Information Overload: What I Miss about Trade Shows

This time of year, my heart is all a twitter for trade shows. Since slapping my business card with "freelancer" I haven't been back to one in years, but as friends start posting about attending them my mind reels to my days as a full-time editor, hoofing it in heels to the Javits Center monster of a building blocks away from Penn Station. I'm sure since I've been to them in person many things have changed, but some things don't...like personalities. And I love how each show I went to had its own personality. National Stationery Show and NYIGF are like the cool aunts. Licensing Expo is like the super business suit-wearing uncle. Comic-Con is like the weird nerdbot cousin, but in a totally cool way. And the big grandpapa of them all? BEA. I am no expert on trade shows, but if there is one unanimous thing every single person can agree upon meeting these personalities it's this: "I love you. I love you so much. But you are really coming on strong." By the end of experiencing them you come to the realization that there are really no new ideas left in the world...and somehow there are a million and one new ideas. By the end of experiencing them you may even feel like the drunk uncle of the group: dizzy, a little discombobulated, and yet somehow totally stoked to drink more in with your eyes...until you pass out.

I really do hope I make it back to trade shows one day and have a great purpose to be there. But for now the internet is my biggest trade show of all. And right now I feel like the drunk uncle. I've maxed out my information intake capacity and now I need to take a break and do what I do best: make good art. And by "art" I mean writing, I mean drawing, I mean making stuff (whatever stuff is)...away from the other "relatives."

Through June and July I will be doing light Friday posts. Don't miss me too much. Go pick up a book...

And breathe.