Congratulations to Mary Johnston whose candid expose, "Ouch -- The Zero Show" and Valerie Tyler whose empathetic post "Being Respectful of All Buyers" really struck a chord with our members this month. Who knew they were also Olympic quality skaters?
And also congratulations to Kay Cummins who wins a beautiful Red Dot for her profile photo. Kay is a very frequent contributor to the Southwest group and dutiful contributor of art show reviews at ArtShowReviews.com. Thank you, Kay.
This is another Amdur show and while it used to be the 2nd best, after Port Clinton, it didn't seem nearly as good as in previous years.
When you have been to one Amdur show, you have pretty much been to all Amdur shows so I won't spend a lot of time on the show. It did have fairly solid artists, was laid out in a manner that made it easy to get around and see all the booths. There is plenty of close by parking and in addition to the usual food booths, the area itself has many restaurants at a lot of price points. The streets are wide and there is no cramped feeling as you walk around.
Sadly, the watch guys were there. They have the crummiest booth possible. they have a gorgeous commercial booth that they probably use at the big commercial shows but they barely have more than a card table and a couple of displays. the most impressive thing at their booth is the box the watch comes in. It has an international guarantee card, another card that I can't remember what it is for.
The best thing about the show was where the stone birds and the candle people were located. They were sandwiched in between two commercial vendors. I loved the irony of it although I was possibly the only one enjoying it. Why they are in a show for artists that make individual pieces when they are both more of a production shop than anything else, I don't understand and guess it is one of those things I am not meant to.
It is always a pleasure to attend this wonderful show. There is convenient parking, indoor, a/c bathrooms, reasonably priced food and of course-- really good art.
When you live in Amdurland, the odds are that you have seen 90% of the artists at one show or another so any time you get to go to a show that will have "new" artists, it makes for a fun day. This show did not disappoint. The quality of the show is above average at almost every booth. It is one of the shows that you understand why the artist got into the show even if you aren't interested in that particular medium.
My only complaint about the show was what happened to the jewelers. Everyone is always talking about how there are so many jewelers in a show. I don't know the exact per centage but in the first row we went down, it was a minimum of every other booth. One jeweler told me that the show takes a per centage of the number of artists applying in a particular medium, not a per centage of the total booths. More jewelers applying meant more jewelers in the show. I was in line to buy a fun necklace and there was a judge in front of me. I asked her if I could talk to her about something that I thought was a problem with the show and she said she was a judge for those at the show. I said I realized that but that she had access to The Powers That Be. I told her about the per centage problem. Then I told her I liked her necklace. She said she was a jeweler. I asked her if she would be happy at the show if the pie was cut up into so many pieces and she agreed with me. Then she said she would talk to those in charge.
This show seemed to have a lot of buying energy. Most booths were crowded with people and despite all the jewelry, those booths seemed to have a lot of activity. I never really understood the whole buying energy thing but it seemed to be happening here. I hope the energy that I felt translated into sales.
After we left that show we went to Art in the Park in Lake Geneva. I have nothing to say about that show except don't bother, especially if you are a serious artist. There were a couple of quality artists but for the most part, it wasn't worth looking at. And, don't even ask what a resort town is like on a wonderful day in August.
At Redwood Media Group's upscale, high-profile juried exhibitions, your work gets seen by Gallery Owners, Art Consultants, Decorators, Designers, Architects, and other trade buyers, as well as high-net-worth collectors-many of whom are interested in buying in quantity and pursuing contracts. Moreover, our team guides you through the process and helps you every step of the way.
This was my first year showing at this show. As I drove through the Columbia River Gorge in 105 deg heat, I had high hopes of selling my most expensive pieces. Alas, that was not the case. Again, all of my sales were small. This is not a high traffic show so it’s hard to make it work on small sales. I had a lot of interest in my work and a lot of be-backs that didn’t come back or came back but didn’t buy. Many of the artists I talked to were either disappointed with sales or said it was just OK and down from last year. This is not to say that artists weren’t selling. Some were and some sold BIG. The art at this show was amazing and I felt truly honored to be among them. Some large and expensive work sold here. Wearables seemed to be selling well or at least had a lot of traffic in their booths. I saw a lot of hat boxes walking around. If I were to do this show again, I would bring large paintings.
Logistics
This show, in its 45th year, ran from Aug 9-11. Fri and sat 10am to 6pm and Sun until 5pm. It is located in the resort town of Ketchum, ID. The Sun Valley resort is a couple of miles away. The town is at about 6000 ft evevation.
Setup
We got a message from the director a few days before the festival informing us that they had to switch set-up times for the early and late set-ups. I was originally scheduled to set up at 8am on Thursday but was switched to 2pm. I had hoped to be setting up in the cool of the morning and have the leisure to take my time and completely set up rather than finishing up on the morning of the first day. But oh well, sometimes you have to go with the flow. It was hot, but I got through it. They set up in sections in 3 hour shifts. Everyone in the section enters and sets up. Most artists set up from their vehicles. You really didn’t have much of a choice since other artists’ vehicles were blocking your exit. So I took my time. Load out was much the same, except you needed to pay the city of Ketchum sales tax to get your load out slip. Most artists at least mostly tore down before bringing their vehicles onto the field. It was all kind of a free for all, but it somehow worked. The nice thing about having the late load in was that I had the early load out.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire
Thursday night thunder storms ignited several fires south of Ketchum. Early Friday afternoon we noticed smoke over the mountains. We watched it grow. The fiber artists were worried about their wares. None of us knew how close it was. I started thinking... if we’re told we have 2 hours to evacuate, what would I take? Every day in the afternoon, the wind would pick up and the smoke cloud would appear. These fires might have dampened the crowd. When I arrived in Ketchum on Wed. and on Thurs. the town was packed with people. It was hard to find parking in town. But from Friday on it seemed less busy. The picture below was taken Friday at closing.
Other stuff
Lodging--It can be expensive here so you need to be creative.
Weather-- hot-ish Friday and Saturday and breezy in the afternoon, cooler on Sunday, smoky all days.
Celebs-- that I know of, Jamie Lee Curtis and Hilary Swank.
Booth fee-- $450 for a single ($900 double), corners are first come and are not extra.
Parties-- Thurs. evening artist party with food and wine, Sat morning awards breakfast.
Food--not a lot of selection but good. Try the huckleberry ice cream!
Other--shoes optional :)
Hi- Any recommendations for pre-Christmas shows that I could still apply to? It seems most are "craft" shows located in high schools. Thanks for any ideas!
Stuck? Uninspired? Afraid? What the heck ... move on and take a chance. This is something I wrestle with daily. How about you?
It's time to replace my EZ Up top - Does anyone have any information where I can purchase a Clear Vinyl Top?
Clear Vinyl makes so much sense - there has to be one out there.
Thanks & keep smiling.
Genmarie
The last three years, I've spent several months and thousands of dollars chasing migrating birds and art festivals across the Northeast shore venues in hope of finding subjects and buyers, respectively, for my avian photography (also called "bird photography", but you can't charge as much if you call it that. ;-)
This year, thanks to a generous offer from the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor NJ (a prime spring migration spot), I was able to stay on-site for three weeks and let the migrating birds come to me. Then I drove back to Florida for a month to work up the best images before heading north for shows August through September. Rebranded as "Geoff Coe's Wild Images" instead of "Wild Images Florida", I'm now armed with a strong set of pix to sell to a wider range of Northeast buyers, rather than relying primarily on selling to Florida snowbirds in their summer homes.
At least, that's the plan. Two weeks in to the experiment, how's it going?
Petri Dish #1 was the Ocean City Boardwalk show on August 2-3-4. Run by the Ocean City Art Association, this show has been a summer staple for 51 years. And the consensus among the artists and customers I spoke with about the show's history, it's seen better days. Buy/sell, booths chock-full of manufactured beach trinkets and cheap jewelry compete with a few painters and an unbelievable number of photographers for the attention of passers-by who may--or may not--have had any awareness of the show before they began flip-flopping their way down the boardwalk.
Make no mistake, this show is a marathon: 7 AM Friday morning setup, followed by show hours of 10-8 Fri. and Sat. Sunday kicks off at 10 as well, but you could begin breaking down at 4 PM if you wished. ( I pounced on that deal.)
It's an inexpensive show to do (under $200), which helps to counterbalance the high hotel costs (I stayed in Vineland, NJ, an easy 45-minute drive away). The early-Friday-morning setup is difficult--pull up to the base of the boardwalk, dump your trailer contents on the curb, park ($15/day in one of the outdoor lots), then dolly 'til you drop, dodging throngs of bikers, joggers, and early-bird boardwalk strollers as you go. The show folks advise that you can start the process at 7 AM, but some folks were halfway set up by the time I arrived at 7:10.
In keeping with the mid-'90s appearance of the show's website, there's no email communication at all--everything is snail mailed, even though the application asks for your email address, and even though I specifically advised on the application that I'd be on the road, so email, please. As a result, I had no idea where my booth was when I got there. Unfortunately, I had no idea where any show organizers were, either. So I walked a block along the boardwalk until I got to the foot of the show and called loudly for an organizer. Some confusion ensued, since--as is usual--there is a craft show run by another group under the nearby portico. One of their organizers responded, bless her heart, but couldn't help me.
A couple of minutes later, an apologetic assistant organizer from MY show gave me my booth number--I was a long block away--and eventually I got set up in my space. It was a half-hour after the official 10 am opening time, but it didn't matter. No heat for my tardiness came from the show organizers. In fact, I didn't see a show official or volunteer all weekend.
There were three judges, and I'll give them credit: they worked hard, communicated with each other to discuss the merits of what they saw, and made a point to greet the artists and ask questions. The prize money wasn't big-time (in the two- and low three-digit range) but the check amounts were in keeping with the low booth fee.
There was also an artist dinner on Friday night in the boardwalk municipal building, immediately following the 8 PM zip-up. Most artists had finished eating by 8:25, but inexplicably, the awards ceremony hadn't started at 8:45. Having arisen at 5 AM, I gave up and left for my drive back to the hotel.
Was this show worth the aggravation? Well, maybe. I had developed a bit of a client base from my participation two years ago (you can read about that show, and the famous parking fiasco, here). Most of them came by, and a few of them bought. And enough new visitors came by to eke out a reasonable profit--a few hundred more than I made in 2012. But it was barely enough for 3 days of work.
This is a "filler show" at best: not one I'd travel a significant distance to do, but at least it put some bucks in the bank after doing only three shows since the end of April.
Week two (8/10-11), by comparision, was an artist's paradise, at the exceedingly well-run Rehoboth Beach Art League show. Go od to great sales for most artists, and quality off the charts on weekend one of this two-weekend show. I'll chime in next week with a full report.
October 5
on Broadway in Historic Marysville, Kansas
10:00am - 5:00pm
Room for 100 exhibiters
Application Deadline: 9/6/2013
ArtoberFestKS is a new event, a celebration of the Arts and German heritage with activities for everyone including polka bands, arts & crafts show/sale, food & drink, kid's activities and lots more. The festival is held in historic downtown Marysville, KS, adjacent to the Koester House Museum and close to other local museums and attractions.
Marysville, KS, has a strong history of supporting the arts and artists. Guest artists are often invited to exhibit their work at the Lee Dam Center for Fine Art. The event will be advertised on many local media outlets and is an exciting new event for the area.
We have an early bird registration special for our first artists to apply.
For more information, please visit our website: www.artoberfestks.org 
To contact us: artoberfestks@gmail.com
We are happy to answer all your questions.
The whole community is turning out for this new event, sponsored by
*Marshall County Arts Cooperative
*Marysville Chamber Of Commerce
*Koester House Museum
*Marysville Main Street
*Marysville Public Library
I just wanted to let all the AFI members know that last Saturday, The Cotton South Fine Arts Festival became the first "A" list show in the country to hit 100% of those artists requesting Homestay accommodations through our Artist Homestay Program. This year we're accommodating 40 artists and their spouse/guests in private homes here in Madison as a way to help offset the cost burden of participation... and as a way to engage our community in an effort to develop friendships within the community with those who support the arts. We did it in our first year... and with 2 months still to go till the actual Festival date.
The Cotton South is innovating a number of Programs in the Festival industry... so stay tuned. T
Creative Energies with the Lightdome canopies in Ocala Fl sells these tops also. lightdomecanopies.com
Waxahachie's Holiday Showcase
Waxahachie, Texas
November 15 - 17
Apply now!
 Click here for more info: www.gga1.org/Waxahachie%20Holiday%20Showcase
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Any one know who might be making and selling waterproof vinyl canopy tops for pop up style frame now that John Mee canopy CO is out of business? All I can find are the 600D polyester replacement tops that fit.
This show has been going for more than 30 years. Up until the last few years it was in a parking lot in the middle of this resort town. One of the local galleries complained that the show was hurting sales so the city no longer leases the lot on the fourth of July weekend. Instead, the show is held in the open area of a mall and around a lake. The load-in and load out is not fun. You dolly to almost every location.
Here's the good news - It is a fabulous show - huge crowds and really good sales. While I'm sure that having collectors and working my email list helped, most artists had good sales. The location is beautiful. There is a high end hotel right next to the site. Many second home owners too.
I did one wholesale account but all the rest were retail. It was a $10k show. Hard to leave that kind of income, but I had promised myself that this was the last show. And some very nice orders not included in that number. The promoter is Mark Beling, show is mountainartfestivals.com. You have to go to his website to apply, no Zapp.
It seems a bit odd to post this since this show is the last outdoor show that i will do. I"ve done the circuit for 20 years and it is just not what i want to do any more. I'm one of the 'older' artists and when it is just too hard to drag the tent out of the SUV and the weights and the cases and bases and walls, it doesn't matter how much I make.
Show is worth doing.
If you're not aware of what the "orphan rights bill" is, it's a proposed law that if the copyright owner of a image isn't easily found, it's free to use. All creative groups are opposed to this law passing.
But here's the thing I'm taking issue with. What the detested orphan rights bill would make legal is already happening illegally. There are companies that are grabbing images from Google Images and using them for commercial use, thinking (or not thinking because they are incapable of rational thought) that what they're doing is just fine.
The prevailing attitude seems to be not getting caught means no foul.
Here's a picture of sneakers that were designed with one of my images.
Here's an article I wrote outing the company that provided the image.
http://bermangraphics.com/blog/the-orphan-rights-bill-our-greatest-fear/
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
WEDNESDAY - AUGUST 14 - 5 PM ET
What can an art fair do to bring serious buyers to attend their events to buy art?
Our guests today are from two of the top rated shows in the country. Tne La Quinta Arts Festival is a large festival held in an affluent area in California. Art on the Square is in Belleville, Illinois, a small town near St. Louis with nearly the opposite demographics, yet both shows excel at bringing collectors to their events and their sales figures are "above average."
How do they do it?
The guests are:
Anyone who has ever run an art fair, or thought they wanted to run an art fair, will learn a lot from these experienced guests. Do you want lots of applications to your show? The most important thing an event can do is bring in those committed buyers.
Learn more: blogtalkradio.com/artfairs/2013/08/14/how-to-bring-buyers-to-the-art-fairs
Call in to speak with the host: 805-243-1338
This should be a "must listen" podcast for any art show directors. If you have questions you would like me to ask the guests please post them in the comments below, or call in! The second half of the show we will take live calls.
Now that the dust has settled, and I'm back in the relative comfort of my home studio, I thought it would be a good time to share with you some of my thoughts on three of the biggest shows in the country. You all have heard of Des Moines, Cherry Creek (in Denver) and Ann Arbor. Many of you may have applied, and probably a few have done these shows in the past.
I was excited to be accepted into Cherry Creek. I'd applied every year since I began doing shows, and this year my work was top-notch. The new booth shot shows my work just exactly as it appears in shows where I exhibit with a single booth. My jury images are compelling, and represent my current body of work well. And I'd already had a good season lined up: Gasparilla, Vero Beach, Winter Park in Florida; Bayou City and the Woodlands in Texas; Brookside, in Kansas City (where it snowed and was 39 degrees)… so I was pumped for this best-in-class summer schedule.
I left a big hole in my schedule in June to prepare for these shows. Luckily I only made it to #13 on the wait list for Columbus, so I didn't have to make the trek to Ohio and wrestle with any Buckeyes for their hard-earned dollars. I made sure that I had enough inventory for four shows in a row, since I wouldn't be in studio but a couple of days from the time I left for Des Moines to the Tuesday setup for Ann Arbor.
So, on to the meat.
Des Moines Art Festival
A big show, the Des Moines Art Festival (DMAF) is spread out over several city blocks in downtown Des Moines. My location, at the very end of the show, was easy to access, and had plenty of room to park the trailer and pickup while unloading. Parking for artists is an easy two block walk away, with lots of space, guarded by a high cyclone fence. It was windy during setup, and for most of the show, but we had very little precip. Des Moines is noted for big storms, one of which took out several booths and a large tent a couple of years back. Crowds were good all three days, but Friday seemed slow.
We had a small tree behind our booth blow over with a loud crack, but luckily it didn't hit anything. Sold more work on Saturday and Sunday, many matted photographs, and a few larger framed pieces. I was happy with my sales, in the end, although many artists did not meet their expectations. DMAF is one of those shows with music, food, stilt walkers and other street entertainment, although none of it really gets in the way.
Awards were handed out on Friday night by Steven King, the director. Hours on Friday and Saturday are perhaps a tad long, with the show opening at 11 on Friday, and closing at 10PM. Saturday was even longer, opening at 10 and closing at 10PM. Sunday's hours are more reasonable, with an opening at 10 and breakdown at 5PM. All told, it's a well-run show, profitable, with many restaurants and hotels nearby.
We got acquainted with several of the microbreweries in the downtown area, most notably, Exile Brewing (http://exilebrewing.com/), near the artists' parking lot; and Court Avenue Brewing (http://www.courtavebrew.com/), the signature brew of the show. (Chris Vance did the t-shirts for the Court Ave./DMAF brews, and they are very very original.) We didn't get a chance to go in Raccoon River, also downtown. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on the edge of downtown, and there are a couple other hotels nearby as well, a Hyatt Place and a Marriott, both with discounted prices for artists (still pricey, though).
The "Other Show", an alternative to the DMAF, runs concurrently out at the fairgrounds, and since the weather was warm, not hot; and not rainy, attendance and sales there suffered. I imagine it would be the other way around if the weather were nasty.
Cherry Creek Art Festival
Arguably the best festival in the country, Cherry Creek knows it, and charges booth fees accordingly. While I was happy to have been accepted, a single corner booth at Cherry Creek runs a whopping $950! Electricity is another $50, and parking for an oversize vehicle is yet another $50. And you have to pony up for a State of Colorado Special Events Tax License ($8) and a City/County of Denver Special Events Tax License ($5). That out of the way, you do stand a pretty good chance of making your expenses back on top of a tidy profit at Cherry Creek.
The show is set on several long blocks around Cherry Creek North, an upscale shopping center in the Glendale area, southeast of downtown Denver. Access to freeways is good, and hotels are plentiful along Colorado Avenue, just a couple miles away from the show. Lots of restaurants at Cherry Creek, and down Colorado, too.
I got there a couple days early, and went hiking up in the Rockies, at Estes Park. Managed to see several alpine lakes and waterfalls on a ten-mile jaunt up to Sky Pond. It was nice to get out into the woods and just walk for a change. I also shot out on the prairie one evening, and put a few extra miles on the truck looking for interesting subjects.
Setup for the show is relaxed on Thursday. Get your booth packet in the morning at the show office on Steele St. (park in the Safeway parking lot across the street), and then setup according to your assigned time. We were never rushed, and got the tent up and the art hung in calm, very warm weather. Our neighbors were from New Mexico on the one side (a very nice woman with absolutely gorgeous hand-made woven fabrics, scarves and shawls) and a painter who I'd seen on the forums before on the other, with a double booth.
We got done with the setup and went to park the trailer in the "oversize" lot. Parking for our section was behind the street, in a narrow parking ramp that could not accommodate a trailer over a certain size, so I paid to park it in a surface lot a block away. But oversize was a misnomer. My assigned, paid spot, was barely large enough to fit a trailer into, and if the space next to me hadn't been vacant, there would have been NO way I could have maneuvered my trailer into the very very tight spot. I was blocked in the front by vendor refrigerated trailers, and had to jackknife the trailer to even come close to sliding it into the spot. Luckily, it did fit, and we left it there for the duration of the show. Other parking looks to be available on the residential streets, but some of it is permitted parking only, and some it is time-restricted.
The show runs three days -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While it never seemed as if we were slammed with traffic, we were constantly busy wrapping, selling and talking with customers. I've never sold so many matted prints at a show. Karyn, my wife, was kept busy running between the tent and the trailer to restock images that we sold. When we pulled out of the show on Sunday night, we had only sold one large framed piece and one small one. All the rest of our sales were matted prints, in multiples and singly. But it was the best show, sales-wise, I've done to date. We definitely made money there.
The crowd has money, and I suspect that larger work might do well there, especially big wall-filler decor pieces. John Scanlan had a big booth right in the thick of things, for example. Our fiber neighbor had a great show, but the painter next to me on the other side did not fare so well. He had two walls with a single triptych on each. Beautiful work, well-executed, but he couldn't find a market this weekend. We did have a good time there, however, when we had time to chat.
The awards ceremony was very nice, held in the culinary demonstration area. Aaron Hequembourg won Best of Show here, as well as at Des Moines the week before. Crazy. Food was barely adequate, however, and we went back to the hotel and grabbed a quick bite before hitting the sack. (We stayed at the Courtyard which has a decent sized surface lot, and was fairly inexpensive, compared to the Marriott at the show site. It was still not cheap to stay in downtown Denver. Other hotels are out by the airport, but a bit of a drive).
Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff
Technically not part of the trifecta, nevertheless Krasl is a fine show, well-juried and pleasant to do. I drove home from Denver through Kansas, along I-70, looking for agrarian subjects, and had a day to prepare for Krasl before heading back to setup at St. Joseph, MI. The show is on the bluff, overlooking Lake Michigan. Very well-run by Sara Shambarger and staff, we were across the way from jeweler friends Marc & Wendy Zoschke. I won't go into detail about this show, but I was disappointed after Cherry Creek. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?
And, by the way, NEVER NEVER eat at El Cozumel in St. Joseph. OMG. Worst Mexican ever. And the hotels are an absolutely rip-off during high season in St. Joe. I paid an exorbitant amount to stay at the Comfort Suites in Benton Harbor for two nights. The show does have an artist housing program that we did not take advantage of. Perhaps next time. I would do the show again, however, as it is perhaps the nicest show in Western Michigan. A lot less work than the show I'm going to talk about next.
Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair (The Original)
The grandaddy of all summer art festivals, Ann Arbor is well-known in the industry for its long hours, wacky four-day schedule (Wednesday-Saturday), many vendor booths and kling-on shows (Kings Chosen, merchant booths) and general junkieness. Still, it's a show that many aspire to get into, and if you're going to do Ann Arbor, the Original is the best-juried. The Guild show on Main Street has its proponents; some folks swear buy (and at) Maggie Ladd's South U show, and the State Street show is the easiest to get into as an entry level show. If you want to be in the cream of the crop, the Original is the show you want to do. Many patrons only visit this show, since the crush of tourists and shoppers can be overwhelming at the other venues.
But this year, it didn't happen. The weather was beastly beastly hot, almost 100 degrees on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Crowds were anemic at best, and the Original and South U shows attract less lookers, since they are a bit further away from the downtown show. It was shocking how few people attended on the first three days of the show. Sales understandably were slow to non-existent. Saturday the dam finally burst, and I sold enough to make a decent profit. But for a show with five full days of work (a setup day and four selling days with hours from 10-9PM), the amount of work vastly exceeds the money made.
I love Ann Arbor dearly. My wife works in Ann Arbor, and we have a place to park the trailer and the truck. We drive 55 miles each way, every day, to sleep at home in our own bed. But after Des Moines, Cherry Creek and Krasl, we were absolutely tapped out.
Much has been said about the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. They are too big. The hours are too long. They could move the schedule from W-Sat to Th-Sun. They could close the show a little earlier. They could have fewer artists. They could have it in a cooler month. Blah, blah, blah. It's not going to happen. The merchants have pretty much killed the golden goose here. At least the Original is around the University, so there are no t-shirt and cheap jewelry booths to contend with. OMG. If I see one more Urban Outfitter bag I'm going to throw up in my mouth. It's the saddest thing. And many of the patrons agree. Too long, too much junk, too hot, too bad.
So there you have it. My impressions of the Trifecta + One. I have another killer schedule come fall. Arts, Beats & Eats, followed by Art & Apples, here in Michigan. Hometown shows. Then another road trip, including Plaza in Kansas City, Riverwalk in Naperville, IL, and two Texas shows. Maybe after that, I can rest. I'm gonna be needin' it.
This post is too long to add pictures -- when I finally get the shots off my iPhone and out of my camera, I'll do a pictorial essay. If you'd like that, let me know in the comments.
TTFN.
