, accurate representation of what I do. I had twice as much yarn, half again as much soap as I usually have, and probably three times the ceramics.
6. I know that I worried I wasn’t making enough, then the day before GLAM I thought I probably had enough, but when we were unpacking I thought again that I didn’t make enough. I spent what time I could rearranging when things would sell, so there weren’t any gaping holes, and Jenn did the same… so we didn’t look full-on-empty but I admit that I did have fleeting thoughts during the day like “oh, if I’d only brought more X” or “man, I should have brought Y”.
7. As much as I was frustrated with keeping up stock for the Monthly Craft Market, to the point where for a year or more I didn’t make any stock to keep on hand only for shows (not listing that online)… I think I really need to do that a bit. Make some backstock that I have just for shows, so I don’t have to have such a frenzy leading up to a show. Not a lot, not an entire booths worth of things, but maybe a handful of my most popular ceramics, just to have.
8. Getting a good night’s sleep the night before the show is crucial. I went to bed pretty early the night before, and slept about nine hours. I say this is good not just because I love sleep, but I saw a couple vendors who clearly had stayed up all night the night before and the poor dears were really strung-out by the end of the show. I was exhausted and my feet hurt, but I didn’t have those mental shakes you get from using too much energy on not enough sleep. I also brought healthy snacks, even though I only had time to eat half a granola bar. Note to self: Don’t leave the other half in your back pocket next year.

That’s about all that’s on my mind…. I’ve spent two days now checking stuff back in, and have at least one more day of work. It took me at least four, probably five days to pack everything, and while I sold a lot, I’m trying to clean up around here as I repack things, so it’s slow going.

And next week starts my vacation! Or stay-at-home vacation, I should say. Although I hate the term “staycation” almost as much as I dislike the term “upcycle.”