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Great Lakes Mega Meet
by Helen Naylor
It’s always an adventure to fly
into a new area, undiscovered territory.
It’s no different when coming to a Scrapbook Show. Donna and
I whisked of to Detroit, rented a car, and headed toward Novi, Michigan.
I had informed the GLMM staff that
we would be in town later than
we had expected and that we would be setting up
the morning of the show. However, we were able to catch an earlier
flight and got into Novi in the middle of set-up. The show staff
didn’t know we go in earlier and had made arrangements for someone
to set up our booth for us. What a
relief! We checked in, finished set-up and were able
to go back to our hotel for the evening. It was while we were going
through our vendor packet that we began to see how organized the staff
at the Great Lakes Mega Meet really were. The GLMM
staff set up an area for the exhibitors to go and enjoy a
continental breakfast and box lunch at no charge. No waiting in line
for a bite to eat! It was
wonderful!
When the announcement came for the
10-minute warning, we went to our
booth and prepared for the gathering crowd to enter. The show was
busy from that moment on. Booths filled up and lines began to form
for the opportunity to purchase all those hard to find
scrapbook supplies.
The Great Lakes Mega Meet has a
different approach to exhibitor’s
products. Stores request particular manufacturers products to
sell and there are no exact duplicates allowed.
Consequently, no two booths represented products
from the same company. It was like making a trip to
one enormous scrapbook store. In talking to the different vendors
and stores, everyone was happy with the turn out and the
sales. On a more personal note, Scrapbooking.com
was delighted to be in attendance. We sponsored a
layout contest, and the entries surpassed our
wildest dreams with over 300 entries. Submissions were allowed until
noon on Saturday, and because of the volume of entries, judging wasn’t
finished until 2:00pm. CLICK
HERE to see the winners of the layout
contest.
The winner received a huge basket
of scrapbooking supplies,
and 2nd and 3rd place winners received bags, all filled with fun
prizes. The Sponsors include: All Night Media, C-Thru, Design Originals,
EK Success, Elison, Fiskars, Generations by Hazel, Hot Off The Press,
Imaginations, Little Darlings, Making Memories, McGill, NRN,
Preservation Source, Printworks, Sailor, Scrapbook Adventure, Soleil
Press, and Stickopatomus. We plan on featuring
many of the other layout entries on our site in
upcoming issues. If you were a participant and included your
e-mail address, we will notify you when your layout will be used on
Scrapbooking.com.
We also enjoyed the
opportunity to take digital pictures of many of you that stopped by our
booth. CLICK HERE to view the photos. Our
kudos and thanks to Shannon Lightbody and the staff and all the
great volunteers who helped to make the show a success. Their well
though out plans made participating a pleasure. Keep up
the good work, MI scrappers! In
conclusion, the team at Scrapbooking.com would recommend the Great
Lakes Mega Meet to scrappers and vendors alike, and we look forward
to seeing all our new friends there next year! |
