today we have a guest blogger, charon. she recently went to scrapfest at the mall of america.
it's a long read but, a good read. hang on 'til the end. this was her experience:
September reminds me of two significant events: 1. The first day of school and 2. “Scrapfest” in Minnesota. This year was no different; although, “Scrapfest” was held one week later (due to the Republican Convention).
Every year one of our major clients “Archiver’s” sponsors a scrapfest held at the “Mall Of America”. This event begins with all night crops on Thursday evening, and finishes up on Sunday evening. Scrappers from around the world mark their calendar’s for this annual event. Besides, if scrapping isn’t for you, there is plenty to do in the countries largest mall! My 15 year old daughter thinks this is the best job in the world that I could possibly have – in a mall for 4 straight days – seriously, what’s better than that!
Scrapfest continues to grow over the past few years and this year was no exception. They experienced a 20% increase in registration and the vendor count increased as well. This was really good news considering the slow economy. I talked to women from: N & S Dakota, Michigan, CA, AZ, NV, MT, ID, UT, PA, TX, TN and even a young lady from Argentina! Women drove, flew and some rented buses – just to come have a girl’s weekend. Archiver’s spent the entire weekend working past 12 midnight in order to accommodate their customers needs.
Me & my BIG ideas has (if not the) one of the largest draws. Linda planned a wonderful 12x12 full page layout as our first project on Friday. The crowd goes crazy! We have 2 six foot tables in our booth sitting 4 scrappers at a time. That’s a total of 8 make-n-takes happening simultaneously. Women, men, children, grandparents, aunts, nieces – you name it, they came from all over the world to witness this event. The wait in our line on Friday was an hour and a half – with no complaining! They enjoy learning new techniques. And this is what Linda and Suezi strive for when they are developing class projects. The whole point of a MNT is to take the knowledge that you’ve gained and practice this technique “outside the box” at home. With that said, our team schedules a different project each day. This not only keeps it interesting, but the customer is excited about learning something new. Many ladies came to our booth all three days! J
The scrap community also has its own version of “Celebrities” & “Rock Stars”, and MAMBI happened to have 3 of their very own. First was Stephanie. Everyone loved meeting her, listening to her “Why” about the companies origins, her asking the end user what they liked and preferred about our products, and just to touch her. She had many photo opps. Second was our very own “Scrapdude” Dave. He has been called “Scrapdude” for so long, I can’t remember if he earned the name or if it was self appointed. Nonetheless, the women love them some Dave. I personally think he attends the event because it’s a great ego booster! This year both Dave and Stephanie couldn’t stay but just one day, so we put him in charge of line control. He patrolled the line passing out candy (chocolate) and Starbucks gift cards (next year we’ll have to bring our MAMBI candy). Both Saturday and Sunday Dave was on demand. Next year he has to come for the entire weekend. And thirdly, was our very own superstar – Suezi. She is loved beyond measure. Suezi had a very demanding schedule of teaching 5 classes to a sold out group. Not only did she have to teach a mixed group (scrappers at different levels), she had to deal with microphone issues and time restraints. Everyone loves her and the great product they get to walk away with. On the last day, I had 2 ladies come up to me and asked if I thought Suezi would be willing to give them her autograph? It was obvious, they didn’t know our “Showstopper Suezi” very well. I called Suezi over and she gracefully signed both books.
We had a gentleman in our hotel who was confused as to why there were so many women around? He said everywhere he turned there were “Women”. We tried to explain the event to him, and what it meant but he didn’t quite grasp the idea. All he said was that he was looking for a wife and his options here were better than “….going to church!!!” And guess what – the next morning – guess who was downstairs bright and early in the dining room? You got it!
Archiver’s hosted a wonderful event - It was a fun, fast paced weekend! We learned a lot, got to see and meet a lot of people and have ideas on how to make it an even better experience next year. See you there!
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these are the projects that suezi worked on.
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