NEC in Pictures

I normally do two days at the NEC craft shows.  This time I had intended to do all four to allow time to do more workshops,   That did not quite work as the big art section I was expecting was not there - boo, hiss!  However, I did do three of the four days and thoroughly enjoyed myself, meeting up with old friends and making new ones, and took lots of photos of anything to do with the Clarity stand, which was HUGE, and several of what was happening on the Hochanda stage.

WARNING - this post is very photo heavy.  You may not want to read all I have written but you can get the idea from just scanning the pics.

Thursday

The first group are of the enormous Clarity stand.  One of the questions in the first of the Clarity shows on Hochanda was "how long was the stand".  If you want to know that answer, just watch Barbara's show on the Thursday.  Let's put it this way, it was a long way from Barbara at one end to Paul at the other.

 Here is Paul, doing his stuff, answering questions, showing just how good the Groovi system is, and encouraging new people to have a go.  Paul may not have mastered all the advanced techniques yet, but he is the ideal person to encourage people to believe they can succeed.

 As you can see from the next few shots, the stand was long.  The other thing that struck me was that the NEC seems to have listened to us as customers, and the aisles are a bit wider.  Even on a busy day, I was able to turn my buggy relatively easily wherever I wanted, which is a welcome novelty.  Now, we just need them to realise that numbers attending these shows will continue to drop off, due to the cost of the car parks.

 Last November, they hiked the cost for the day from £12 to £16.  Yes, if you knew about it and remembered to do it, you could keep it at £12 by booking online the night before.  However, there were already a lot of people I know who had decided not to go to the show and buy their goodies online.

Dropping the price of parking would bring a much greater footfall, better for the exhibitors and the concessions too, the food outlets etc.

Dropping the extortionate cost to the exhibitors would bring back a lot of the smaller stands too, the ones who have gradually disappeared over the years.

A nice shot of Hazel Edwards, filling in for Barbara while she was up at the Hochanda stand.

Taking photos of the stage at Hochanda is always tricky as, of course, there are several cameras required to capture the action, but I did get the odd one or two.  This first group is from the Thursday.

 What a lovely lady Leonie Pujol is.  Bright and bubbly, but totally professional.  A great addition to the Clarity design team.

 Didn't that outfit suit Barb, such a beautiful colour.

 It was hard to grab a clear shot, without all the cameras ding their job.









The standard of the camerawork was brilliant, especially with the crisp, steady, close up shots.

T

 

 As always, Barbara and Leonie make such a good team, fun, chatty, but both very professional and dedicated to their job.

This couple came out of the audience because they had  written and performed, on Facebook, a song supporting Hochanda.  It is out there ify ou want to watch and listen to it.

 This final shot from Thursday is of John, who kept us all well supplied with lollies, cola bottles and jelly babies.

Friday

These are all from Linda Williams' show with the new/old perforating tools.

 You might just be able to pick out the lovely

 Glynis Whitehead with her back to us sitting in the centre.







This is very much the view the live audience gets most of the time, but it is interesting to see how they put the programmes together.  However, there are two large monitors for us to see the close up work.

Linda was worried about how she could make the business of making holes in parchment look interesting, while she was demoing the new set of tools. 






She need not have worried, as the audience was enthralled.

 Sunday

 Not so many pics from the final day on Sunday, just a few of Paul's show with the Fresh Cut dies.

Here is Leonie, warming up the audience.




















The final two shots, with Paul doing his stuff with the dies.







I hope you have enjoyed this little trip with me and have not gone to sleep on the way.  If you did go to sleep, I hope you had a good snooze to gather your energies to get stuck into some crafting of your own.