On The Trail
With Tom O’Hara
Howdy Folks!
It was lots of miles for ten days in Texas, well, actually eight and a half, but also, lots of fun and pretty good sales.
After the double header in Ohio for Stella’s Country Living and Jenkins’ Springfield Extravaganza, we cooled our heels in Indianapolis for a few days, before leaving for Round Top, Tex. on a Thursday morning. Even from Indiana the trip was two days, about 1,200 miles start to finish. It had me traveling roads less traveled, and in a part, never before traveled, arriving Friday evening at a lodge overlooking a wooded thicket and small lake, with deer grazing just outside the screened back porch.
Texas
As Saturday was the first day, we dropped the trailer at The Original Round Top Antiques Festival (also known as the Big Red Barn) and drove to Marburger Farm, where we went through a check-in procedure: that is, pay the balance of show rent, get the tags for vehicles, self and the others in our gang. Sunday was the early unloading for The Big Red Barn. Both of these shows are very big in terms of numbers of dealers, with about 450 at Marburger, and 350 at Red Barn. This creates a good deal of activity on the fields, even though there are no customers admitted until Tuesday morning for Marburger and Wednesday for Red Barn.
Antiques at Historic Mayo Tavern filled two exhibit spaces at The Big Red Barn of the Original Round Top Antiques Festival.
For review, Round Top is a collection of antiques markets which were inspired by prominent Houston philanthropist and social figure Ima Hogg about 40 years ago. She had a second home in these Brazos Hills, a Houston weekend get away destination and wanted to have more sociable things to do, so the Carmine Dance Hall Antiques Show was started. Carmine is one of several small towns in this immediate area. Quickly the show outgrew the small dance hall, so slightly further into the hills, Rifle Hall at Round Top was rented and a second show formed by the same promoter. Like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, the shows filled and spawned more, including Marburger Farm.
In 2002 the Big Red Barn was built by the original Carmine and Rifle Hall promoter and it too filed quickly. That promoter sold out in 2005 to Susan and Bo Franks who sold Rifle Hall to Ralph Willard, a dealer at that show for all its years in 2008. Susan and Bo have kept Carmine and added two giant tents to the Big Red Barn site, while emphasizing the real name of their business, Original Round Top Antiques Festival.
Marburger Farm Antiques Show was sold to the family of Margaret Mebus in August 2008 by John Sauls, its founder. Margaret’s son-in-law, Rick McConn, and daughter-in-law, Ashley Ferguson, are the primary operators of this show now. It has five large multi-dealer tents, several smaller tents and 17 buildings which were rescued from the wrecking ball and moved or rebuilt from other nearby Texas towns to the show site.
In addition to this, there are dozens of fields along this two-lane country road, Route 237, which have just sprung up over the years, surrounded by oil wells and cattle. The names of the fields are not too obvious, but in the small villages of Round Top and Warrenton there are some named sites like Zapp Hall, Renck Hall, Coles Antique Show, Blue Hills at Round Top and many more. In Texas there is land, lots of land, and so there is a lot of driving from one site or area to another. This also means it can be confusing trying to catch the shows as they open, while also trying to see all there is to see and buy. This is not a place where you can think about it and come back the next day, for not only is there a high probability it will be sold, it could be you will not be able to find the place where it was!
Manhattan
The Modern Show, 20th Century Art and Design was held in a new location, 7 WEST, at 7 West 34th Street in Manhattan. In the past few years this had been in the 69th Regiment Armory, a.k.a. The Gramercy Park Armory downtown. The change was necessitated by availability of the dates. Stella Shows was concerned about making a change, but on the first day sales were very good according to more than a dozen dealers polled. Loading into any New York City show is not for the faint of heart, but the dealers said that too went well, in spite of a failure of the building’s freight elevator. The show was on the eleventh floor so management simply opened other elevators for the exhibitors.
The Modern Show is just that, interior décor from Thonet through last year. Thonet was the first widely known designer and manufacturer of Art Nouveau furniture with factories in Prague as early as the 1840s eventually with factories in Brooklyn, Vienna and Paris. There were also many designers’ works from the early twentieth century along with art and furnishing accessories.
Modern has many ways to be expressed: shown here, Balsamo from Pine Plains, N.Y., with their collection at Stella's Modern Show in New York City.
Sales were reported as good the first day, with many dealers reporting furniture as well as accessories going to a knowledgeable and appreciative crowd of shoppers.
Stella has a strong lineup of shows in the next few months, including The Pier Antiques Show, Nov. 14-15; Americana & Antiques @ The Pier, Jan. 23-24; and Antiques at The Armory, Jan. 22-24. Check their website at www.stellashows.com for details.
Changes
Events in Nashville are changing the venues again, but not too soon. Jenkins’ two shows at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds will remain in place for this October and Feb. 11-13, 2010, but after that there will be another change. While the new site has not yet been announced, the negotiations seem to now be down to the final details. Their plans include reestablishing the Nashville Flea Market, which has also been held at the Fairgrounds. The city of Nashville, owners of the property, have decided to sell the property for redevelopment.
Emerson Events cancelled their show, which had been scheduled for the old Fiddlers Inn, due to lack of dealer interest. This show in the motel across from Opryland was produced by Scott Jenkins, and was not a part of Jenkins Management.
The Richmond Spectacular Antiques Show at the Showplace has shuffled their dates. Nov. 21-22 and Jan. 2-3, 2010 are still the same, but the February date has been dropped in favor of the first weekend of June, the 5th and 6th to be specific. This was the date for one of the shows in the past and was dropped several years ago. Now the feeling according to Bob Taylor, co-owner of the affair, is “to spread the shows out on the calendar a little. We were doing almost monthly during the winter, with November, January, February and late March, so this gives the dealers and customers more time between the shows. Louise [Jesse, co-owner] and I feel this will help to re-strengthen the shows for the dealers and rebuild the customer’s interest.”
Bill and Kay Puchstein have taken over as the sole owners of West Palm Beach Antiques Show for the upcoming season. Their partners in the purchase of this eight-show enterprise from dmg world media last December, Jim and Yvonne Tucker, were finding the schedule of these eight shows more than they were willing to do together with nine shows of their company, Antique Shows of Florida.
Jim Tucker said in a telephone interview, “West Palm Beach was much more than we had envisioned. We live in Missouri so with the nine Florida shows concentrated in two and a half months, that’s enough.”
After that news broke, the Tucker’s announced on Oct. 19 the sale of their shows to Judy and Steve Allman, producers of seven shows in New York, Massachusetts and Florida. This will be the Tucker’s exit from running shows, but will more than double the work for the Allmans. As they have been spending their winters in South Florida, it seems to be a good fit for the shows and Allmans.
West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is the first weekend of each month, with their Spectacular in February hosting about 800 dealers. The Puchsteins, Florida residents, also have a dozen other smaller shows through the winter months in central Florida.
The Puchstein’s website for details of West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is www.wpbaf.com. For their other shows, go to www.floridaantiqueshows.com. The Tucker’s website should link to Allmans, which is www.allmanpromotions.com.
Atlantic City
Allison Kohler, director of JKM Shows and Events, has announced their new event, Atlantic City Antiques and Collectors Show to be held in the Convention Center March 27-28, 2010. This show will be the replacement for the long-running event which had been managed by F&W Publications for eight years and Norman Shout for 20 years before that.
Famous for its toys and diverse collections of small antiques, Kohler plans to reinvigorate the show with more dealers from even more diverse antiques categories including many of the exhibitors who have had a long standing relationship with her company and its shows in Florida and New Jersey.
Kohler said in a telephone interview, “When I heard the old show might not continue, I began to formulate my plan, so when we were selected, I was ready to get it done!” She expects to have the first show with about 400 exhibitors, eventually refilling the two biggest bays of the building, more than a quarter million square feet of exhibit space, according to her outline. Kohler said she has a multiyear agreement for the event to continue on the last weekend of March.
The show will offer antique furniture and furnishings in one area, vintage clothing in another with toys, ephemera and dolls in other sections of the hall. She has long lists of dealers, but is inviting others to make application to exhibit as she may not have all the contact information for past exhibitors.
Contact information is www.jmkshows.com; email to Allison at jmkshows@aol.com.
And now it is getting late, and I am tired from the past weeks of driving and running so we will close for the month here. Nashville, Charlotte, the Piers Show, Richmond, Va. and Williamsburg will be the stops on this Odyssey over the coming weeks.
I hope to see you at a show soon.
Happy trails,
T.O’H.
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