One Down: Indiana-on-the Fly

One show down and 5 to go.
But don't hold me to that.
Certainly not after this weekend. Friday morning I left the house at about 8am and had icy road conditions for the first 2-3 hours of the trip to Indianapolis. Unspeakably cold unloading the truck. It took me the usual Forever to set up my booth at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and we only had until 5pm to do so. The whole time I kept looking to see if my friends Ron Barch and Carl Hueter of Wanigas Rod Company had arrived yet. This was going to be the debut show for the venture and I knew it meant a lot to Carl to have his booth up and looking as great as he had described it to me. But at 5 o'clock they still had not shown. I was more than a little worried, seeing as there'd been such bad driving around Michigan the day before and coming down that morning. I even thought of calling his house, or Ron's house, but I didn't want to scare their wives.

Or sound like a ninny, which is what I would have ended up doing if I had called. Seems they just got a late start and arrived just too late to bother setting up, so they went straight to the hotel.

I learned all this later on at the cocktail party/reception being put on by Patti Beasley, organizer of the show, at a nearby pub called "Smee's Place." When I walked in, there at the first table were Carl, Ron, and their wives, Vicky and Carol. Just a small dance of joy did I do at seeing that they were all okay. I got myself a drink and some hors d'ouvres and then we all settled in for some good gossip.

Next day I got up at the crack of ungodly and got to the Fairgrounds by around 7am to finish setting up the products in my booth. That's when I started having to count all the things I'd forgotten, chief among them business cards and brochures, arguably the most important items to have at such a time - maybe even more important than the products themselves (more on this later).

Carl and Ron and Vicky and Carol were over by the Wanigas Rod Company booth setting up, helping, or just being nearby offering vibes of help. I went over to say hello and see this magnificent booth that was only barely up but was, ka-pow, every bit as gorgeous as Carl had led me to believe. A hotly sought-after architect in Southeast Michigan, Carl designed and had the booth custom made in every way -- from the graphics to the display mechanisms to the very carpet pad. Something to envy -- and I say this not as a beat-up artist with a slap-dash, half-assed, oft-forgotten selling booth. No, I say this as a person with a highly developed (though sore, the way muscles get sore when developed quickly and with no training) sense of style. The Wanigas Rod Company booth is really, well, classy. Inviting, informative, smart, clean, and very very upscale. I can't wait for more people to see it.

Which, alas, brings me back to the topic of products. Or I should say to the topic of Sales. In only its third year, Indiana-on-the-Fly is a young show, a customer (retail) Flyfishing and Wing-shooting show, they say, though this year the wingshooting vendors seemed pretty scarce.

I had missed the first year because of flu, but last year it was good for me, with sales in the "Yeah-I'd-do-this-show-again" category. This year there were even more vendors and tyers, and while the space was the same, it was laid out better. Lots of really good fly-tyers were there, and vendors from good quality establishments as far as rod companies, guide services, lodges, and outfitters. Oh, and artists, like the inimitable Dave Ruimveld, his booth pictured below and at the top of this blog entry. It was not overly saturated with non-profits, the way some regional or local sporting shows can get. Everything looked promising as I walked around the space early that day. There were plenty of volunteers and really no lack of ameneties, though most of us were cold for most of the day. That, and a sort of unappealing high-school rock-n-roll cover band that was way too loud were the only negatives regarding the mechanics of the show itself.

But you can't do anything about the weather, and that, in the end, is what most of the locals were saying was to blame for a poor turn-out. It was snowing lightly all morning, evidently. "They're wimps here in Indianapolis," said one volunteer who shall go unnamed. "The slightest thing and they stay put." Seemed so. And what people were there, few were buying. I think most of the public had come to browse destinations, guide services, and the fly tyers. Not too many rods seemed to have been sold, at least from where I sat watching people walk past carrying rod-tubes (or not). Having said that, though, I was told by the guys over at Mystic Rods said they had sold "quite a few."

I spent a good part of the day creating makeshift business cards using my perverse cartooning bone (that's where most people's funny bone is located), and some paper and a sharpie. Well, that's not true. I only made about 8 of them before getting too bored even for that. As the day dragged on, I kept returning to the thought that a disappointing one-day show does not offer much in the way of consolation -- unless you count the fact that it's a one-day show.

Eventually, 5 o'clock neared and Vicky and Carol appeared in my booth like a couple of angels and immediately commenced to help me put product away and haul it out to my truck. Engines of industry and graciousness, those two. Midwestly fastidious to the core, they put stuff away better than I could have ever even wanted to, much less managed to, in all my years doing shows. I can not thank them enough, for next to emptying the dishwasher, tearing down after a lousy show has got to be one of the loneliest feelings on earth.

We all met up at Smee's Place again for drinks and dinner, and shared in congratulating Wanigas Rods on its Coming Out To Society event. Carl was hopeful about the responses he received throughout the day, and Ron echoed that big things were in store, which I fully believe. I'll do a separate blog on Wanigas as soon as I'm able. In the meantime, I'll be busy making scarves to take to Somerset.