After what can only be described as an incredible year with the show breaking every record in every category for ourselves you would think that our slow month, November, would be, well, slow. It has been anything but that. Granted we have only performed one show, Lunch with Santa at the Hemet Mall (our 6th or 7th year....I need to look that up). But there has been all the side things.
The first side thing is what I do every Novemeber, market the heck out of the show. I get to gether via the internet with my graphics guy, Phil Powers, who is responsible for all the wonderful art in the show over the past three years. He and I put our heads together then he puts pencil and paint to paper and we get awesome new posters and banners. Then there is the countless emials, letter, packages, and phone calls to potential and previous clients to book that show! Of course there is all the time needed to draft the letters and emails, and design the packages. There is also the beginnings of cleaning up and restoring props from their miles of knocks, dings, and dents from the road. We also spend a heck of a lot of time developing new stuff. Like the trapeze, our biggest endeavor ever. (I made a rhyme...hehehe.)
On top of those things there is also one very big thing that no other year in a long time that has occured. We are moving. And not just around the corner. We are getting the heck out of California. We have found a house in Kentucky. Our original goal was to move to Bowling Green, KY. But, quite by accident, we found the perfect house in Berea, KY. Over the months we have prayed and thought about it. We have made mental lists of the benefits and minus' of moving and as of today with all the ducks lined up in a row we pulled the trigger and made things official.
While on this point I will share the lists with you:
on the side of staying in California...the weather is the best in the country, I have family here (my parents are just around the corner and are always there to help.), I have two very close fiend here, JC Dunn and Bill Jackson (I will miss them so very much), we have a great church family here (though we are what one would call super close with any of them, they have been helpful in many ways and you can always count on them when you need help), we are familiar with everything here.
On the list of reasons to leave: only 10-12% of our income come from with in 100 miles of our home, 10% of our income come east of Nebraska, Kentucky is really beautiful, southerners are so kind, we know quite a few people from our travels in KY, we will be closers to relatives in Ohio, we will have more space inside and outside of the house for our show and our stuff, general cost of living is cheaper, we will be closer to Cynthia, we will be withing 8 hours of at least 12 major cities, 12 hours drive from NY, etc, we won't have to deal with the crappy politics of California, three are no CHPs doing fundraising in KY, the tax system in KY is business friendly, Rand Paul, You get to keep Boxer, Brown, Pelosi, and Feinstein four of the worst women in politics, the roads in KY are so much better than the roads in California which have cost me two trailer axles-one hub cap, my front end alignment and a lot of money, Oroville has an unusually high number of pancreatic cancer cases (way above the national average), guns aren't thought of as evil in KY, moonshine, bourbon, we will get light snow, we are on the east coast and south during the summer anyways and if it's humid...who cares...you get nicer cuticles, southern food, Waffle House, when the it rains the mountains behind our house has mist rise off of it, our new back porch, no Nevada desert or Utah desert to cross just to get to a show, moonshine...oh I mentioned that, Nashville is 4 hours away, Branson is 4 hours away, Our property is 44 and half time larger than what we have, the house is twice as large, there is a big workshop, space fro a trapeze to be set up, did I mention there are no arrogant CHP is KY, etc etc etc. Oh yeah CC found a great church there. In fact there is a Baptist church on almost every corner., there is space to park our fleet.
Onward ho.
The AFA (Arizona Fair Assoc.). Life is ironic. I have only belonged to one fair assoc before, Oregon's fair Assoc. I went to it's Convention about 5 years ago and even bought a trade show booth. I got diddly squat in the form of bookings there and had to race a snow storm on the drive home. The years I didn't belong to the association I was booked in Oregon regularly. The year I joined...not a single booking. As time went on a truth was revealed to me...actually it was more of a re-revelation. Trade show booths are useless. Money makers for the association but usesless. Folks come by and take your freebees and may even chat with you but unless you have established a relationship with them or have some kind of buzz about you then you have just wasted your money. The poor souls who bought booths at the AFA found that out. Almost no one visited the booths and more than one was upset by it. The truth is, and this applies to all aspects of life, it is who you know. So if you go to a convention mix in, make friends, get around and shake hands, chat up everyone. You may hit it off with some and bore others, but now they have a face to go with you relentless phone calls, emails and mailers. Don't expect much your first year either. Showcase if you can. But bring your top game. I saw two magicians kind of flub up their tricks. The music acts were top notch.
Most of the bookings that came out of the convention came from people who the artists had pre-contacted or previously contacted and had some kind of relationship.
The AFA was no different. It was held in Laughlin, NV the old people's Vegas. The hotel room rates were great and the food, both at the event and at the buffet were good. (Except for the Mexican restaurant....talk about white-people Mexican food..blah!) In fact, the banquet dinner on the last night was out of this world. The music acts were fantastic. There were the standard meetings and key note speakers and they were interesting. But I got the impression that most people wanted to just get out of the meetings and jump into the various activities; bowling, slot tournaments, golf, and drinking. The large amount of drawings and give-aways were fun too. I saw a couple of old friends and made a couple of new ones. I was acquainted with many of the fair managers I have only spoken on the phone with in the past. I had two fairs express interest but the ironic thing was that on Tuesday before 5pm, the time the convention is kicked off, I had booked the only dates I had available within the AZ fair dates over emails. So the convention had turned into a vacation for me before it even started. Still I had a chance to mix and meet and market for 2012. I am not much of a mixer in spite of the fact I have the gift of gab. I have that ever complex personality that people either like or hate. I did discover that one performer who never really gave me much never mind in the past sure was interested in how well I am doing with bookings and when he found out we have had some success he became a better friend. I don't mind, because in spite of him hiving never given me much care in the past, I've always liked him.
One thing I miss about meetings like this is once upon a time there was an invocation , opening prayer or prayer before the banquets, but that was absent. In fact, I did get to meet a self proclaimed left-wing atheist liberal and I am pretty sure one of the men who led a small round table discussion about volunteerism was likewise an atheist as he poo-pooed my idea of getting more churches involved, though the other members of the talk thought it was a good idea.
The event was very well organized and there didn't seem to be many, if any, problems in the whole affair...though their bar in the main hall had only low-end Jim Beam as their one and only choice for Bourbon, the Philistines!
My hats off to the organizers and a thank you to Susan Rosen who recommended I join.
