I count on Chautauqua. I make triple what I usually do and it brings me finally into the black for the season. Usually. This year we exhibitors were checking with each other all weekend. "How are you doing?" "Mediocre, you?" "yeah".
Well, we figured it out, sorta. Many people vacation at Chautauqua on a weekly basis. They pick a week (Saturday to Friday) almost a year in advance. Apparently, when the schedule came out, a huge majority of Summer residents chose Week 7 and few chose this past weekend. I guess "East West migration" or whatever it was didn't get them all jazzed up to spend thousands of dollars on a room with a shared bathroom. But "A week with Ken Burns" got them going and the Institution was totally booked for that week. Fortunately, those of us juried in for the August show will get a day's benefit from that boon.
Other than that, there were the usual benefits of being in a show in a place like this. People who "get it", lots of money around (I can't decide, I'll take all 3), you know. And probably the best staff and volunteers in the business.
Oh, and we had "weather". Typical Southern-Tier-NY-on-a-lake-weather. Friday and Saturday were picture perfect, but the forecast for Sunday was dire. Rain, thunder storms, wind. We woke up at 7 to pounding rain, shrugged our shoulders and hit the snooze button. By 9 it had cleared , but radar showed little pockets of storms heading our way. That ended by noon or so and we had perfect again. Well, except for that little micro burst of wind that toppled an EZ up and had some Trimline types rattling. It lasted about 10 seconds. The EZUp landed on it's head, legs in the air like a toppled turtle on a highway. Apparently, that baby was not weighted. If it was, not sure how because those heaven-pointing legs had nothing attached to them that I could see.
My disappointing sales were made easier by my neighbors on all sides and across the road. They had me laughing and chatting and commiserating all weekend because, well, we had time for that and they were fun. You take what you can get.
Ken Burns, you better make this better in August!
Comments
The theme was "The Ethics of Privacy" . I almost fell asleep typing that.
I love Chautauqua and we did it for several years with very nice results. Your analysis seems spot on, Pat. There are so many variables that affect the shows. Last year at Ann Arbor, the first day of the show, Detroit declared bankruptcy. Think that didn't have some effect? Not as directly as folks waiting for Ken Burns to show up, yet ...
If you look at the videos I've posted on this site (click on the video tab above) and at YouTube, they are processed through iMovie on my Mac and I always turn on the "Ken Burns effect" as one of the tools. Not sure even what it does, but sounded good to me.
So, what was the theme of last week's Chautauqua?
I'm a big fan of Ken Burns and your review was very entertaining, despite disappointing sales...thanks for sharing it with us.
He is there all week for a film maker series.
Thank you!! Now I am in the know.
ok I will ask…… who is Ken Burns??