We just got back from our third National Stationery Show. This year I wasn't alone (I brought along my assistant, Emma), which made a HUGE difference. We had a few bumps along the way (our booth walls were pretty rough shape after eight months in storage), but we hid the damage as well as we could, and the show itself went smoothly and we did pretty well. We decided to ditch our walls after the show, which actually made for a nice easy drive home but means that next year we will have to start from scratch on those (yikes). It could be a blessing in disguise, though, since this time I will probably have a better idea of what works and what doesn't, so out new walls will probably be even better.

This was the first year that NSS and NYNOW were co-located and so the traffic patterns were really different that past years, not to mention that buyers are not yet acclimated to buying stationery in February instead of May. That said, we brought in a ton of new accounts and I would say the show was a success! 

Plus, it's pretty nice to have our biggest/craziest trade show out of the way and freeing up the rest of the year for other endeavors, like a possible studio move???

We are going to do another trade show this spring called Noted, and might try to do another smaller one later this year.