HOLLYWOOD COLLECTORS SHOW - CHICAGO

We are now back from the Hollywood Collectors Show in Chicago. It has taken us a day to thaw out! When we left home, it was near 80 degrees. There were snow flurries Saturday night in Chicago, and it was 27 degrees without the wind chill. While this might not seem like much, you must remember that we have lived through more hurricanes then snow. We did not leave the hotel until it was time to head home.

Like our shows last year, we thoroughly enjoyed meeting fellow collectors and telling them about LAMP and our wonderful sponsors. The response was great -- and we are confident that many of these collectors will be checking out all our sponsors.

Unfortunately, though, things did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. The most significant setback was the fact that our computer would not work. In fact, it is currently being worked on so Ed is down (and suffering from computer withdrawal).

We brought our laptop which we had planned to use in our room after show hours to catch up on emails and admin. Instead, we set it up where our computer would be. While we were able to demonstrate LAMP on it, our computer is easier to see and easier for us to operate. All in all though, things worked out.

In addition, Val Kilmer and Stephanie Powers, who were scheduled to be at the show for Saturday and Sunday, cancelled. It was hard to tell how much this hurt the crowd, but there were big crowds on Saturday, with a smaller group on Sunday.

Here are some pics of Ed setting up our exhibit before the show began.

We pre-stuffed 400 bags with sponsor and LAMP flyers. We gave out over 300 of these bags. In addition, many visitors picked certain flyers, particularly those who were not collectors of movie posters but were interested in our suppliers, restorers and videos.

In this picture, Ed is holding one of the pre-stuffed bags that were supplied by our wonderful sponsor Bags Unlimited.

This was taken early on Saturday. You will notice that our computer is facing the wall and the laptop is in front. After working all Saturday morning trying to get our computer to work, we finally gave up and simply turned it around.

Another minor aggravation -- our brand new LAMP banner kept falling down. Finally, someone gave us some Scotch Sticky Tape, which finally held the banner in place.

 

The posters along the back wall were given out FREE to visitors to our table. We had twelve different titles available. We included such titles as Golden Compass, Be Kind, Rewind, December Boys, and Enchanted.

We gave out somewhere between 300-400 posters in durable shipping tubes provided by Yazoo Mills.It was great to see the faces on kids when they got their poster. For many, it was their first original poster.

The promoter of the show put out flyers at the entrance announcing that we were giving away posters. Needless to say, we were very popular!

 

What we enjoy most about these shows is that you never know who you are going to meet. The gentleman in this picture was a delight. He was an employee of the National Screen Service in both Chicago and Los Angeles. He told us lots of stories from his days with the two different offices.

He told us that the highlight of his employment with NSS was "being surrounded by posters!" He is, of course, a fellow collector although his size of choice was the lobby card. From what he described, he must have a wonderful collection.

 

We also had the opportunity to meet two of the celebrity guests who came to our table. The first was Lauren Chapin, best known for her role in Father's Knows Best. Ed and I left with so much respect for this wonderful lady, who has dedicated her life to helping others. She is a motivational speaker on the topic of family relationships and offers programs at churches, prisons and schools. In 1980, she started the Lauren Chapin Ministries, a worldwide nonprofit organization that raises money and brings attention to worthwhile causes, especially those involving children. She hosts a Sunburst Charity Party in Orlando which benefits children with life-threatening illnesses. This September, they are having a hollywood auction. We donated some of the posters we were giving away, and plan to prepare another package later in the year. I will post more info as I get it, in case anyone else would like to participate.

The second celebrity was Antonio Fargas, the original "Huggy Bear" from Starsky and Hutch. He was impressed with what we are trying to do with LAMP, particularly the image archive. While he was not a collector, he indicated that he knew several people who were. He also talked about getting gifts for friends in the entertainment industry. He gave us his email and asked us to keep him up-to-date on LAMP.

Like I said earlier, there was a big crowd on Saturday and we stayed busy the entire day. Sunday was not as busy, but there was still a lot of people. Here are some random pics of the area. I didn't get to take pictures too far from our table as it was always pretty busy.

THE AUCTION

The auction Saturday night was a HUGH SUCCESS. Cory Glaberson will be emailing us the results on Monday, which I will post here then.

VIDEOS

I will be posting some video clips from the show as soon as I get a chance. Obviously, we are really swamped. We were gone for six days and with Ed's computer not working, we are sharing this one and the laptop.

If anyone has any questions or would like more information, please email.

While it was a lot of hard work, we hope that this will introduce a lot of new people to LAMP and our sponsors will get some new customers out of the effort. Our next show will be Cinevent and we look forward to seeing everyone there.