Last night was Meet the Teachers night at the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee. This is where the B&B attendees got to….well…meet the teachers. Its frequently the only place someone is able to buy a kit for a class that they wished they could take. Many teachers make a limited supply of kits and when they’re gone, they’re gone.
If you have never attended a Meet the Teachers night, it’s kind of hard to explain what it’s like. Friends meeting up, people oohing and awing over kits, and lots of noise and energy.
Here is a picture of the room as I was setting up yesterday. (Taken with my cell phone, so please forgive the quality.)
Now in past years, they have let all the attendees congregate as a group in the lobby. This year, they decided to line them up. This line went around the corner all all the way down a long, long hall.
And here’s the hall about midway through the evening. Our booth was swamped with people as soon as it opened, and it never really let up. It’s the first time we’ve ever had a long line of people waiting to pay for their kits.
Jill and I were exhausted by the end of the evening. The event went until 11:00 p.m., and then we had to break down our display and lug all our stuff to the exhibit hall to be set up again today. Unlike most of the teachers showing kits, we had decided to do our full booth set-up with lights and everything. We finally got back to the hotel, got some room service food, and got to bed about 2:00 a.m. (Getting to actually eat a meal is something that doesn’t happen a lot for us this week.) So we did crawl into bed at 2, but we were so tired, but yet keyed up, that we got into one of those laughing binges. Everything either of us said just set us off into uncontrollable laughter. I hope we didn’t disturb the people in the next room!!
The exhibit hall opens tonight and we have lots to do before then. Will post more later.