This
year's Cinevent was our first and we had a wonderful time. It was great
being in the midst of so many movie poster collectors. The Dealer's
Room featured some great posters -- the auction was fun and we were
able to snag a couple that we liked BUT we had the hardest time putting
a lid on our spending.
We
were so happy to meet with LAMP sponsors Grey Smith of Heritage
Auction and Gene Arnold of MoviePosters.com.
We also enjoyed chatting with Richard Halegua about his plans for Movie
Poster Bid.
WHAT
DEALERS WANT
Ed
took the opportunity to talk with many of the poster dealers and collectors
about the movie poster collecting industry and what LAMP could do to
improve things. Here are the three areas that were mentioned the most
by the dealers:
1.
Locating Posters for Customers
For
many years, dealers relied heavily on John Kisch's price guides when
searching for specific posters for sale for their clients. Since there
has been no new guide published in several years, these books have become
virtually obsolete. When a client contacts them about a specific poster,
dealers would like to be able to know which dealer has it.
2.
More Info on Poster Artists
More
and more collectors are building their poster collections around artists.
Dealers believe that more artist information will help improve sales.
3.
Navigating LAMP
Many
dealers are aware that there is a tremendous amount of information on
LAMP but just can't find where it is. Navigating LAMP was a problem
for many dealers.
LAMP'S
RESPONSE
1.
Loading More LAMP Dealers Inventories
The
combined total inventory of all LAMP Movie Poster Data Base ("MPDB")
dealers exceeds 3 million posters. The titles are entered
two ways into the MPDB: the first way involves archiving the image which
is done by LAMP in order to ensure that all necessary links are covered;
the second way allows dealers to enter the posters they have available
for sale which HAVE NOT been archived. However, both of these ways are
time consuming. We are currently working on a bulk load program which
would speed up the process of adding LAMP dealers' inventories to the
MPDB. There are currently over 40,000 posters for sale on LAMP and growing
rapidly.
2.
Poster Artists
The
poster artist articles are some of the most popular on LAMP. The LAMP
Artist Section is being totally revamped to make navigating the
information easier. The U.S.
Poster Artist Section has already been put into a new format with
all artists being listed alphabetically. We are linking the posters
in the MPDB so you can see the artwork, adding images and adding the
signatures to make it easier to identify the artist. We plan to have
the new U.S. artist section reformated by the end of this month. We
will then move to the UK (mid-September); France (January), then Italy
and Germany. We literally have hundreds of artists to add as we go.
3.
Navigating LAMP
To
help visitors find what they're looking for on LAMP, we are working
on a series of in-depth tutorials and search functions. We just added
the first of these "advanced search" options, with complete
tutorial on how to access specific information. It can be found by clicking
on the "Advanced
Search" option on the top left of every page in the MPDB.
This
is just the first of many tutorials to come.
Our
goal over the next year is to continue to add tutorial information to
help dealers and collectors find the information a lot easier.
If
you have other suggestions.. or questions about LAMP, email Ed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For
years, we have been hesitant about taking time to load our excess inventory
on Susie's Corner, opting instead to put time into LAMP. However, Hurricane
Katrina made us rethink our position.
